Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="alpax" data-source="post: 123772" data-attributes="member: 24528">Well, I've tried both, and here are my thoughts (note: I used MP several months ago).GBPVR was more stable on my machine than MP. Its PVR functionality was much better than MP's. It's been using client/server architecture from the very beginning (or at least for a long time already), and it does not require the monstrous MS SQL server to be installed for this. It was much easier to setup to get TV guide from Zap2It, and this feature worked flawlessly - just set once and forget. Recording options were better in GBPVR - for example MP didn't have an option to record a TV show season in a given timeslot - for those shows, which start time varies a little. GBPVR recorded directly to .MPG, and natively supported comskip - could skip commercials without need to cut them out. A very solid PVR component was the main reason why I chose GBPVR.But all other HTPC features in GBPVR are very basic. Interface is very simple. It is quite functional, with big readable fonts, clearly defined controls and functional areas on the screen, but it is too unsophisticated. Even skins do not improve that a lot. I would compare it to MP as PalmOS to Windows Mobile in PDA world (if you understand what I mean). Photo, Music, Video plugins are very basic. There are some replacement plugins, but not all of them work with the latest version of GBPVR, and also have some issues (like most of them are quite slow).MediaPortal is definitely a much richer HTPC application. It is very configurable, nice looking, has a lot of features, useful plugins, all the bells and whistles... But it froze and crashed too frequently on my machine. Its TV/PVR functionality did not compare to GBPVR - there were no separate recording service, direct recording to MPG, auto-skipping of commercials, fast channel switching, and there were issues with TV guide (for several months of using MP I was continuously struggling with TV guide hiccups, and still don't understand how to make it work properly). So after some time I gave up and on the next clean Windows setup did not install MP at all.For the last 4-5 months I've been with GBPVR only. I'm happy with that how it handles TV recordings, I found some plugins, which improved other features a little bit. But I'm tired of its boring interface, I miss some configurability - I want to change remote button actions, I need good photo/music/video plugins (some of those I've been using still have issues to be resolved, but are not supported anymore).So I'd like to give another try to MP. TV server seems to be a good thing - it should improve some aspects in PVR area, though I'd prefer if it didn't use MS SQL server. Hope Zap2it plugin is already polished enough to be used successfully for automatic TV guide update. But I don't see any mentioning of the improvement in commercials handling. Hasn't the situation changed yet? The only way to skip commercials was to cut them out with a risk to lose a part of the recording, is it still the same?I would be really happy if MediaPortal's PVR functionality could finally match GBPVR. This is basically the only area, where GBPVR wins. I'm waiting for that moment when I finally could leave only one application on my HTPC and do not miss the other.Sorry for the long message. Thanks for reading!</blockquote>

Verification