Is mediaportal going to survive the new xbmc (1 Viewer)

[zicoz]

Thank you. Come to think of it that would be a nice feature for MediaPortal aswell. Sort of a "Send to..." from the right click menu.

 

[CSMR]

I think XBMC has some fundamental problems with the GUI architecture.

From their FAQ:
"Why does XBMC use x% CPU usage while sitting idle?

XBMC was originally written for the XBox game console, which is a single-threaded system (not a multi-tasking OS like Windows). As such, it was written in a game loop, rather than being event-driven. This means that the screen refreshes as fast as possible in order to "feel" responsive to the user. What this boils down to is that while sitting on the idle screen, XBMC is still repainting the screen at 60-90 frames per second (as can be seen by the FPS number if debug mode is enabled). This takes up a lot of processor power, because the "game" is still running, even though you may not be doing anything with it.

There are currently no intentions to change this, as it is a very low-level change of the entire XBMC platform."

Mediaportal is being written in a much more modern and extensible way.

 

[tourettes]

I think XBMC has some fundamental problems with the GUI architecture.

From their FAQ:
"Why does XBMC use x% CPU usage while sitting idle?

XBMC was originally written for the XBox game console, which is a single-threaded system (not a multi-tasking OS like Windows). As such, it was written in a game loop, rather than being event-driven. This means that the screen refreshes as fast as possible in order to "feel" responsive to the user. What this boils down to is that while sitting on the idle screen, XBMC is still repainting the screen at 60-90 frames per second (as can be seen by the FPS number if debug mode is enabled). This takes up a lot of processor power, because the "game" is still running, even though you may not be doing anything with it.

There are currently no intentions to change this, as it is a very low-level change of the entire XBMC platform."

Mediaportal is being written in a much more modern and extensible way.

Actually MP has just similar "game" loop that is constantly rendering the GUI for 50 fps (or the actual refresh rate of display device).

 

[matejdro]

AFAIK mediaportal is fork of the XBMC. And since this is very-low level change, I'm not sure if they updated it.

 

[CSMR]

Actually MP has just similar "game" loop that is constantly rendering the GUI for 50 fps (or the actual refresh rate of display device).

Ah, well at least things will be different with MP 2.

 

[tourettes]

Actually MP has just similar "game" loop that is constantly rendering the GUI for 50 fps (or the actual refresh rate of display device).

Ah, well at least things will be different with MP 2.

There will still be a main rendering loop in the MP2, which is running at the speed of the display's refresh rate. This is how 3D applications work. Difference to MP1 (and maybe XBMC, not sure since I don't know their code base that well) is that the rendering thread wont be used for non-rendering work.

 

[marv]

AW: Is mediaportal going to survive the new xbmc

afaik someone is working to reduce the idle cpu usage. you can find it on the roadmap for release 12.0 (the next one will be 11.0, so it will take a while):

Roadmap

milestone 12.0!

.
.
.
GUI Engine
Extend XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework for the unified PVR front-end and EPG
Optimize the GUI rendering engine of XBMC for embedded devices (especially when in an idle state)

the best thing for now is to enable the "black screen"-screensaver after few minutes of idle, this reduces cpu usage to nearly zero.

 

[CSMR]

There will still be a main rendering loop in the MP2, which is running at the speed of the display's refresh rate. This is how 3D applications work. Difference to MP1 (and maybe XBMC, not sure since I don't know their code base that well) is that the rendering thread wont be used for non-rendering work.

You need this for video but not for displaying the user interface or photos surely? You don't need to constantly tell the OS when something has stayed the same. (Of course the OS/videocard will repeat itself when it talks to a standard display.)

 

[mbu10]

Well after over 6 years of using mediaportal, i have just moved to XBMC, it has the tvcatchup plugin and the iplayer plugin for live TV (my freeview ariel is terrible)
Going to run with it and see how it goes but so far the menus are quicker, the folders view takes a couple of seconds to load compared to mediaportal 2 mins to read my music folder.(libary mode excluded here that is about the same)
it has finished indexing my tv shows and movies, and is on its way doing my music.
SO far impressed a lot better than what i used to be
Hoping MP2 comes out and kicks it's butt but still waiting for that
just my 2 cents

 

[matejdro]

I find XBMC vs MP similar to Chrome vs Firefox. Chrome is faster and overall works better. But firefox easily beats it down with customizability and features get by extensions. So i go with MP.