Media portal extenders? (1 Viewer)

[pieroxy]

Hello there,

I am a Vista Media Center user and was looking to move to SageTV this week, until Google killed the products. I am now again on the market for an alternative.

What I am looking for is to have a central server (which will be headless) and a bunch of extenders in several rooms for the family. SageTV was the dream product for this. Windows Media Center is not too bad, but for the fact that the extenders have to be XBoxes...

My question is: Is there a software/hardware that can do that with a media portal server ?

For reference, here is what I want in an extender:
- Fast and simple access to my media library (music, videos, photos)
- Access to the EPG and programming interface for recording TV and programming recordings
- Ability to watch live TV and recorded TV.

Since I have no experience with media portal, I ask the question to the community.

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Media portal extenders?

Hello.
That what you want is exactly the main goal of MediaPortal. The only necessary hardware restrictions for extenders are a PC running Windows XP, Vista or 7 (preferred) and a GPU with enough power to display 1080i HD material (DXVA/CUDA would be a great advantage). Then you can set up a main Server with installed TV cards (as much as you like or need) and watch Live HD-TV, playback media, show EPG, schedule and watch recordings on every PC connected to your network with a running MediaPortal client. You can use Nettops (Atom/ION or AMD Zacate based) or bigger PC like Intel i3 or older dual core Intel C2D or AMD Atlon X2 as clients, even Notebooks are useful. The only thing you need to watch TV or playback media stored on your server is a network connection. Wired connection preferred as it is a lot more stable and fast. WLan is possible too, if you can accept some sort of stutter coming from WLan sometimes...

You can use your Android or Apple Phone to control MediaPortal. In near future you will even be able to watch Live TV and playback media on your phone too...

 

[pieroxy]

Ok, thanks for the info. So it is the same software? I install one instance on my server and one instance on every extender?

Sounds good. I'll give it a try as my infra is already rigged and ready.

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Media portal extenders?

Hello.
It's nearly the same software. The downloaded install package (something around 30 MB) includes the TV Server and the Client Part of MePo. On the Server you only install the TV Server part, on all extenders (we named them "clients" over here ) you install the Client Part of MePo... For MultiSeat installation (that what you want to have) you can not choose "one click installation" as this will install TV Server and Client Software on a singe PC (Single Seat installation) Also you can access the TV Server Part of such a Single Seat installation from other clients exactly the same way as if you have a dedicated TV Server.
BTW this is how I'm using it. My "main" HTPC in the living room has my TV Tuners installed so if I watch TV in living room no need to run 2 PC. But I can watch TV in bedroom or garden with other PC using my main HTPC as a TV Server....

 

[mbuzina]

Please be aware of one thing though: You can put all your media on the central server and refer to that from every client, but the metadata (things like whatched tags etc.) will be stored locally on the clients. The only true central part is TV & Radio and their EPG and recordings. The rest (music, TV Series, Moving Picture etc) is local.

MediaPortal 2 is going to change that, but this will take a while (MP2 will be Alpha this year).

 

[pieroxy]

Thanks for the tip.

 

[karniemi]

Thanks from me as well, this answered a thing I was wondering:
"The rest (music, TV Series, Moving Picture etc) is local."

I really though that my Mediaportal clients could use my video folder that is on the server, but this really is not possible. I would really have needed this. Using the windows file sharing is not a solution, because I'm want to use the automatic Wake-On-LAN feature of MediaPortal and there is no such thing in the windows file sharing(I know there are some WOL tools, but with them it gets a bit complicated.)

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Re: Media portal extenders?

Hi.

...I really though that my Mediaportal clients could use my video folder that is on the server, but this really is not possible. I would really have needed this. Using the windows file sharing is not a solution, because I'm want to use the automatic Wake-On-LAN feature of MediaPortal and there is no such thing in the windows file sharing(I know there are some WOL tools, but with them it gets a bit complicated.)

Why is this not possible??? Of course it is possible.
I'm using exact this setup since long time now without any problems. All my Videos, Movies, TV Series, Music, Music Videos, Pictures,... are on a server. It does not matter if it''s via SMB or UNC Path..

There's a little plugin for MePo (WOLPowerManager) that makes a WOL to server fully automatic as soon as you enter MePo (if you want) or if you enter a specific plugin like MyMusic, Moving Pictures,... (also if you want ). It's possible to store files on differnt servers and configure them only to wakeup if needed. This thing works completely in background once you've entered your server(s) in config. As an bonus you can display the status of your server(s) in Basic Home. Also if you want ...
This is how this looks on my BasicHome. Name of my media server is "Spock", Skin is Backdrop, the first skin fully supporting WOLPowerManger. But it's easy to integrate in any skin you like...

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...1308508926-backdrop-skin-released-wol-new.jpg

Green light means Server is awake, red light says server is asleep. Quite simple and high efficient.. Saves a lot of money also...

 

[karniemi]

Oh , thanks for the info, I've been only using the built-in WOL feature... . Now that you mentioned it, I once saw some MediaPortal WOL plug-in page, but it seemed pretty out-dated so I never tied it and I never looked at it again...

But still, I must separately configure the shares outside Mediaportal -it would have been kind of nice to configure them on the MediaPortal server configuration and that the clients would see those automatically: pretty much the same way that the TV recordings of MediaPortal are working out-of-the-box... =). But OK, it's quite easy to set the shares, so it's not that big an issue.

Thanks again Claus!