Migrating From Windows Media Center to MediaPortal (1 Viewer)

[milli260876]

Cybersymian, left TGB behind then?
Considering MP now myself as WMC is causing me allsorts of issues...
Any advice???

 

[CyberSimian]

CyberSimian, left TGB behind then? Considering MP now myself as WMC is causing me allsorts of issues... Any advice???

Yes, I made the move from WMC to MP last weekend, but not on impulse; it was carefully considered. Let me speak about generalities first.

Generalities
I think it unlikely that you would ever find a piece of complex software that was exactly what you wanted. Every complex application is going to be a mixture of things that you like, and things that you don't like; and that applies both to WMC and to MP. So the question is: taking everything in account, which media center application offers a better match to your particular requirements. Everyone is different, and will assign different degrees of importance to features and, err, "infelicities".

As you may remember, I use Vista, and tried on two separate occasions to migrate from Vista MC to Win7 MC, but on both occasions I backed off after a couple of days, not liking the differences between Vista and Win7. Media Portal is sufficiently different that I would always recommend running it in parallel with your existing media center application, to be quite sure that MP will give you a better match for your media-center requirements.

The best way is to have a separate PC running only MP, but if that is not possible, you can (I think) run MP and WMC on the same machine. BUT: you must assign different tuners to each (so that they don't compete for the same tuner), and (for WMC) that means setting up the tuners again, and that will destroy the association between existing recordings and series-record requests. So running MP and WMC in parallel on your existing hardware has quite an impact on your WMC setup. If you want to run them in parallel, the best way would be to use temporarily a new tuner (e.g. a USB tuner), and assign that to MP. That way you can get real-life experience of using MP, but without perturbing your WMC installation.

Another point that I would make is the temptation to "like what you know", and to dislike something merely because it does things differently. Criticising an application because it is "more cumbersome to use" is a valid criticism, but criticising it because it is different is not (I am not implying that MP is more cumbersome, I am merely stating generalities). Remember that the reason that the human race populates this planet from equator to pole is because we are supremely adaptable. If MP does something differently from WMC, but not in a way that is more cumbersome, don't worry about it! After three months of using MP you will have adapted, and no longer be concerned that MP does things differently from WMC.

Details
Now to some specifics (not in any particular order):

(1) I use only DVB-T/T2, so I have no experience of how MP handles satellite tuners (but they are supported). I also don't have any desire to stream crap astonishingly entertaining videos from the internet, run the BBC i-Player, or stream video around the house, so I cannot comment on how well those work. And finally, I don't use my HTPC for music or pictures.

(2) MP uses only one tuner per DVB-T/T2 MUX, whereas WMC requires one tuner per channel. Because of this, MP does not need to drop the pre-padding or post-padding for consecutive recordings on the same channel. If you have enough tuners, MP won't drop the padding for consecutive recordings on different MUXes. For example, with a quad tuner card, you could record 2 consecutive programmes on each of 4 different MUXes simultaneously, and all with padding!

(3) MP receives the EPG broadcast with DVB-T/T2, including the EPG for the HD channels (something that WMC cannot do). So you no longer need to have holes in your EPG which persist indefinitely for new channels. The broadcast EPG is not as detailed as the Microsoft downloaded EPG (e.g. no actor/director info). Of greater importance is the fact that it does not contain a "repeat" flag (so cannot be used to control which episodes of a series are recorded).

Sadly, although the UK EPG does contain unique programme ids and series ids, these are not used by MP, so the series link facility offered by off-the-shelf PVRs (such as my Humax HDR-Fox-T2) is not available with MP. As a result, series recording is more cumbersome. There are 8 different flavours of series recording, but it seems so far that none of them quite matches what I usually want. So this means that MP is likely to record episodes that have already been recorded, and you will need either to spot them in the recording schedule and mark them not to record, or allow them to record and delete them afterwards.

The flavour of series recording that I am mostly using at the moment is "weekly on this channel" (selection 8). This fixes the day of the week, but does not fix the time, so the programme is free to move around in the schedule and MP will still record it. But when there are multiple broadcasts on that day, MP will record them all. "Click" on "BBC News" is an example when this would occur: the first broadcast of each week is at 01.30 on Saturdays, with multiple repeats on that day and later days. There is nothing like the "record at this time, plus or minus two hours" facility that there is with Vista.

It is possible to use other sources of EPG information, including (I think) the WMC source. But bear in mind that MP will still not use any additional info that might be contained in that EPG (such as the "repeat" flag).

(3) MP understands both DVR-MS and WTV files, and plays them without problem from the "Video" folder. But MP does not understand how to get the metadata from these files, so no programme info is displayed. I tried mocking-up an XML file for one of my DVR-MS files, but MP did not use it. So unless there is some setting that I have missed, I think that you would need to convert your DVR-MS and WTV files to TS, and create XML files from the metadata. I have not tried this yet, so cannot confirm that it will definitely work. And even if it does, I am not sure that I want to spend the time converting my entire library of DVR-MS files to TS format! So I may just put up with no info.

(4) MP supports MCE-compatible remote controls, but not all of the buttons have the same meanings. For example, the SKIP_FORWARD and SKIP_BACK buttons don't skip forward or backward in the video that is playing. But MP offers an more-flexible skip facility using the LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN buttons when a video is playing. Also, you can enter "hhmm" on the numeric keypad to skip to that time from the start (but I don't think that relative skips are supported).

The remote control can also be used to navigate the EPG. MP allows the amount of time on view to be varied in one hour increments, from 1 hour to 4 hours, but annoyingly when you scroll the EPG left or right it always scrolls by 3 hours (I never liked this about WMC). You can also scroll by 24 hours (different from WMC's 12 hours). There is currently an irritating bug in scrolling by 3 hours when video is playing in the thumbnail; I have tried all sorts of variations in the setup for the remote control, so far without success.

The customisation of the remote control is very flexible, with many functions that you can assign to buttons of your choice, and in circumstances of your choice (i.e. the same button can do different actions when in different panels).

(5) MP supports "skins" that provide a variety of look-and-feel. Although there is an overall similarity between skins (because the underlying application is the same -- MP), skins can vary panel flow, in addition to panel appearance. For example, the aMPed skin (whose forum you are in at the moment) requires just two button presses to exit from the "Home" panel to the Windows desktop. In contrast, the built-in "DefaultWide" skin requires 10 button presses to do the same thing (crikey!). A skin that is (I think) based on the WMC look-and-feel is the "Maya HD" skin (a new release was issued recently). I did install it in my test partition, but be aware that it installs a lot of other things too, things that you may (or may not) want.

Concluding Remarks
Am I going to stay with MP? The answer is "yes". The arrangement of the panels is different from WMC, but I will get used to that. Being the nit-picker that I am, there are some aspects of the panel layouts and panel flow that I would design differently if I were designing it. But I am not designing it, and what the MP Developers have provided is a very usable solution for my media-center needs.

MP has the advantage that it is still being developed. But the other side of the coin is that it is freeware, and that the Developers do all this in their own time, on their own schedule. That means that you cannot expect bug fixes or enhancements to made on any particular schedule, or indeed ever. So you should trial MP and assess its performance as it exists today, complete with "infelicities". If it is acceptable, use it (and just maybe those infelicities will be fixed in the future).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[milli260876]

That's a cracking response pal! Thanks for taking the time, I always remember your answers being in depth on tgb!
I'm tempted to wait for the Argus tv mediabrowser3 implementation. Honestly now I don't know what I'm going to do ...
The series link thing does concern me as the wife records allsorts of rubbish!!!

 

[CyberSimian]

The series link thing does concern me as the wife records all sorts of rubbish jolly-good programmes!!!

Yes, I would agree. Vista MC bases its series-linking on programme titles only, and that is the same as MP (Win7 MC is different in this respect). But both Vista and Win7 EPGs have unique programme ids that WMC uses to avoid recording the same episode twice; MP does not do that.

For someone migrating from WMC, series linking may be the biggest inhibitor. This is why I recommend setting up a parallel MP installation, and using it for real recording tasks, for several weeks. Only this way can you be sure that you will be satisifed with the rather limited series linking that MP offers compared to WMC.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[mm1352000]

@CyberSimian
Your summary is a very interesting read, thanks!

A few responses...

It is possible to use other sources of EPG information, including (I think) the WMC source. But bear in mind that MP will still not use any additional info that might be contained in that EPG (such as the "repeat" flag).

Yes, it is possible to use the WMC source with mc2xml (get it -->here<--) + the XMLTV plugin (comes with TV Server). It is true that TV Server still won't directly use the repeat flag, however you can use the mc2xml -a command line switch to add asterix (*) to the title for new programs. That gives you a way to differentiate between repeat and new programs. In other words, you can then schedule program "Click*" to get only the new episodes and avoid the repeats.

But MP does not understand how to get the metadata from these files, so no programme info is displayed. I tried mocking-up an XML file for one of my DVR-MS files, but MP did not use it. So unless there is some setting that I have missed, I think that you would need to convert your DVR-MS and WTV files to TS, and create XML files from the metadata. I have not tried this yet, so cannot confirm that it will definitely work. And even if it does, I am not sure that I want to spend the time converting my entire library of DVR-MS files to TS format! So I may just put up with no info.

Where were you looking at these files? In the videos section, or...?
I note that the XML files are required to import your recordings into TV Server. Importing your recordings can help with the new/repeat recording situation too, because if the recording metadata and EPG data has episode numbers or titles then you can use the built in feature that enables skipping of recordings. See "check episode of already recorded...":
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...V-Server_Configuration/07_Recording#Scheduler

...but annoyingly when you scroll the EPG left or right it always scrolls by 3 hours (I never liked this about WMC).

How are you scrolling?
I usually scroll by moving the "cursor" to the far right of the guide and then pressing "right" again, and in that case I'm 100% certain MP does not jump 3 hours. It just shows the next program.

For someone migrating from WMC, series linking may be the biggest inhibitor.

Do you know about this?
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...r-including-sky-uk-channel-epg-grabber.96767/

It is a customised version of MP + TV Server which supports series link for Sky UK. It may also support series link for Freeview [UK] and/or Freesat - not 100% sure about that. If series link is really that important to you then it would be worth asking. Make sure you consider the consequences of switching before jumping in, namely:

• the person who releases the custom version is responsible for supporting it
  
• compatibility with plugins and skins may be compromised
• upgrades corresponding with MP official releases may be significantly delayed (if released at all)

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experience.

 

[LJG]

Interesting thread! I had been using WMC since 2005 and migrated to MP in March 2012, it was an adjustment, but definitely so worth it, the additional functionality and options it provides over WMC are huge.

I got on okay with MP TV Server, there is a lot of work going on at the moment in re-writing it so a new, improved version will be out at some point. However, I recently got curious and gave Argus TV a go, as the back-end TV server, with MP as the main front-end, and although not perfect, it is good and I am sticking with it until the new MP TV Server is out. It may well solve some of your issues that you are having with the scheduling and EPG. Also, there is a scheduling app that can be installed on any windows machine (also the web based access works on Macs) which means I can access the Argus TV Server from my laptop to tweak schedules and alerts, I find this exceptionally useful.

Having said that, if you have satellite tuners, lots of people rave about the DJBlu plug in for MediaPortal TV Server, I have not been able to use it myself as I have no satellite dish / tuners and am using a DVB-T/T2 set up only. I also have two additional machines in bedrooms acting as MediaPortal clients, which give exactly the same experience as the main machine in the lounge, this option was never fully implemented for WMC.

With regard to your WMC recorded TV files, if the programmes are in www.thetvdb.com and /or imdb you could use the TV Series plug in or the Moving Pictures plug in to catalogue them and get all the metadata and artwork.

Anyway, I recently made a short video of my set up, just for fun (and to show off the custom artwork) using Titan extended skin, it's here:

 

[CyberSimian]

But MP does not understand how to get the metadata from these files, so no programme info is displayed. I tried mocking-up an XML file for one of my DVR-MS files, but MP did not use it.

Where were you looking at these files? In the videos section, or...?

I was in the "Videos" section, but I had not realised that the "aMPed" skin had made a conscious choice not to show the metadata in the "Videos" section (hence my erroneous conclusion)! I use the "aMPed" skin because of its wonderfully large fonts. I have just tried the "Default Wide" skin, and that does show the metadata that I mocked up for a DVR-MS file.

I have the technology to extract metadata from DVR-MS files, and am adept at using the REXX scripting language, so it will be relatively straightforward to write a REXX script to scan my recordings library and create XML files for all of the DVR-MS files.

I note that the XML files are required to import your recordings into TV Server. Importing your recordings can help with the new/repeat recording situation too, because if the recording metadata and EPG data has episode numbers or titles then you can use the built in feature that enables skipping of recordings.

The problem with the broadcast EPG in the UK is that it does not contain season numbers, episode numbers, or episode titles in any uniform or structured way -- if present at all, it is provided as plain text in the programme description. So unless someone has written a program-description parser with enough smarts to extract this info from the description, it is unlikely that those TV Server features could be used to avoid recording repeats (but this is something for me to explore in the coming weeks).

...but annoyingly when you scroll the EPG left or right it always scrolls by 3 hours (I never liked this about WMC).

How are you scrolling? I usually scroll by moving the "cursor" to the far right of the guide and then pressing "right" again, and in that case I'm 100% certain MP does not jump 3 hours. It just shows the next program.

Whilst having the first cup of coffee of the day, I usually switch on the HTPC to set the recordings for later that day (either one-off recordings, or series which are starting on that day). So sometime between 07.00 - 08.00 I usually set the recordings for around 12 hours later. To scroll quickly to the EPG for the evening, I use the "scroll EPG by 3 hours" function, which is F5 and F6 on the keyboard. I have customised my remote control to allocate these functions to the FAST_FORWARD and FAST_REWIND buttons (this is the same as WMC).

What annoyed me about this in WMC is that the EPG time window is 2 hours, but the EPG scrolls by 3 hours, so one can mistakenly scroll over the wanted programme without ever seeing it in the EPG! In contrast, my Humax PVR also has a 2-hour time window, but it scrolls by 2 hours. For MP, what I think that it should be doing is scrolling by the current size of the time window. Now I know that in MP I can adjust the size of the time window to 3 hours, but that results in time labels at the top of the EPG grid at 45 minute intervals, instead of one hour intervals, and that is just too difficult for me to get my head around!

For someone migrating from WMC, series linking may be the biggest inhibitor.

Do you know about this?
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...r-including-sky-uk-channel-epg-grabber.96767/

I have seen it mentioned in the fora, but have not (yet) explored it. Sky TV has its own EPG with its own series-linking features, which is possibly what that extension is using. But it may be satellite only, and it may be restricted to users who have a Sky STB and pay for a Sky subscription.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

@milli260876 -- I asked Dadeo to move this thread from the "aMPed" forum to the "Newcomers" forum, as it is of wider interest than just "aMPed" users.

 

[mm1352000]

The problem with the broadcast EPG in the UK is that it does not contain...

It is pretty much the same here in NZ. On DVB-T they only broadcast the current and next program in the EIT (standard DVB EPG format); the full guide is only available via MHEG 5; the only thing to uniquely identify series and episodes are CRIDs in the MHEG 5 data, but they're not human-readable.

You could try the EPG collector. I believe the latest version is able to parse the episode details out of the description.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcollector/

 

[CyberSimian]

However, I recently got curious and gave Argus TV a go ... It may well solve some of your issues that you are having with the scheduling and EPG.

Actually, I am hoping that one of the MP Developers living in the UK will eventually decide to create a plug-in (or built-in facility) that uses the (binary) series ids and programme ids in the UK DVB-T EPG to provide watertight series-linking.

if you have satellite tuners, lots of people rave about the DJBlu plug in. I have not been able to use it myself as I have no satellite dish / tuners and am using a DVB-T/T2 set up only.

Me too.

With regard to your WMC recorded TV files, if the programmes are in www.thetvdb.com and /or imdb you could use the TV Series plug in or the Moving Pictures plug in to catalogue them and get all the metadata and artwork.

I have never investigated those databases (TV and movies), but I would imagine that they were created by Americans for Americans, and I have a hard time believing that they would work at all with UK programmes, and UK descriptions of US programmes. ( You will notice that I am speaking with authority from a position of complete ignorance.)

Anyway, I recently made a short video of my set up, just for fun (and to show off the custom artwork) using Titan extended skin.

When I decided to migrate from WMC to MP, I thought that I would stick with the standard skins available, and not start making personal changes to the skins (makes upgrading to the next release simpler). I am already starting to reconsider that decision...

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[LJG]

A couple of things to add....

thetvdb.com database is editable, so if it's not in there you can add it, but you may be suprised at what is in there already. The beauty is that's once it's in and your file is named correctly eg., The Great British Bake Off s02e03 (yes, that's in there) many HTPC databases will recognise it and autoscrape the artwork and metadata.

When I was using MP TV Server I managed to get series and episode data for most channels (not radio) using XMLTVGUI and the RadioTimes grabber. I am not sure that would necessarily get you water tight series linking, but it's worth a try. I think there is a post processor in there (XMLTVGUI) to add a Repeat flag as well. Argus TV definitely uses that, I think MP might too.