[Need feedback] Installation/Setup experience of MP (2 Viewers)

[Olodin]

One minor suggestion:

Afaik drives always re-appear in the folder setup when opening the MediaPortal configuration, changing something and saving. Seems to me as it the configuration.exe always scans for new cd/dvd/virtual drives and automatically adds them.
(see here: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/showthread.php?p=85559)

I suggest to automatically add drives only on the first startup of configuration.exe and/or with the configuration wizard.
Whenever changing some configuration afterwards, the drives should not be added automatically.

 

[ca n vt]

I tried to think back as much as I could to when I was setting Media Portal up as to why it was such a problem for me. A lot of it was my own fault. Having not dealt with much pvr or htpc software before I had to kind of learn on the fly but I was just having a discussion with someone over whey GBPVR was such an easier setup and I had to agree it was. I say this not to say GBPVR is better but maybe there are some things that can be taken from the way there set up is to improve the media portal set up. I know that I spent days trying to tweak media portal to get it to work right and had GBPVR up and running doing all the basic things that I wanted it to do in probably about 20 minutes. That's a huge difference.

One thing I would do is somehow integrate the wizard and the "media portal setup". I know when I first started I kept trying to use the wizard to reconfigure things from within media portal and it was pretty much useless to me. I made no progress. I know GBPVR has their "config" as part of the initial setup process. Another thing is the Zap2it plugin should be right up front and easy to find in the initial setup because that solved a ton of problems for me anyway. One major issue I was having was getting Media Portal to recognize the signal from my pvr-150 card. Since it was coming in from s-video I had a hard time getting it to do that and once it did then I had recording issues because I still didn't have a working epg. Zap2it takes care of both those.

While there is a lot of stuff on codecs in the forums it would be nice if there was a simpler way to figure out exactly what to use. In the example of GBPVR there was an option to just use my default system codecs and I've never had a problem with them. But definitely something that would evaluate what you have available and what the best one to use would be great.

There is always a danger in getting too simple with the setup too I suppose. For example I tried Sage and Beyond TV and became frustrated with those because even though the initial setup was very easy if something went wrong it was hard to fix it because you weren't given very many options and they definitely weren't as customizeable.

While I loved a lot of things about Media Portal as far as the way it looks, the video player funtionality, the dvd player and a ton of great plugins it is really frustrating when the main thing that you got the software for is watching and recording tv and you can't get it to properly do that. I think people are much more patient with problems in other areas then this so if you can get the tv issues ironed out that is a huge step. I know that for me right now I use media portal for just about everything but TV because live tv on GBPVR still works better but if that was ironed out I would use nothing but Media Portal. I still use it quite a bit for that too of course.

I know I'm not the most technically savvy guy here so I don't know if this is helpful or not but I hope it is. Thanks a lot for Medai Portal I really do enjoy it. Even if this sounds somewhat critical I'm really not that down on it I just thought that maybe this might help make it better.

 

[ashtonaut]

Here are my impressions from recently completing the Setup Wizard (0.2.1):

I would prefer to have the Wizard run immediately after the installation finishes. This way, after the wizard has completed, the user can run the setup application if they need to, before MP launches, or choose to immediately start MP.

Wizard in General
All screens could do with a more detailed description in the white space at the top, clearly explaining for first-time users what this particular step is going to configure.

[2/8] - General Information
There are a lot of settings here. Perhaps put them under category titles/tabs? Some descriptions could be more 'descriptive' e.g. 'Start with basic home screen', 'Autosize window mode to skin' - someone installing MP for the first time will have no idea what this means, and under what circumstances they might want to change this.

[3/8] - Skin Settings
From what I have read, the devs are aiming for one default skin for MediaPortal. So, at this screen, why not just ask "what aspect ratio is your display?" (4:3 or 16:9), and display the corresponding version of BlueTwo? There could also be a note letting users know that more skins can be obtained at xyz.com...

[4/8] - Media
I don't like this step. It assumes that ALL media found on the PC is intended for viewing with MediaPortal. As a first-time user, I would prefer seeing these options:

Select the folder(s) containing your movies
Select the folder(s) containing your music
Select the folder(s) containing your photos

The current scan system takes a long time, and indexes a lot of unwanted media.

[5/8] - Television Program Guide
As I don't use the TV features at the moment, I won't go into detail here. However, this screen looks horribly complicated, particularly for a user who hasn't set up a HTPC before.

[6/8] - Remote Control
The 'use MS MCE remote' is ticked by default. Is this intended? Perhaps conditional options here would be easier for users to configure i.e. first, choose remote type (or no remote at all), then present them with a list of options for that remote type.

[7/8] - Weather
This screen is pretty straight forward

[8/8] - Congratulations
Perhaps at this stage users could be again reminded that many more, detailed settings are available by running the MediaPortal Setup application.

There is a lot of setup required to get a HTPC configured and working properly, so congratulations to the devs for getting things to this stage of 'user-friendliness' I look forward to further improvements in the installation/setup in the future.

 

[zswman]

The most difficult thing about setup? Installing a new version and having to restore all my settings, especially the "home" layout because the plugin is buggy.

 

[Noelix]

I have to agree with a lot of other uses who mention the EPG being the most difficult part. Until this zap2it plugin came along it was pretty difficult to get it downloaded (and automated). The TV part of MediaPortal is by far the most important part of the program, IMO. When you start configuring MP in the wizard, it should ask you your location (and thereby determine whether you can use zap2it, webEPG, or xmltv), and then give you your recommended EPG options (like zap2it plugin for the USA). After this the user should be prompted to take the necessary steps to get the epg working properly (i.e. create a zap2it account). With a zap2it account you don't need to autotune your channels so that can be skipped, and with the others I think an autotune is necessary, so those steps would branch off to do that. It's a bit of setup in the beginning, yes, but ultimately having all that information up front to get it working correctly will make their first experience running MP a positive one. So after all the setup wizardry is done, the user can just launch MP and boom, their epg gets downloaded, and boom, they can pick their tv program.

 

[leo212]

1. The new MP is depended on many software (.NET 2.0, .NET 1.1, WMP10, SQLServer), it could be nice if the setup will detect, download and install automaticly those.
2. No Wizards - Just "Plug & Play" using default setting.
3. Remove the duplications in "Configuration.exe" and the Setup in MP.
4. Auto detect and download codec and extra tools (AC3Filter, MatrixMixer, VOBSub, etc...)
5. Auto Update to the last Stable version. (without prompting a thing)

 

[framug]

Hello,

1. What did you have to do before you got MP up & running ?

Each time of new fresh install (for SVN testing) :
- Configuring TV cards (priority, country, folder path...)
- folder path for music, picture, video, TV
- configuring aspect/ratio (ie DVD format zoom) for video stream (DVD/TV/Movie)
- choosing country(ies) for weather and internet path for pictures (wind,...)
- adding all websites RSS adress for informations plugin and pictures, sometimes
- configuring irtrans remote (with backup for xml remote file in input device mapping folder).
- configuring webepg by wepepg-conf.


2. What could be improved to make install & configuration easier ?

- Maybe a possibility to save all those informations in a config file, with ability of backup/restore parameters.
- Trying to put all specifics config files in a same folder with different subfolders (like the thumbs folder for pictures). remote file, channellist file....
- Maybe a multilanguage interface for configuration.exe (improved by users with differents .xml or .lng files, for example)


Regards.

 

[mzemina]

Hello,

1. What did you have to do before you got MP up & running ?

Each time of new fresh install (for SVN testing) :
- Configuring TV cards (priority, country, folder path...)
- folder path for music, picture, video, TV
- configuring aspect/ratio (ie DVD format zoom) for video stream (DVD/TV/Movie)
- choosing country(ies) for weather and internet path for pictures (wind,...)
- adding all websites RSS adress for informations plugin and pictures, sometimes
- configuring irtrans remote (with backup for xml remote file in input device mapping folder).
- configuring webepg by wepepg-conf.


2. What could be improved to make install & configuration easier ?

- Maybe a possibility to save all those informations in a config file, with ability of backup/restore parameters.
- Trying to put all specifics config files in a same folder with different subfolders (like the thumbs folder for pictures). remote file, channellist file....
- Maybe a multilanguage interface for configuration.exe (improved by users with differents .xml or .lng files, for example)


Regards.

I agree with the first part of your (2) Then if there needs to be any conversion from one release to the next the developers can convert the needed areas of that file, then the setup can be made from the converted config file!

Mike

 

[SweMart]

2. What could be improved to make install & configuration easier ?

How about integrating the WebEPG configuration in MediaPortal(i.e. set it up using the remote from within MP), kinda the way MCE does it.

The same really goes for scanning channels, it would be nice if more config options were to be moved into MP.

I know this requires a lot of work but I think think a lot of unexperienced users would like this.

 

[pbb]

Two setup improvements that I can think of right now:

• The media scanning takes a long time and blocks further use of the configuration program. It would be great if this could be a background process.
  
• Integrate the configuration program in the main MediaPortal interface. Now it feels like a harsh separation between the warm and cosy confines of MediaPortal and the cold harsh looks of the config program.