[Need feedback] Installation/Setup experience of MP (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Frodo
- Start date
For me the most difficult part is to correctly setup the tv channels, b/c you have your channel-tv card connection, then you have groups and then you have to bring them in the right order.
Making this section easier and more understandable would be great.
What about doing something like a tree view where you have your groups and channels where you can move your channel, duplicate it and whatever you want. Highlighting a channel you can edit it and make the channel - tv card selection (drop down menu).
(Same applies to the radio section)
Another thing is the plugin section. when I entered it the last time there were so many new plugins that I did not even know what they were doing.
Would be great if the developers of the plugins would have to write a small "What's this?" and a small "Howto" that would be able to open in context menu of each plugin.
HTH
cheffe
Making this section easier and more understandable would be great.
What about doing something like a tree view where you have your groups and channels where you can move your channel, duplicate it and whatever you want. Highlighting a channel you can edit it and make the channel - tv card selection (drop down menu).
(Same applies to the radio section)
Another thing is the plugin section. when I entered it the last time there were so many new plugins that I did not even know what they were doing.
Would be great if the developers of the plugins would have to write a small "What's this?" and a small "Howto" that would be able to open in context menu of each plugin.
HTH
cheffe
I've been using MP for some time running Ver 2.1 an upgrade route to 2.2 would be nice!!!! I'm looking at installing ver 2.2 but find it a bit of a worry when it tells me I must uninstall my previous version. What will happen to all the info in my database's... Movie's (950) Tagged and Music (5500) CD's tagged????
I have had much fun lately with MediaPortal. The initial setup is VERY easy. But I have a few things I would like different. Some of these might be wrong due to poor memory, so I hope you can be patient 
I would prefer to just get a question if I would like to run the setup wizard or not. The setup should be ok out of the box for some of the functions.
No scanning of harddrives. Just a question about what is the base folders for video, music and pictures. I have everything sorted anyway, and I really do not want to have all pictures that are part of Windows or installed programs to show up in my slideshows...
A few more plug-ins activated and at least one more added. I had to search a bit before I realised that plug-ins had to be activated in the setup. The Podcast plugin works very well and deserves to be a default plug-in, activated and a few podcasts added as default. Also, it would be nice to have 5 or 10 streaming radio stations added to My Radio as default.
I would love to see a password on all settings. A "party mode". Or "parental mode". Just so that nobody can mess with the system besides just playing what they have access to. I really do not want to let anyone reorganize my music or videos. Not access any other setting for that matter.
Plug-ins and skins should have their own installation tab in the settings application. Take a look at the way a plug-in or template is added in Joomla. You browse your local pc for the file and then choose upload. The local file is a zip-file and there is an xml-file in the root of the zip-file that describes where every file goes. A much easier process. And when you have added a new plug-in, it should be activated by default, and you should be taken straight to the configuration for that plug-in. This plug-in tab would of course hold a list of all installed plug-ins and the possibility to uninstall them.
If more comes up, I will add it later.
I would prefer to just get a question if I would like to run the setup wizard or not. The setup should be ok out of the box for some of the functions.
No scanning of harddrives. Just a question about what is the base folders for video, music and pictures. I have everything sorted anyway, and I really do not want to have all pictures that are part of Windows or installed programs to show up in my slideshows...
A few more plug-ins activated and at least one more added. I had to search a bit before I realised that plug-ins had to be activated in the setup. The Podcast plugin works very well and deserves to be a default plug-in, activated and a few podcasts added as default. Also, it would be nice to have 5 or 10 streaming radio stations added to My Radio as default.
I would love to see a password on all settings. A "party mode". Or "parental mode". Just so that nobody can mess with the system besides just playing what they have access to. I really do not want to let anyone reorganize my music or videos. Not access any other setting for that matter.
Plug-ins and skins should have their own installation tab in the settings application. Take a look at the way a plug-in or template is added in Joomla. You browse your local pc for the file and then choose upload. The local file is a zip-file and there is an xml-file in the root of the zip-file that describes where every file goes. A much easier process. And when you have added a new plug-in, it should be activated by default, and you should be taken straight to the configuration for that plug-in. This plug-in tab would of course hold a list of all installed plug-ins and the possibility to uninstall them.
If more comes up, I will add it later.
- February 12, 2007
- 4
- 0
- Home Country
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Norway
My thought - Newbie XXL
1. What did you have to do before you got MP up & running ?
After going trough the setp-menus I had some difficulties with the EPG/Programguide. I still don't like the interface and think it could be done better when it comes to how it looks. Maybe a screen for each channel, so that you could get a better view or at least a bigger screen-output.
2. What could be improved to make install & configuration easier ?
I don't know if it's just me, but the selection on options does go quiet fast and runs past what I looking for. I then have to use the keyboard for selecting the right menu-topic.
Have been looking for some guide from a-z, but can't find any good ones!
As mentioned above, the EPG part is quite tricky! But I'm a newbie!
Thanks for putting out this post!
1. What did you have to do before you got MP up & running ?
After going trough the setp-menus I had some difficulties with the EPG/Programguide. I still don't like the interface and think it could be done better when it comes to how it looks. Maybe a screen for each channel, so that you could get a better view or at least a bigger screen-output.
2. What could be improved to make install & configuration easier ?
I don't know if it's just me, but the selection on options does go quiet fast and runs past what I looking for. I then have to use the keyboard for selecting the right menu-topic.
Have been looking for some guide from a-z, but can't find any good ones!
As mentioned above, the EPG part is quite tricky! But I'm a newbie!
Thanks for putting out this post!
- August 17, 2007
- 23
- 0
A Game emulator wizard would be nice.
I guess you're not aiming at the TVengine3 setup...?
I'm a Linux user, so for me setting up Windows software always seems easy
The most time consuming parts, especially when you've never done it before, is setting up TV and Radio channels and configuring WebEPG. I think those two/three elements might cause some people to stop trying to install MP and start using Windows MCE. I would love to help brainstorming about simplifying that process.
I think WebEPG should be easier accessible. A TAB in the setup would be nice. The XmltTV 2 plugin for the TV server is a good example of how setting up a EPG can be made easier.
An easier way to backup some steady parts in the configuration could be very helpfull (directory configuration, views, TV/Radio channels, WebEPG).
I'm a Linux user, so for me setting up Windows software always seems easy
The most time consuming parts, especially when you've never done it before, is setting up TV and Radio channels and configuring WebEPG. I think those two/three elements might cause some people to stop trying to install MP and start using Windows MCE. I would love to help brainstorming about simplifying that process.
I think WebEPG should be easier accessible. A TAB in the setup would be nice. The XmltTV 2 plugin for the TV server is a good example of how setting up a EPG can be made easier.
An easier way to backup some steady parts in the configuration could be very helpfull (directory configuration, views, TV/Radio channels, WebEPG).
- August 12, 2007
- 83
- 4
- 63
- Home Country
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I've just recently (in the last two weeks) installed MP for the first time and was reasonably happy with the installation. By far the most confusing part of MP is the EPG.
What would be very useful would be better explanations of what is needed/what your choices are and for the more advanced user, the mechanism involved. I have many years experience with computers and have been using other applications (webscheduler) for free to air recording for many months and have always had working EPG's from various different sources. Unfortunately, I had no end of problems coming to grips with the way MP does things. I have a multitude of programs that can create a "tvguide.xml" file, but the method of getting that file to be read initially seemed to be a mystery, no matter how much I read. Only after PM'ing another user was I informed that XMLTV was required to load the data into MP. My assumption was that the XMLTV program was a utility to source the program guide, not to load alternative program giudes into MP.
Nevertheless, the program is very good and once the final bugs are ironed out of TV Engine 3, it will be awsome. Much kudos to the developers.
What would be very useful would be better explanations of what is needed/what your choices are and for the more advanced user, the mechanism involved. I have many years experience with computers and have been using other applications (webscheduler) for free to air recording for many months and have always had working EPG's from various different sources. Unfortunately, I had no end of problems coming to grips with the way MP does things. I have a multitude of programs that can create a "tvguide.xml" file, but the method of getting that file to be read initially seemed to be a mystery, no matter how much I read. Only after PM'ing another user was I informed that XMLTV was required to load the data into MP. My assumption was that the XMLTV program was a utility to source the program guide, not to load alternative program giudes into MP.
Nevertheless, the program is very good and once the final bugs are ironed out of TV Engine 3, it will be awsome. Much kudos to the developers.