- April 24, 2011
- 7
- 3
I'm a WMC and XBMC user, and every now and again I like to check out the alternatives - I'm probably not gonna stick with MediaPortal yet - but thought I'd share some experiences as feedback.
Installation of MediaPortal is a little scary... WMC is preinstalled with Win 7 so not a fair comparison there, but look at XBMC - a few clicks and no questions later and its up and running. Why should I care about MySQL or Visual C++ runtimes etc, whether I want on online or offline install? I just wanna watch some of my media!
That aside, the installation worked fine. Now on to using it... oh wait I need to configure stuff first? Ok, I'll run up the configuration tool - another question... do I want simple configuration or expert? I'll start with simple and see if that has everything I need.
Hmm - there are a lot of options here - and this is simple?
Oh well, it looks logically structured, and I'm fairly familiar with media applications, so I'll just point it at my Video collection and see what happens... Video Folders, that looks like the right place, nothing to tell me otherwise. I'll add my three network shares of movies. Hmm, I can't seem to add them as a single location - nevermind I'll add all three and then work out how to join them later.
Why can't I tick more than one? Does the tick mean its selected - can I only use one? Hang on, nothing on this page indicates to me what ticking one of these means... I'll try and see what happens.
Ok - thats enough configuration, lets try and play a video. Starting up media portal - kinda takes a long time... keymap, loading window manager, starting plugins... First thoughts are this is not gonna sit well with the Mrs when she wants to switch between different apps on the HTPC. XBMC starts in about 3 seconds, WMC in about the same time.. this takes 11 seconds - maybe I'm too harsh...
Hmm, the default skin is ugly... I know WMC is ugly, but then thats closed source nasty Microsoft. XBMC has a cracking default skin, why not Media Portal? Oh well, I'm sure I can find an alternative later.
Lets watch a video - hang on, all my videos just appear as their folder names no cover art or plot, and when I click on them I just see the video extension, and when I click on that, it says Codec: AVC and won't play it... Not a great start.
Quick google later and I find that F3 queries IMDB. Ok give that a go. First film "127 Hours (2010)" - click F3. Nothing found... ok, it lets me manually enter something, I'll get rid of the year in case that messes it up. "127 Hours" - still nothing found. Hmm. Ill try "127", oh look that has found "127 Hours (2010) EN" - grrr...
Well its loaded the cover art, but there is no plot and no actors. Come back to that later - now why wont it play. It plays fine in VLC, and I have ffdshow installed. Its an mkv file maybe thats a problem... quick google... Haali splitter - ok give that a try. Great that seems to have fixed it - now why isn't that included in the standard install?
Now lets sort out this ugly skin. On the Media Portal website, there are some plugins - ooh Maya, that looks pretty, download that. Ah, I can just double click to install it - that's nice.
Restart MediaPortal - hmm.. no, still has the old skin. Lets check configuration. Where would skins be... well I downloaded it under plugins, so plugins seems logical. Nope. General, ah there it is.
Ok, now I have a pretty skin, but my library is still separate folders, and I think I've worked out that the tick on the folder makes it the default. I've tried pointing it at Windows 7's library feature to merge multiple shares - but it doesn't like that...
Ah, in the configuration there is a tab called Video Database - that sounds like what I want, and there is an update grabber button. I'll try that. Oh, now its selected a German IMDB as default?? Nevermind, I'll pick EN again. Right, now the plot and actors bit seems to be working. I wonder why MediaPortal didn't update this at installation, would have saved me a lot of grief!
Ok - there appears to be a Scan section in the video database, that will save me from pressing F3 on every film - I wonder why it didn't tell me this at install!? The scan has completed and it has 30 conflicts. Hang on, every conflict it talks about find the right film as the first entry, and it matches my filename exactly (including the year)... what is the conflict here!? - why can't I just tell it to pick the first option every time and I'll correct the ones it gets wrong? Nope, 30 manual selections later and the library is good to go.
Great - now how do I get to the video database in the actual application... Videos still takes me to my video folders... hmm. Quick read of the wiki, and I have to select a different view.
Ok - all looks good now.
Do I go on to TV shows now?... you know I think I'll go back to XBMC and wait for the next major version of Media Portal.
It's definitely better this time round than my last experience of Media Portal, but there is still so much you have to do out of the box just to get simple media to play, the default skin is ugly, and so much is not explained. I never thought I'd say this, but I longed for a getting started "wizard" that leads me through getting everything set up.
Hope this hasn't offended anyone, just my first impressions after using some of the competing players!
Thanks,
Spanner
Installation of MediaPortal is a little scary... WMC is preinstalled with Win 7 so not a fair comparison there, but look at XBMC - a few clicks and no questions later and its up and running. Why should I care about MySQL or Visual C++ runtimes etc, whether I want on online or offline install? I just wanna watch some of my media!
That aside, the installation worked fine. Now on to using it... oh wait I need to configure stuff first? Ok, I'll run up the configuration tool - another question... do I want simple configuration or expert? I'll start with simple and see if that has everything I need.
Hmm - there are a lot of options here - and this is simple?
Oh well, it looks logically structured, and I'm fairly familiar with media applications, so I'll just point it at my Video collection and see what happens... Video Folders, that looks like the right place, nothing to tell me otherwise. I'll add my three network shares of movies. Hmm, I can't seem to add them as a single location - nevermind I'll add all three and then work out how to join them later.
Why can't I tick more than one? Does the tick mean its selected - can I only use one? Hang on, nothing on this page indicates to me what ticking one of these means... I'll try and see what happens.
Ok - thats enough configuration, lets try and play a video. Starting up media portal - kinda takes a long time... keymap, loading window manager, starting plugins... First thoughts are this is not gonna sit well with the Mrs when she wants to switch between different apps on the HTPC. XBMC starts in about 3 seconds, WMC in about the same time.. this takes 11 seconds - maybe I'm too harsh...
Hmm, the default skin is ugly... I know WMC is ugly, but then thats closed source nasty Microsoft. XBMC has a cracking default skin, why not Media Portal? Oh well, I'm sure I can find an alternative later.
Lets watch a video - hang on, all my videos just appear as their folder names no cover art or plot, and when I click on them I just see the video extension, and when I click on that, it says Codec: AVC and won't play it... Not a great start.
Quick google later and I find that F3 queries IMDB. Ok give that a go. First film "127 Hours (2010)" - click F3. Nothing found... ok, it lets me manually enter something, I'll get rid of the year in case that messes it up. "127 Hours" - still nothing found. Hmm. Ill try "127", oh look that has found "127 Hours (2010) EN" - grrr...
Well its loaded the cover art, but there is no plot and no actors. Come back to that later - now why wont it play. It plays fine in VLC, and I have ffdshow installed. Its an mkv file maybe thats a problem... quick google... Haali splitter - ok give that a try. Great that seems to have fixed it - now why isn't that included in the standard install?
Now lets sort out this ugly skin. On the Media Portal website, there are some plugins - ooh Maya, that looks pretty, download that. Ah, I can just double click to install it - that's nice.
Restart MediaPortal - hmm.. no, still has the old skin. Lets check configuration. Where would skins be... well I downloaded it under plugins, so plugins seems logical. Nope. General, ah there it is.
Ok, now I have a pretty skin, but my library is still separate folders, and I think I've worked out that the tick on the folder makes it the default. I've tried pointing it at Windows 7's library feature to merge multiple shares - but it doesn't like that...
Ah, in the configuration there is a tab called Video Database - that sounds like what I want, and there is an update grabber button. I'll try that. Oh, now its selected a German IMDB as default?? Nevermind, I'll pick EN again. Right, now the plot and actors bit seems to be working. I wonder why MediaPortal didn't update this at installation, would have saved me a lot of grief!
Ok - there appears to be a Scan section in the video database, that will save me from pressing F3 on every film - I wonder why it didn't tell me this at install!? The scan has completed and it has 30 conflicts. Hang on, every conflict it talks about find the right film as the first entry, and it matches my filename exactly (including the year)... what is the conflict here!? - why can't I just tell it to pick the first option every time and I'll correct the ones it gets wrong? Nope, 30 manual selections later and the library is good to go.
Great - now how do I get to the video database in the actual application... Videos still takes me to my video folders... hmm. Quick read of the wiki, and I have to select a different view.
Ok - all looks good now.
Do I go on to TV shows now?... you know I think I'll go back to XBMC and wait for the next major version of Media Portal.
It's definitely better this time round than my last experience of Media Portal, but there is still so much you have to do out of the box just to get simple media to play, the default skin is ugly, and so much is not explained. I never thought I'd say this, but I longed for a getting started "wizard" that leads me through getting everything set up.
Hope this hasn't offended anyone, just my first impressions after using some of the competing players!
Thanks,
Spanner
United Kingdom
........ and I will not have any other HTPC software.... job security 
