Moving from WMC: MP Extenders? (1 Viewer)

[Kaplah]

Hello, I'm a long time WMC user who has a couple of systems running in a few households. WMC was good keeping my mother's cable bill half what it could have been with the cost of equipment rental. Unfortunately with half the features now broken (Netflix, CBS, Sports) I'm finding it difficult to keep this thing online and worse I need to expand the system from one TV to a server client style multi head system.

As such I'm interested in switching to Mediaportal. I've seen there is a thread from 2011 about extenders, but nothing current. Has anything changed here? Can I use Android or Roku devices as "Extenders" (Sorry for the WMC terminology)? Or if I need a full Windows system as a client, can I use the new Raspberry Pi 2?

Right now I'm running a custom PC with a quad core cpu and a Infinitv 4 PCIe card as a "cablebox". I'm looking to turn that into a hidden server somewhere in the basement backed up by more storage and have some small inexpensive boxes as clients for the various TV's. I need something that has a high "wife approval factor". I need "Extenders" that not only give me access to my cable tv service, but also to Netflix/Hulu/Amazon all from the same device with a 10 foot interface. So far all I have found that can do this is WMC on a xbox 360 extender.

 

[Charlie TV]

Hi Kaplah,

I use Intel NUCs with Windows 7, they are silent but strong and can handle full HD 1080p with multi channel audio streams without any stuttering, are headless and work perfectly. They are expensive but I got fed up with buying under performing hardware thinking I was saving money only to have to replace kit again. I also found that in a multi-client environment that one low powered "extender" would gradually pull the entire system down if streaming Live TV but I don't really know why or if that is still the case with the later versions of MediaPortal.

http://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/nuc/nuc-kit-dc3217iye.html

Hope that helps

Cheers

 

[LJG]

Hi, I also use a mixture of existing Windows PC's as extenders for MediaPortal, mostly recycled when machines have upgrades. One of the massive advantages over WMC and xbox's is that you can have the exact same experience from the extenders as you do from the main machine - no limitations on file types. In fact when I move house I will have one big server in a loft room, acting as both tv and file server, and only small NUC's or similar attached to each TV in the house.

A tip with software - if you use the MP TV Series and Moving Pictures plug-ins with Trakt, then Trakt will update all of your watched / unwatched flags across all the machines. Additionally it will save the resume time on Films and TV Series, so you can start watching something on one machine, then stop it and resume it on another machine.

Another advantage is that each machine acts as a back up - so if you have a hard drive failure for example on one of the devices, everything will be backed up on another device.

 

[Kaplah]

Thank you for the responses! I'll have to take a look into this. I have two WMC systems running in various states. One of the systems I may switch over as I'm not invested in the ecosystem as much. Buying a NUC or other similar tiny form factor pc won't be an issue.

Another quick question. Does Mediaportal have the program recording feature MS never included that all cable company boxes did where if I'm watching a show and I decide to record it half way through I record the entire show right back to the start?

 

[Edalex]

Another quick question. Does Mediaportal have the program recording feature MS never included that all cable company boxes did where if I'm watching a show and I decide to record it half way through I record the entire show right back to the start?

Hello, our developer @regeszter did some coding about it but I don't know what's the current state of this feature, I hope he can answer.

 

[regeszter]

Another quick question. Does Mediaportal have the program recording feature MS never included that all cable company boxes did where if I'm watching a show and I decide to record it half way through I record the entire show right back to the start?

Hello, our developer @regeszter did some coding about it but I don't know what's the current state of this feature, I hope he can answer.

Try the TsBufferExtractor plugin.