"MediaPortal and MeediOS merger talks - take 2" (5 Viewers)

[onkl]

LOL@Infinityloop. You're quite right, no use for speculation. It's just rather difficult to be quiet in (possibly) exiting times. But, I'll try & shut up now.

 

[zag2me]

Yes, I havent heard much about this here either.

But I just been told that its not only MP and MeediOS talking about merging!
There is a third part involved aswell. Evolution Media Center
EMC stopped the developing due to lack of motivasion and time. I learned this few days ago..

It would be really usefull to merge the best of these three mediacenters, to create the Ultimate Media Center.

But.. nothing is decided yet, and from what I know nothing will be settled for atleast 5-6 weeks.

I posted this on MeediOS forums but will post again here my personal thoughts. I don't see how one "ultimate" home theatre app is better than 3 seperate very good ones. You can't please everybody all the time and merging 3 great apps into one that compromises for the sake of pleasing different people isn't the way to go imo.

Far better would be to share things like the Core, tv server, weather grabbing ect between apps (its open source after all) but let them go their separate ways and cater for their different user bases. Media-portal seems more geared towards TV and people seeking a replacement for MCE, while meedios is better at the library managment stuff and people seeking a replacement for meedio, and Evolution HTPC has a very simple and slick user interface geared more towards the basic user.

 

[CHli]

If the Core is well done it should be possible to configure your application the way you want it to be, so no need to have 3 separate projects

 

[Noelix]

I know i-loop doesn't want any speculation on this but after reading the convo it's very hard not to speculate! It's all very exciting, and I think a lot could be accomplished when talented developers join forces on a like-minded project such as this.

It was very clear to me after reading it that both sides are aware of the limitations of their own software and want to use the lessons they've learned and start over. Let's hope for the best!

Oh, and please use an original name for the new software, and not some amalgamation like MeedioPortal or something.

 

[funkstar]

And what is wrong with MediaPortal as a name???

I really like the sounds of some of the things in that conversation. "everything as a plugin" is a great idea. Some teams are going to be far better at certain things than others, also if everything is structured right you could have a system that is either very light weight - TV viewing only, media playback only, etc - or a complete fully feature app.

By the sounds of it TVEngine3 has a huge amount of potential, so why go to the effort of building another one for another project? I know if everything is OSS you can take code and credit it, but surely it would be even better it you take full blown components and plug them into an OSS media framework with a common API for them to communicate over.

We live in interesting times

 

[Salle]

And what is wrong with MediaPortal as a name???

I really like the sounds of some of the things in that conversation. "everything as a plugin" is a great idea. Some teams are going to be far better at certain things than others, also if everything is structured right you could have a system that is either very light weight - TV viewing only, media playback only, etc - or a complete fully feature app.

I like this idea too!!

 

[player-x]

OK all of us now MP is great but not perfect and there are a lot of other projects out there that are a lot better at some tings then MP and visa versa, MeediOS is one of these.

yes the feel of MeediOS is a lot faster but the main 2 reasons i use mainly MP are the kick ass TVserver and the real nice looking Project-Mayhem III skin.
And other people have maybe same ore other reasons to use MP ore have reasons to use a other media center program like MeediOS

But i hope that MeediOS will merge whit MP and others projects will join to, like Evolution Media Center is thinking a bout it.
Because i think szsori is spot on over at MeediOS forum, whit his analysis

[quote="szsori" over @ MeediOS]Since I haven't looked at the MP2.0 code (sounds like that wouldn't tell me much at this point anyway), I can't make any judgements about that, but I've tried putting my thoughts together about both MP and Meedio below. For reference, I installed MP on my system the other day just to see what it was like. I recently set my brother up with a modchip and XBMC, so I already had an understanding of how the system would work.

Things that made Meedio superior:

1. The SQL-based library (speed, customizable views, etc)
2. The flexible menu system (not limited to a strict list of selections)
3. Menagerie SE and HDeeTV. Probably the two best HTPC themes for any frontend.
4. Plugin/messaging system (powerful yet simple to work with)
5. The speed. I'd still like to see it faster, but was hands-down faster than MP.

Things that made MP superior:

1. Excellent group of programmers and community support.
2. Certain eye candy (animated images). Meedio started adding these late in its life (Flash support).
3. Configuration interface for base options.
4. TV recording support (never used it, so basing this on what I've heard).
5. Python script support. I'd love to see MeediOS (or a merged system) allow python, perl, ruby, etc interfaces to the messaging system. With MeediOS this could have been done with a plugin for each or a TCP/IP port interface.
6. Better documentation.
7. Input device support. Granted, Meedio had Padio and other input device plugins, but MP still had better support for everything. Don't know if MP had support for it or not, but XBMC definitely does... analog recognition for gamepads. So if you press a pressure sensitive button/stick harder/futher, you rewind or move through the menus faster. Very slick.
8. Project Mayhem III theme.

Things that were a draw:

1. Theme support. I believe it was about as easy to create themes for both systems. Meedio's dynamic menu system may have complicated stuff a bit on the Meedio end, but it also gave it more power. MP made it simple. Since any future stuff will be WinFX, I don't think this applies any more.
2. Media support. Pretty much anything played.
3. Plugins. I think MP had slightly more, but Meedio had plenty for anything I ever needed to do.
4. In-program configuration options. Meedio got much better with the Icon Manager and Meedio Helper plugins, but still not good enough to break this tie.

Things that both were missing:

1. Really useful web interfaces.
2. Good client/server functionality.
3. Automatic codec download (like Windows Media Player).
4. A good usenet plugin.

In a nutshell, I like the plugin, library, and menu system in Meedio. I also like the python support, refined configuration interface, and TV recording ability in MP. If there's some way of combining the two packages or using the TV recording code from MP, I'd be really happy. I think MP's ability to work the GUI is a moot point, since they'll have to rewrite into WinFX themselves. That's one spot that the teams would definitely be able to benefit each other, but that would only work if the plugin/messaging system were agreed upon.

If the projects merge:

1. Since MeediOS has a good chunk of the core messaging, plugin, and library code taken care of, it would make sense to base everything off it. If the MP crew has any good suggestions for it or can contribute, I'm sure the MeediOS crew would love to have their input.
2. Since MP has more understanding of the TV recording stuff, that could be done as a plugin on top of the core.
3. Python script support could also be done as a plugin, allowing many of the MP developers to keep developing for the joint system. (Try making a perl interface too! )
4. Input device support should be done as a plugin by the MP crew, since they already have a superior system in MP and might be able to reuse that code.
5. GUI should be done by whoever has the most experience with WinFX. I like the idea of the GUI being a plugin, since it will make dual monitor and LCD support even easier. Making everything a plugin simplifies the core code and makes everything easier to troubleshoot and interface. Hopefully the MP guys can see that.
6. The menu system should be done by the MeediOS crew, since it's definitely more flexible and powerful than what MP had. Since we've all worked with Meedio's menu system, we understand where it can be improved already.
7. The system should use the name of MediaPortal, since they have a far bigger following than MeediOS at this point. Or a new name could be decided upon so the people that have tried MP in the past and weren't happy might decide to come back.

Also, something that would be possible even if the teams don't merge:
I'd love to see an online database to hold information that the plugins can interface. IMDB is a good example for movies, and rhapsody is a good example for music. meeTVshows had all of its tv show information available, but the interface was lacking. tv.com makes interfacing the system difficult.

I'd like to see the tv show information joined into one spot where MP, MeediOS (or the merged project), and XBMC can access show information. Since both communities would be updating the show information, it would be far more complete than any other database out there. This online database could also be designed to hold other information, like sports scores and standings, video game information, etc. The possibilities are endless.

This database would work similarily to the Meedio library, with custom tags available for each media type. The only thing that would be restricted would be the main lookup key for each media. For TV shows it would be something like SeriesName + SxxEyy, for games it would be ConsoleName + GameName, for sports scores it would be SportName + LeagueName.

Importers could be set up to pull information from tv.com, imdb, ESPN, etc on a regular basis or on-demand. The entire database would be mirrored across multiple servers and plugins would automatically load balance between them.

A merged online database system benefits everyone.
My god I type too much.[/quote]

And if a new "MP" start from scratch whit a good plan whit a clear road-map and structure and convert the code from all the projects in to a ultimate Media Center software, and have a real strikt code maintainer/oversee'er what woulden we end up whit

I understand that its hard to give up a project people have bin working on for a long time but sometime its good to burn down the bridge behind you and start over whit what you can carry whit you.

to come back to Atari, Commodore and Sinclare we all now what happened to them and they maybe still here if they had shared
And even Apple coundent sustain is one OS but had to borrow the Linux code.

I think if the OS HTPC community doesn't start to work to gather like the Linux community.
MS is going to be the dog that runs a way whit the biggest bone

Also south's a big group of developers are a force to recon whit and can get support and influence whit the hardware/software company's like Hauppauge, TechnoTrend, Twinhan, Asus, Google ect. and they start bundling and supporting the project .
And put payed ore pay ore developers of the project like what IBM, Novel, ect. are doing whit Linux.

Don't say its going to happen but changes are lot bigger if your big your self.

And unlike Linux the driver base is still MS based so its for them mouths easier to maintain and support.

Maybe in the end you even get media extenders and players that are based on the project

I think there will be only one winner and that is all of us!

My 2 cents