It would be nice to have a "Media Portal 2 for Windows Media Center Refugees" document/topic...
I have successfully installed MP2 (the latest, Summer 2016 edition) on a Windows 7 (Ultimate) machine that may have to migrate to Windows 10.
This is a single-seat machine; 3 TV tuners (a single + a dual card; also has FM radio) in the US. I want to play live TV and record scheduled TV.
Although MP2 is impressive and probably can replace WMC, I'm having a difficult time adjusting to the UI.
I thought I should share the experience before I adapt. I have also identified some opportunities for improvement.
Here are the issues I've faced in the first day with MP2:
I have successfully installed MP2 (the latest, Summer 2016 edition) on a Windows 7 (Ultimate) machine that may have to migrate to Windows 10.
This is a single-seat machine; 3 TV tuners (a single + a dual card; also has FM radio) in the US. I want to play live TV and record scheduled TV.
Although MP2 is impressive and probably can replace WMC, I'm having a difficult time adjusting to the UI.
I thought I should share the experience before I adapt. I have also identified some opportunities for improvement.
Here are the issues I've faced in the first day with MP2:
- This is a desktop machine. Although I do have an IR remote, I am used to operating with a mouse/keyboard.
- Finding the keyboard shorcuts has been a challenge. The MP2 docs refer back to MP1 for TV, but the MP1 shortcuts seem to be
different. There is a list of MP2 shortcut actions, but I couldn't find the mapping between the actions and the keys. I expected the
configuration application to at least have a list... - With WMC, I can drag the current position forward or back (with a mouse) to skip or replay content. I haven't figured out how to
do this with MP2. - F7 and F8 are supposed to skip commercials back/forward (if I found the right doc). They seem to have no effect - at least on a
recording that I'm playing of a live broadcast. (That is, the recording started 15 mins before I started watching. So I selected "watch
recording from beginning" from the program guide.) - The Icons on the home screen aren't obvious. I'll learn them eventually, but it would be helpful if there were tooltips that identified them.
- When I click on a program from the Guide, sometimes it will start to play. Sometimes there's a (>) play icon on the guide. Sometimes not.
- Sometimes there's a "choose program action" box. I'm confused about how that's supposed to work. There seem to be too many modes...
- The square box on the top bar also needs a tooltip - I finally figured out that it controls picture in picture or main screen. I haven't figured
out how to close PIP once it is open, or how to switch the audio between the PIP and the main program. - Typing numbers on the numeric pad or remote doesn't do anything.
- In the configuration, all the channels have names (usually the call letters and/or network). I get almost 40 OTA channels. It's very difficult
to map the siteid channeled for the guide. It would be helpful if the WebEPG "TV Mappings" tab had an "export" tab to initialize the XML
file with the list of Channel ids. - It would be really helpful if the virtual channel number was present in the configuration and guide. (e.g. WGBH-HD 2.1); in the U.S.
everything is oriented around the virtual channel number rather than the call letters.(The virtual channel number is not the broadcast
frequency, but the old Analog channel number of the station.) We expect the guide and channels to be in order by virtual channel
number, not by broadcast frequency or channel id. Also, The "Channel id" is not unique. For example, the "MeTV" network
is broadcast on the subchannels of two different stations in my area. - The WebEPG mapping really should be from the virtual channel number, not from the text names...
- I configured the Recording Folders for the server to be "C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV". But the recordings are ending up in
"C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\recordings" Why? How do I get them to be stored where I want them? - The folder where the server is storing recordings is not listed as a media source by default. I found it by starting a recording and
looking at the open handles. It would be helpful if the default configuration listed the server's folder as a media source - at least
for configurations where the client and server are collated.