Help choosing how to setup MP (1 Viewer)

[moore63]

Hi might be looking to change over to Media Portal from WMC however I’m looking for some advice first. My current setup consists for 4 computers and one Netgear NAS. They are all linked via gigabit Ethernet. Two of the computers have TV tuner cards in them, at the moment they both record directly to the NAS over the network. This allows all the computers on the network to see and play back all of the TV show which have been recorded. Also on the NAS is a folder containing ripped DVDs and Blu-Rays, again all 4 computers can see this folder and play back any of the films stored.

What I am trying to work out is how MP’s client / server setup fits into my setup. At the moment the NAS would be the server. However the NAS is not capable of running MP as a server. Would every machine need to have both client and server software install?

The reason for choosing the NAS was so that I don’t have to leave any of the machines running 24/7 the NAS just adds centralised storage to the router which is running 24/7 anyway.



Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kiwijunglist]

What operating system is the NAS running? What are the system specs for your NAS?

The NAS only needs to run tv-server, not mediaportal client. The hardware requirements for tvserver are really really really really low. I would put one or both tuner cards into the NAS computer. Install tv-server only on the NAS.

Install mediaportal client on the other 4 computers. All computers will be able to connect to the NAS to watch tv/play media/schedule recordings.

Mediaportal can record multiple channels at once using a single tuner if all the channels are on the same transponder.

 

[moore63]

Hi kiwijunglist thanks for your prompt reply. My NAS is a dedicated Netgear NAS it is not an old PC so it has no expansion ports it doesn’t run windows.

It is a NETGEAR ReadyNAS Duo v2, basically a small box just big enough to take 4 HDDs.

David

 

[davidf]

I'm guessing it's one of the ReadyNAS - not a windows OS anyway.

There's good news and bad:
The bad - TV Server requires a Windows machine to run on.
The good news is that it doesn't have to be on 24/7 - There's a power scheduler which will wake the nominated server whenever you want to watch TV.

Normally in this situation you nominate one of the machines as the TV server which will turn on and off when you watch TV (and when it gets the EPG overnight). The NAS can be used to store recordings and/or the timshifting files when you watch TV (timeshifting allows pause, rewind etc). As @kiwijunglist said you can watch multiple channels on the same card if they are transmitted on the same frequency so you need less tuners than clients - there are usually 6 frequencies in the UK so 6 tuners could serve as many clients as you have bandwidth for. I don't know if the netgear NAS supports a database - but I have one on my NAS which keeps the EPG data. MePo also supports DVB-S cards so FreeSat and Sky are available too (channels can be linked between FreeView and FreeSat so that multiple tuners are available to watch a channel).

Other media can be read from the NAS and generally you can find a plugin for anything you can think of e.g. TV Series (Keeps track of all the TV series on the NAS and allows you to view them by Watched Flag downloads info from TheTVDb) - Moving Pictures does the same for movies and downloads info from IMDB. Online Videos (YouTube et al).

 

[moore63]

Would it work if I put TV server on the two machines which have tuners in them and had them both work individually and record to the NAS?
When it comes to DVD organisation is that something that the client software does? Does the client programme just look to the folder where the DVD rips are stored then matches the file name to a DVD title it recovers from the web to get the art work and information about DVD?

 

[davidf]

Would it work if I put TV server on the two machines which have tuners in them and had them both work individually and record to the NAS?

Not really, the tuners need to be centralised so that they are used efficiently, but you could point 1 machine at each of the servers and do it that way - I'd recommend only 1 Server.

When it comes to DVD organisation is that something that the client software does? Does the client programme just look to the folder where the DVD rips are stored then matches the file name to a DVD title it recovers from the web to get the art work and information about DVD?

The client software does this (exactly this)

 

[porky996t]

Hi Moore63.. Welcome!!

Having just read this thread, it put me in mind of another recent one from another WMC user which is quite similar; you may find it interesting, and it should answer some of your questions. You can find it here

 

[kiwijunglist]

Decide which of your 4 computers is going to be watching the most live tv, (probably your lounge computer) and make that the tvserver PC. Install both tv tuners into this PC.

Install Mediaportal client and tvserver on the lounge computer. When install mediaportal chose Titan Extended option.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/13_Quick_Setup
Now load Mediaportal extension manager (under the start menu) and install My tv series. To install Moving Pictures go here.

Setup and configure mediaportal tvserver on the lounge PC (see wiki, probably the hardest part of setup)
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/13_Quick_Setup/2_TV_Quick_Setup

Setup and configure mediaportal client on the lounge PC (see wiki).
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/13_Quick_Setup/1_MediaPortal_Quick_Setup
You can skip the videos section as we are using moving pictures and my tvseries plugins to cover videos, however videos can be useful for browsing videos that don't fit in the above two plugins, eg. home videos, or maybe some old tv recordings from windows media centre that you are not going to rename and put into tv series.

The advice to have timeshifting on the NAS earlier is incorrect, timeshifting files are like temporary windows/windows paging file, which obviously you would want stored locally, not on the NAS. For tvrecordings you might as well store them on the lounge PC rather than the NAS, as the lounge PC will need to be awake whenever you watch a tvrecording because the tvserver runs the tvrecordings database.

Use Moving Pictures to point to your movie folder(s) on the NAS, use my tvseries to point to your tv show folder(s) on your NAS. Use UNC windows shares paths (ie \\Ready NAS\C\TVSHOWS\) rather than mapped network drives.
http://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/wiki/GettingStarted
http://moving-pictures.tv/wiki/Main_Page


After getting the lounge PC working correctly you can install mediaportal client only on the remaining 3 computers. Don't bother running setup just copy the program files mediaportal client directory and the program data mediaportal client directory from your lounge PC and overwrite all the files. Now you only have to load MP Config on each of the 3 computers and setup the live tv section to point to your tvserver PC.

If you watch live tv or tv recordings then the MP Client will wake up the lounge PC. If you watch a tvseries or movies then the lounge PC does not need to wake up.