Media Portal vs MyMovies (1 Viewer)

[BlizzofOZ]

What is the difference between the 2 programs in relation to playing movies and music?

At the moment, not interested in watching TV through my PC... but I know that MyMovies requires Media Center. I want to store movies on my PC and watch on my TV. I have all of the hardware necessary, but I'm looking for PC software that will allow my (or my wife) to easily select movies/music and play them.

I really don't want to go through the hassle of doing a fresh install of MCE, but I'm not sure if Media Portal will do the trick

 

[tangmonster]

Don't really understand your question. But if you want to only watch movies and play music mediaportal is fine.
I use mine for those two (don't have a tv card) and it works great. Install it and check.

 

[SpiffBB]

Hello

MyMovies is a plugin for MCE with I miss a lot. Netherless MP has so many advantages that the switch to MP was right for me. In MyMovies you can scan your online movies and most of the time (if the movie is named correct) the plugin finds and downloads the information. Of course you can also manual add missing or offline movies and change the information. MP:s internal movie "scanner" sucks! Often it grabs wrong movie etc. However there is a plugin called MyFilms ( https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/my_films-f164.html ). Here you can in a separate program (ant) manage your database and let the plugin add the information to MP. If you have a "static" collection it works but its not se easy to manage as MyMovies for MCE. However work is done for a new internal grabber! Have big hope it will solve things, se for example this thread: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/script_support_imdb_grabbing-t26098.html .
Another thing - if you have TV-series there is a plugin for MP that can handle them in a way I newer fought was possible!!! https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/my_tvseries-f162.html
There is nothing to manage TV-series for MCE as far as I know.

As you can read if you search MCE is great but cant be tweakad so mutch. In MP you can customize more as you want it. MP has 3 downsides compared to MCE:
Uglier GUI - Work has been done and more is hopefuly on its way.
Movie handling - As wroten the future is hopefuly bright for MP
Stability - often mentioned but has not been a problem for me

Good luck in deciding! Since MP is free just try it? I dont think you will regret it!
Regards
Oscar

 

[BlizzofOZ]

tangmonster,
I am just interested in playing movies and music from my computer to my A/V reciever, to my TV. I know this works already, as I've done it. What I was looking for was an application that would manage the movies/music easily. My wife is very computer illiterate, so I was looking for an app that run and you can simply click on a listed movie/music file and it would run.

With MyMovies, I didn't want want to install MCE... I take it you don't need MCE installed, unless you want to use more than one tuner card, correct?

SpiffBB, thank you very much for the info!

Anybody have more input?

 

[marson]

Install mediaportal, you want to, simply click on a listed movie/music file and it would run.
mediaportal will do this , just click my video's and there is the list of all your downloaded movies click and play

also just click my music , all your music will be listed , just click and play ...

 

[BlizzofOZ]

I'm very interested in using MP... but can someone confirm that I do NOT need to have Media Center installed? MP requirements state the Win XP Pro w/ SP2 in only needed, but if you want more than one tuner card, the MCE will be needed.

I'm not, at the moment, interested in getting TV on my computer. Maybe in the future, but by that time I will most likely switch to Vista.

In the end, I'm trying to avoid having to buy a new OS such as MCE and doing a fresh install. At them moment, I'm doing a fresh XP Pro install, which I already own.

 

[SpiffBB]

I'm very interested in using MP... but can someone confirm that I do NOT need to have Media Center installed? MP requirements state the Win XP Pro w/ SP2 in only needed, but if you want more than one tuner card, the MCE will be needed.

MP runs on XP pro, XP home (if you want the MCE remote to work with XP home you need an extra driver), XP MCE 2005 and several other MS operating systems. Basically every XP and Vista version is supported. If you later on want TV funcionality you just buy a TV-card, MP has its own TV-software so its not depending on XP/Vista version. The point is MP IS a Media Center software just like XP MCE is bundled with MS own Media Center software - you decide witch one you want!
/Oscar

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

but if you want more than one tuner card, the MCE will be needed

Not MCE itself but a update.

As long as you have .net2 or 3 installed (both does not matter) and all updates for xp then things will be fine.

Follow the WIKI guidelines on installing MediaPortal.

 

[BlizzofOZ]

Very cool... thanks for taking the time to answer, that I know, are very simple questions!

 

[tangmonster]

Ah , i didn't understand the "mymovies" part of the question , i've never worked with MCE more than 5 or so minutes.

I have to confess I don't use the database fuction at all in mediaportal at this stage.

My 60gig music collection is VERY up to date regarding id3 tags and album covers. My directory structure is according to genre / artist / album.
I browse using shared vies (even though databse is up to date)

With My movies I have kind of given up using imdb online search. Also have shares in genre/movie directory structure.

I don't have internet at home , only at work , i bring my media pc to work every 2nd or third week to update a few things.

and add new movies/music carrying my usb hdd back and fourth.

I have it installed on plain win xp pro updated.

My wife is not really that computer literate but after playing with things for a while she caught on quickly and keeps on finding shortcuts in the menu.

My time waster is playing with things like voice activations / emulator plugins / and all sorts of other things. Visit the emulator part of the forum to get a glimps of future and current options

This was a short explanation of my media portal usage

tang