How would you rate TV 0.3 (1 Viewer)

[tonyscha]

I was considering on taking some time and sitting down and getting tv-server 3 to work. But is it worth the time? I am currently using 0.2.3.0 RC2, which is tv-server 2 right...

My questions are.

Is it more stable then using 0.2.3.0 RC2?
Are the extra features worth it?
I have looked at the documentation, and it doesnt look to hard to setup. But I was under with my 2 tuner cards, on how that will pan out. Haug PVR 150 and KWorld PlusTV 120 are my tuner cards
Has there been alot of problems with it running on Vista?


Thanks for any help

 

[Cybertex]

Hello, this is my experience (and situation):

First, I tried only MediaPortal (didn't want to bother about SQLServer and other services running...). Soon I realized I've to leave MP always opened in background in order to record TV shows (my PC is on 24h/24h, no standby). After a few days always running, MediaPortal.exe becomes a resource hog.

I switched to TV3, just to try it. A bit of trouble in the beginning, thus the setup was (is) simple. A bit of problem with WebEPG (now is ok) and stability. But now TV3 is much more stable, I'm able to find more channels (DVB-T) than MediaPortal (dunno why), setup is straightforward, and SQLServer Express + TVService memory and CPU usages are less than MediaPortal.exe always on (I think MediaPortal is not designed to work "always on", but TV3 does).

So, TV3+MediaPortal, also in Single Seat, is a good solution for me. TV3 always on is a good solutions to schedule and record; MediaPortal now can be opened or closed whenever needed (of course, also during recording... No interference with TV3)...

Just my experience

<edited>
I'm running WinXP Pro SP2, SQLServer Express, TV3 and MediaPortal latest SVN.

 

[tonyscha]

Hello, this is my experience (and situation):

First, I tried only MediaPortal (didn't want to bother about SQLServer and other services running...). Soon I realized I've to leave MP always opened in background in order to record TV shows (my PC is on 24h/24h, no standby). After a few days always running, MediaPortal.exe becomes a resource hog.

I switched to TV3, just to try it. A bit of trouble in the beginning, thus the setup was (is) simple. A bit of problem with WebEPG (now is ok) and stability. But now TV3 is much more stable, I'm able to find more channels (DVB-T) than MediaPortal (dunno why), setup is straightforward, and SQLServer Express + TVService memory and CPU usages are less than MediaPortal.exe always on (I think MediaPortal is not designed to work "always on", but TV3 does).

So, TV3+MediaPortal, also in Single Seat, is a good solution for me. TV3 always on is a good solutions to schedule and record; MediaPortal now can be opened or closed whenever needed (of course, also during recording... No interference with TV3)...

Just my experience

<edited>
I'm running WinXP Pro SP2, SQLServer Express, TV3 and MediaPortal latest SVN.

Well since you posted I suppose I will update...

I went ahead and installed TV3, I love it. I have a few bugs to work out yet:

On normal aspect ratio, the picture is smaller then it should be on ntsc input ( sounds like a codec issue from what I was reading) , so I tried a different codec, and now I have this weird drawing problem.... like the top 1/3 of the picture, you can see it redrawing all the time, its weird...

Another problem I am having is my ATSC tuner. I can get audio but no video, if anyone has any answers, great, but I need to surf the forums a little more, then I will post a problem with some logs or something.

But overall the changes that have been made into TV3 are awesome. I love teh ability to close Mediaportal, but yet record my shows!!! The setup is very easy, I was worried since I have no database experiance.

Hopefully I can get my bugs worked out soon!

 

[Cybertex]

I cannot help. My system uses PAL, with no audio/video problems.

If you need you can use WebEPG in MediaPortal to feed also TVserver TVGuide, but you have to manually configure channels name and internet sources to grab data.

If you need help just ask

 

[tonyscha]

I cannot help. My system uses PAL, with no audio/video problems.

If you need you can use WebEPG in MediaPortal to feed also TVserver TVGuide, but you have to manually configure channels name and internet sources to grab data.

If you need help just ask

Ah I am using ScheduleDirect, which I am having a few problems, but I am going to work on it a little more

 

[marshall]

Are you using the latest SVNs? There were some issues with ATSC playing audio but no video, but they have been fixed for a while. I don't know what your SchedulesDirect problem is, but there were some recent issues related to "displayName" vs. "name" in the database which I believe are being looked at now.

 

[tonyscha]

Are you using the latest SVNs? There were some issues with ATSC playing audio but no video, but they have been fixed for a while. I don't know what your SchedulesDirect problem is, but there were some recent issues related to "displayName" vs. "name" in the database which I believe are being looked at now.

No I wasnt not using the latest SVN.... Well the major problem with scheduledirect, is I am waiting for scheduledirect/TMS to fix my channel listings, its missing about 8 channels... which then need to be added

I just need to spend some time on it.. if you know what I mean

 

[tstaddon]

Technically, it's better than TVE2. Two things annoy me about it though:

1. - It can be a major CPU hog.

I have two PCs, one an Athlon XP2000 with 768mb RAM and the other a P4 3.2ghz with 1GB of RAM; Mediaportal is extremely responsive on both machines, provided I don't have TV Server running on the same machine. This is not an issue with the old TV engine.

If only the server OR the client is running on either machine, the CPU load is barely noticeable. When both are running on the same machine, though, the CPU never drops below 70% utilisation.

2. EPG. I appreciate it's not the highest priority thing, but this really does need to be made FAR more simple to manage. I spent weeks mucking about with WebEPG, XMLTV and DVB grabbing before I was satisfied with the result.

 

[revs]

T
2. EPG. I appreciate it's not the highest priority thing, but this really does need to be made FAR more simple to manage. I spent weeks mucking about with WebEPG, XMLTV and DVB grabbing before I was satisfied with the result.

Any reason you dont just let it pick up the EPG over-the-air?

Oh and add me to the list of TV3 > TV2! I held off for a long time, but am happy I finally went ahead and did it. Everything works really well, excepet I seem to have aversion where recordings dont work (after about a minute they freeze).

Think I might upgrade to RC2 and a newer TV server this weekend.. I guess I have to uninstall everything (TV Server and MP Client) before updating? A self updating Media portal would be nice... *hint*

 

[tstaddon]

The EPG grabber doesn't seem to work in TVServer 3 - starts grabbing, never finishes, never grabs a single programme.

Although I have no problem picking it up with DVBGuide - although I did have to script it like this...

"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c722000
"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c626000
"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c650000
"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c674000
"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c706000
"C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\DVBGuide.exe" -c698000

Because it'll work on one setting one day, but not the next.

It's a Twinhan DVB-T, standard BT-878 chipset. Shouldn't, by rights, be at all difficult to control.