headless MediaPortal? (1 Viewer)

[tcr]

Hi All,

I'm new to the world of PVR's, but I have a somewhat ambitious plan (I think).

Considering my mail/fileserver (Windows 2003) is running 24/7 anyway, I figure it would be better to use this pc to record tv shows, instead of my main pc.

However my server doesn't have a monitor, keyboard or mouse. While I can connect one during the installation of MediaPortal, my intention is to have it run headless afterwards.

This means that I need some sort of webinterface to update the EPG and to mark programs for recording (I suspect MediaPortal doesn't work over Remote Desktop). I figure the Webinterface suits my purpose.

I know I'll lose timeshifting capabilities and some other features this way, but that's okay. I intend to view my recordings via my main pc afterwards (probably through another MediaPortal installation), but that shouldn't really pose a problem.

Can I expect any other issues using MediaPortal headless? Anything else I haven't thought of yet?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[Eeyore]

there is a webinterface plugin, but i dont think it is 100% stable at the moment (check the plugins thread) https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/viewtopic.php?t=3216

MP works fine across remote desktop, i actually do mine via VNC.

 

[Callifo]

MP works fine across remote desktop, i actually do mine via VNC.

If he means Remote Desktop as in RDP, no that wont work. RDP doesnt support DX. But any of the VNC combos should serve the purpose fine.

 

[falser]

MP uses some sort of weird Microsoft DVR format for its recordings, you can't play these files from other computers. You have to use the "compress" thingy in MP to export the recordings as mpeg2 before being able to play them back elsewhere. But even then I haven't found a player that will play the mpeg files that MP produces - they too are in a weird format that not even VirtualDub can decode.

Personally I think this is a design flaw in MP which should be corrected. It should leave mpeg2 recordings untouched.

 

[Callifo]

MP uses some sort of weird Microsoft DVR format for its recordings, you can't play these files from other computers. You have to use the "compress" thingy in MP to export the recordings as mpeg2 before being able to play them back elsewhere. But even then I haven't found a player that will play the mpeg files that MP produces - they too are in a weird format that not even VirtualDub can decode.

Personally I think this is a design flaw in MP which should be corrected. It should leave mpeg2 recordings untouched.

Err I dont know where you got that info from but thats completely wrong.

Yes, MP uses DVR-MS (mpeg2 with metadata), but it does not use the builtin DRM. You can playback the file on any computer providing you have DVD (mpeg2) codecs installed. The compress feature can be used if you want to convert it into some other format and its quite a standard format. Almost any programs will be able to further process the file into a desired format (DVB users have to take into account correction of strange GOB sizes which is the fault of the TV networks not MP).

 

[falser]

When I tried playing back an RC4 recording on another computer I did recieve a Windows Media DRM warning that my recordings could not be played back. I don't remember exactly what the message was. Just now I retried playing back a recording made in a recent SVN and indeed it does work now. So I'm wrong on that one, my apologies.

However, perhaps it may be the way my tuner records DTV, but I cannot playback recordings converted to mpeg. Programs like VirtualDub and Nero cannot open them. VLC player will sometimes show some of the frames but has no stream or dimension information about them. It may be because the compress feature is expecting the recordings to be made from Hauppage or in standard definition.

 

[samuel337]

You may need the DVR-MS support patch available from MS:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...2e-60ea-4ed9-bc68-e93c9e65c58e&DisplayLang=en

Sam