Mediaportal Vs MCE (1 Viewer)

[Nefius]

Although MCE lacks in many aspects, it wins hands down in usability and easiness of configuration of many features.
I was a bit shocked about how many things I had to do to run MP properly, when MCE needs just a couple of clicks.
But obviously the horizon of MP is much more attractive...

I have to agree in this..
I did a install of MP for 3 weeks back in january and it just didnt worked the way it should.. so i did MCE instead.. just one install and it worked right out of the box.

For 1.5 months ago i did a new try on MP and again i had several problems who'm ive solved after 6 weeks.
And if i look at the hardware i use (see below), it's just common hardware, so i really don't know what causes so much trouble.
My guess is that MP was build to much on features in the beginning, instead of stability.
Anyhow.. it works now, but its not something for the beginner to start with

 

[charger2000]

...2) the way you select the locations for your videos. No browsing to the location in setup like MP. You have to map each location to a drive letter on your HTPC and then choose that in the MCE setup...

wow, completly disagree on this, in MCE you just need to drag and drop a shortcut in the Video folder and you're done, in MP you have to run the Config prog, and don't tell me it's a faster way

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

It would seem that it can be summed up in one word then, flexibility. If your setup or requirements deviate from what m$ think you should have, then you're pretty much screwed.
Would that be a fair summary?

Short answer YES

And if i look at the hardware i use (see below), it's just common hardware, so i really don't know what causes so much trouble.

How about different manufacturer's drivers screwing things up.

I have used MP for 18 months, first 0.1.3 which ran for a month great before I joined the svn club, with such a great bunch of enthusiast's who really believe in this HTPC software.

Like a lot of people have used MCE and found it totally lacking in what i wanted out of a HTPC software, as spoiled previously by MP.

If you like to be in control of your software then MP's for you, if you like to be told what you can and cannot do, then use MCE.

Regards

 

[Nemulate]

If you like to be in control of your software then MP's for you, if you like to be told what you can and cannot do, then use MCE.

Nice quote Paranoid and to the point. Bottom line is if you're prepared to put the time in then you'll get so much more out of MP!

 

[ziphnor]

I did a install of MP for 3 weeks back in january and it just didnt worked the way it should.. so i did MCE instead.. just one install and it worked right out of the box.
....
And if i look at the hardware i use (see below), it's just common hardware, so i really don't know what causes so much trouble.

Thats just it, MCE might work fine if you fit their profile(ie no ogg vorbis, no customizing etc), but I can tell you that you dont get very far watching DVB-C pay tv in MCE with my Twinhan tuners.

Furthermore please dont claim that MCE always work as intended out of the box(i know you didnt exactly claim it, but it sounded like it . I have a M.Sc in computer science (working on a Ph.D) and i failed to get it working with the following tuner setup for analogue cable TV:

1x Hauppage 500MCE
1x Hauppage 150MCE

Pretty standard, right? (well maybe not, because first off that setup has 3 tuners, which means you have to go reg hacking).

I think to be fair, we have to remember that MCE is a finished product while MP is only version 0.2, i find it impressive that a v.0.2 product can even compare against MCE.

 

[Marcusb]

...2) the way you select the locations for your videos. No browsing to the location in setup like MP. You have to map each location to a drive letter on your HTPC and then choose that in the MCE setup...

wow, completly disagree on this, in MCE you just need to drag and drop a shortcut in the Video folder and you're done, in MP you have to run the Config prog, and don't tell me it's a faster way

It may have been improved since I last used it. I tried it before Roll Up 2 came out.

The other thing that was funny was the news item on the MP home page a while ago, where a senior MCE developer was quoted in his blog saying that some key areas of MCE were delayed further and if you couldn't wait then you should just switch to MediaPortal. Now that was pretty telling ;-)

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

where a senior MCE developer was quoted in his blog saying that some key areas of MCE were delayed further and if you couldn't wait then you should just switch to MediaPortal.

Still makes me smile

 

[Dale#1976]

DRM a killer

It was the Digital Rights Management that killed MCE for me after using it for about 8 months.

If you make any major changes to your BIOS settings or update your BIOS you are almost guaranteed that the DRM will say you are not autorized to watch your previously recorded TV shows. There were ways to recover your licences but you could only do it a few times when it would no longer work and it was many steps.

It was even worse when I upgraded to Media Player 11. After that I would get the 'not authorized' screen when I was trying to record some movies from the movie channels that I pay for. When I pay through the nose for movie channels, I don't think MS has any right to say that I can't record them for viewing later. That is the number one selling point for MCE and all the external PVR recorders!!

Most important was that I couldn't share my files from my main system to a system I wanted in my bedroom, again because of the DRM. Can't do it with computers you already own, but you can do it if you buy MS Extenders or other MS hardware. I guess it's OK to share recorded TV, as long as you are using MS products/hardware to do it.

You won't find me upgrading to Vista any time soon. Chances are the DRM is going to be even more restrictive.

The latest Bass Music engine in MP is far superior to the MCE one. I love the Scobble feature and the best tracks on album along with suggestions of similar songs.

I am a movie buff. MCE had, in my opinion, much easier and more advanced searches for movies and TV shows. I find the moving through the listings one letter at a time to be extremely clumbsy and frustrating. With MCE you could easily list movies by 'on now', 'on next' or by 'star rating' etc. OR could type in the first few letters of a show and see all shows starting with those letters. I liked to see the channel listed beside the programs and scheduled recordings. If I see the channels during the search, I can determine if it is on a movie channel that I pay for, which means it will be uncut and no commercials. It was just a lot easier to plan your advance recordings with MCE. I'm hoping this will be worked on in a future release.

MP does take a lot of time to setup and tweak in some cases. I had trouble getting the external channel changer to change channels on my satelite receiver, but that was taken care of with the MCE replacement plugin. Until this plugin, I had no choice but to stay with MCE BUT, as I'm beginning to see, if MP doesn't have it, just wait a month or two.

All in all, I would say that MP is the superior software for your die-hard audio/video enthusiast. I know I won't be going back to MCE.

to all the people that have made MP such a GREAT program. Your efforts are certainly appreciated by many.

Dale

 

[rtv]

It would seem that it can be summed up in one word then, flexibility. If your setup or requirements deviate from what m$ think you should have, then you're pretty much screwed.
Would that be a fair summary?

I guess that's totally missing "activity" then

 

[tomfrogger]

I have used media portal since version one and have never looked back. I first installed MP on a 600mhz intel celeron and worked as perfect as i could have expected, streamed music & played divx movies all i required to start with. Over the last few years as media portal continued to improve, i have steadily improved my htpc, it has never been a problem adding extra TV Cards, Graphics Cards & extra disk space etc all smooth.

I tried MCE and if you have a microsoft certified system i'm sure its an easy setup but for me it just didn't have enough customisation options & as has been noted before DRM is a no no.

The best parts of MP: current music player is amazing, imdb lookup rules, dvb-t epg grabber excellent, TV-Server is a superb idea, MyTV Series plugin brilliant, My Weather is cool, My Trailers Plugin useful, in fact its all pretty marvelous