Is it worth to switch from TVC4 to MP? (1 Viewer)

[joit]

hi,

i'm using TVC for a while now but there are so many little bugs in it so i'm considering to switch to MP.
I have some questions about MP:

codecs:
- do i need to manually install and configure codecs?
- do i need to deal with filter graph stuff?
- does AC3 work on SPDIF (without registry hacks) ?

live tv:
- is it stable?
- are ther frame-drops?
- do crawls/tickers jitter?

music:
- is it possible to save playlists while listening to them?
- if a playlist is in shuffle, are songs getting repeated? can this be turned off?

video:
- if i play video, is fast forward / backward smooth and stable?
- is scrolling in the timeline instead of fast forwarding / rewinding supported?

pictures:
- are transitions between pictures super-smooth always?

gui:
- does the gui react fast on interactions on a P4 2,4 GHz, 1GB RAM, HD2600Pro?
- does the gui jerk or jitter sometimes?

OS:
- does MP run on Windows Home Server?
- is Win64 supportedt?

I'm looking forward to your answers,
cheers
Hannes

 

[milhouse]

I'll tackle a few questions. I am not very knowledgeable on the codecs and SPDIF. I know I've got picture and sounds for the file formats I use (very limited number of formats) over optical to my AV reciever, and that's about it.

live tv:
- is it stable?
- are ther frame-drops?
- do crawls/tickers jitter?

This is going to be hardware (and driver) dependent - the forums certainly have their share of people with issues on stutter, stability, etc. But there are also a lot of people with very stable systems (myself included), and mostly stutter-free (myself included). So it certainly has the potential to be very stable.

video:
- if i play video, is fast forward / backward smooth and stable?
- is scrolling in the timeline instead of fast forwarding / rewinding supported?

I think this will depend on the codec, but generally it seems to be reasonably smooth scanning. For example, my videos are stored as ISOs on a network drive over 100MBit LAN, and I can fast forward/reverse just fine. I seldom do, though - I prefer the jumps (15s, 30s, 1m, 3m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 1h intervals, configurable).

Scrolling in the timeline (I assume you mean mouse control, and clicking where you want to skip to) is not supported. But I think most MP users use dedicated hardware and remote control only. But again the skip steps are enough functionality for most. (I have seen some posting requesting timeline functionality.)

pictures:
- are transitions between pictures super-smooth always?

I think you know the answer to ANY question that includes the word "always".

Generally, yes, the slideshow transitions are smooth, and there's a couple transition types to choose from (Ken Burns, random, and cross fade). But that is probably going to depend on how big the pictures actually are. If you switch to zoom mode on the pictures, it takes a second to load. I assume that means it is using scaled thumbnails for the slideshow, and not loading the full file until needed.

gui:
- does the gui react fast on interactions on a P4 2,4 GHz, 1GB RAM, HD2600Pro?
- does the gui jerk or jitter sometimes?

Well, that's going to spend a lot on the SVN you are using. The GUI transitions have some outstanding bugs in the roadmap to the final 1.0 release, as I recall.

It's also going to depend on the skin and the resolution you run at. e.g. the really nice X Face skin has a lot of effects that will bog down some slower systems. The default Blue Two is reasonably minimal.

I am running X Face at 1920 x 1080 on a single core Mac Mini with 1GB memory and have have a smooth experience, if that tells you anything. There are recommendations on minimum video card requirements, but again, that's not my expertise.

OS:
- does MP run on Windows Home Server?
- is Win64 supportedt?

Does it run, or is it supported?

No, Home Server is not supported, but you'll find people running it on WHS, Server 2003, and Server 2008. I run TV Server on Windows Server 2003 x64, and other than the nag screen I get opening the configuration, have no problems. You'll probably have to search the forums for tips to get it up and running, but it can be done. In my experience, the biggest piece of problem hardware is the MCE eHome IR Transceiver. I never did get that to work to control my settop box on 2003 x64.

Lots of people of using Vista x64 as well. Again, not officially supported, but apparently works.


Hope this helps, and that someone else will chime in on the unanswered questions. I recommend you include what tuner card(s) you use in you original post so people have a little more to go on.

 

[joit]

hi milhouse,

thanks for your detailed answer!
currently, i'm using a satelco dvb-c and a cinergy dvb-t pci card.
i guess i just check out MP whenever version 1 is released. is there any vague date, when that is going to be?

 

[milhouse]

The roadmap shows TV Server and MP are both about 70% of the way to release candidate 3. Hopefully that'll be the last RC before we get 1.0. Still, it'll likely be 2 months or so until we get the final final. lots of testing will go into the final 1.0, I think, because it is meant to be very stable and (major) bug free so work can shift to the version 2 re-write.