MP vs. GBPVR (3 Viewers)

[alpax]

Smooth playback, very stable, and not resource hungry at all.

I had some issues with GBPVR front-end stability. Luckily it didn't affect recording services (that's where you need client/server!).
Smooth playback in GBPVR on my more powerful machine than yours could be achieved only by switching to Overlay mode (there was tearing in all other modes), which means - no transparency (black control/info bar covers half of the screen), ugly fonts, and some issues with aspect ratio - in this mode GBPVR does not switch aspect ratio automatically for some reason - I always had to switch manually between 4:3 and 16:9 depending on the video file watched. Finally I just set up using of an video player for non-TV videos, which required some more tweaking and caused some other smaller issues.

Zap2it is seemless.

Yes, and I like that.

Besides, all other needed functioinality is there (Video playback, DVD, Music Library, Photos, Weather ...etc.)

Yes, technically it's there. But, when you try to use that, honestly it's not so good. I haven't found a Video plugin, which could suit my needs - which could have an icon view with thumbnails made from video files themselves, for example. My Video is close enough, but it has some bugs, does not work correctly with the latest GBPVR version, and its author stopped its development and support. Photos plugin is basically not customizable, and does not have transition effects. And why doesn't it skip the folder.jpg thumbnail file, which is small, overcompressed, and looks just ugly? Music plugin cannot skip through the file (or can it? it doesn't work for me). DVD player has frequent issues with DVD menu navigation. VideoCD's are not supported... Etc, etc...

so why go to a more resource intensive applicaion with big headaches to install and config just because it has a couple of skins that are 'nicer' looking?

I would like to have more control on the application. I want to customize remote control buttons. I want to adjust the interface to make the best usage of my TV screen. I want to enjoy the photo slide show, but not just watch it. I want to have a faster user interface (some plugins are just sooo slooow!).

Stability, resource hunger, easy of installation and config is far more important to me than 'pretty' interface.

I agree, but the interface could be not only pretty, but more functional as well.

PVR-part of GBPVR is excellent - that's why I'm using it. But everything else could be better - that's why I'm seriously considering switching to MP.

 

[alpax]

But could you elaborate more on this please? I'm specifically interested in comskip functionality.

In the tv server configuration there is a place where you can link to a comskip batch file. I think comskip (downloaded separately) comes with some sample batch files that you can easily modify with notepad to fit your needs. I'm not sure about when it is triggered, I haven't played around with that feature of the tv server yet. I used to use comskip when I was on the GBPVR kick but I could never get it perfect, and after one too many times of it cutting off the end of a television episode (where they reveal the mystery), I cut comskip loose.

I believe I didn't do anything special to make comskip work - maybe just edited the path in a batch file. But the main idea of comskip support is not running it, but using the generated log-file to skip commercials while watching - without cutting them out!
Even if comskip made a mistake and marked a part of the show as a commercial, you can easily rewind and watch the skipped part. I agree to do this once for maybe 10 recordings - that's how rarely I face such an error. But all other tens and hundreds of commercials will be skipped fully automatically.

To my opinion this is a "must have" feature for any PVR-application - who wants to watch recorded commercials?!?

Does TV server have more recording options now? "Record season in a time slot" is what I'm looking for mostly.

MP has "record show every week at this time on this channel", which is similar to what you're asking about. I use it all the time.

This is completely different thing! With this option MP doesn't care about what actually shows on TV - it just blindly records that channel at that time.

MP is not smart enough to figure out when there is a rerun and MP will not tell you if the schedule changed. For example, I have mine set to record Family Guy and American Dad every week, hoping to get a new one every week. So I go into the recorded tv shows and I find out that instead of getting the shows I wanted, it recorded two half hour segments of X-Men 2. MP recorded on the time and channel I wanted, but didn't tell me that Fox was airing a movie instead of their usual programming. It can be frustrating, I won't lie to you.

That is what I'm talking about! Unfortunately it seems like not smart at all! If the show start time changes (plus/minus 10 minutes, and it is in the guide!), it cannot figure that out. I got a lot of children shows (which tend to move around) cut off at the beginning or the end because of that - kids were very unhappy.
If the show episode is cancelled or moved to the next week, MP will record just what will be shown at that time.
I don't remember, what exact option I used once - something like "Record all episodes at this time", but MP could not decide what to do when the show was on two channels at the same time. Its log was full of notes about this conflict, and finally it stopped recording 5 minutes before the episode end (the most important part!), and started recording another channel, where nothing interesting was shown at that time! I think that was "the last straw", after which I switched to GBPVR.

GBPVR checks the recording schedule against the actual TV guide, confirms that the show episode is on this channel at this time. If you selected not the exact time but the time slot, it will record the episode correctly regardless of its start time - 7 or 8pm.

That is what I'm looking for. Hope that the new MP's TV engine will be finally able to do the same. May be it already does that? I will check it out for sure when will have time.

 

[alpax]

Mp + Gbpvr

OK, I've tried both MP's TV-engines - 0.2 and the new TV-server.
I have to say: at this point I still like this functionality more in GBPVR - it is simpler, more intuitive, faster, more stable, has better recording options (already can do the "fuzzy recording", for example).

And I thought - why not combine the best parts of these two applications? So in GBPVR I disabled all plugins not related to the TV functionality. In MP I disabled My TV plugin and TV-related remote buttons, installed MultiShortcut plugin, set it up to run GBPVR, and named "My TV" - this is shown in the main menu.

Main application is MediaPortal - it provides all the regular HTPC features. When I want to watch TV or record some shows, I select "My TV", which starts GBPVR. By the way it launches pretty quickly - comparable to TV-server initialization, and actually visually it is very similar to MP's My TV screen, which is implemented as a separate module having the only entry point in the main menu. When I'm done with TV, I choose Exit in GBPVR and return back to MP. GBPVR recording service keeps running as usual - that is my TV-server.
When GBPVR finishes recording it starts ComSkip as always, the utility generates .cut/.chp files for ZoomPlayer, which I use as an external video player in MP. This means I also have automatic commercial skipping (one of the important PVR features MP itself doesn't have).

The only drawback I see with this configuration is that I have to watch recordings in MP using My Videos module - i.e. go to the separate TV folder, where all my recordings are, and I don't see the recording descriptions. But that's not a big deal. In general this approach seems to work better for me.

 

[mdbarber]

a newbies point of view

tried gbpvr for a couple of weeks errrmmm,, not really that stable i thought
certainy had more crashes that i have had in mp,, but this is a new project and expected a few bsods etc (tbh have had a lot less than expected from both apps)
mp seems a lot more responsive on most features, despite 1gb ddr2, 3.oghz celeron ,sata2 hdd gbpvr felt quite sluggish
despite extensive system tuning experience i just couldnt get the bugger to reallly move
the killer for me was no dvb-t radio support which had the mrs at my throat,, she likes the radio whilst reading paper
any way will keeps my eyes on both but for speed,features,ease of use and yes even stabilty mp wins it for me
regrds
mdb

 

[alpax]

tried gbpvr for a couple of weeks errrmmm,, not really that stable i thought
certainy had more crashes that i have had in mp,,

Well, this apparently depends on the specific configuration. GBPVR was more stable on mine than MP. Though after some time with MP I'd say that in terms of stability it has improved significantly since the last year.

but this is a new project

GBPVR has been around for a while - for almost 4 years I believe.

and expected a few bsods etc (tbh have had a lot less than expected from both apps)

Come on! These are just applications - not hardware drivers. You shouldn't get any BSODs if your system itself is not broken.

mp seems a lot more responsive on most features, despite 1gb ddr2, 3.oghz celeron ,sata2 hdd gbpvr felt quite sluggish

Yes, I found that too. Especially was noticeable in some plugins.

But I still like its PVR functionality much more than MP's.

 

[mdbarber]

wow v pedantic here, i better watch my mouth
the new project is mine not gbpvr,
ive had quite a few bsods from apps alone though xp has improved things i only went to it 12mths ago, 90% of the 20 or so systems i work on weekly are dos/win95/win98 machines and xp is such a slug
as i said the pc is a new project build so unsure of the hardware/compatibilty etc,, this is not being done on my main machine and as always with a new build expect the unexpected

 

[mclog]

Last time I looked at GB-PVR, several months ago, it didn't work with CI/CAM, does it support that now?

 

[f0rmula]

wow v pedantic here, i better watch my mouth

Err.. I'm not quite sure what you expected?

If you say something that's wrong, people will correct you. This is a forum. If they don't people will read it and become misinformed.

James

 

[alpax]

Last time I looked at GB-PVR, several months ago, it didn't work with CI/CAM, does it support that now?

Sorry - I have no idea what CI/CAM means, but it doesn't seem to be supported in the near future:

I've got no plans for CAM support in the near future, but in many parts of the world you'll be able to use multidec plugins to achieve the same thing.

Here's the thread about this.

 

[Efros]

tried GB-PVR as it will apparently recognize my Diamond Xtreme TV card. Set it up, fairly straight forward, pull in EPG, watched TV, looked to watch some videos, no rmvb support. Bleugh. Found My Movies plugin which is no longer supported which allegedly gives rmvb support, ran gb-pvr with this plugin start movie CRASH. no BSOD but MS error report thingy. UNinstalled back to my MP!!