Possible MP convert, but questions first :) (2 Viewers)

[Marcusb]

On the topic of expiring old programs when space is needed, there are a lot more options than have been mentioned.

By default programs are auto deleted to make space. You can choose the limits for what MP considers low disk space.
When you set a program to be recorded, there are advanced options for "Keep Until". One of these is "Space Needed" which is also default. You can change this to "Never Delete" or even how many episodes, for things that are very often repeated.

Even only six months ago, I would have said that Myth was a better option, since you already have it set up, but recently MP has made great bounds in stability and features and I think it's worth a jump to the dark side of Windows.

Maybe just explain to your wife that you are going to do this. As with any install of a new OS and pretty comprehensive system, there are bound to be teething issues for the first week or so. Best to warn the Financial Controller beforehand.

 

[speedway]

just out of plain curiosity: why do you want to move from mythtv to mediaportal? Features in both applications are fairly similar and it doesn't seem to be a hardware support issue. I don't know if it's really worth the effort.

I'm not here to open a tedious war between both system users, nor to disrepect any developer work. Anyway I know the moderators will cut short any off-topic discussion so I do not really worry about the potential consequences of my post . I'm just curious, that's all (I was once a freevo user before migrating to MediaPortal, mainly because of driver support issues)

Well, being a person who does not particularly like anything MS I am surprised I want to move to MP myself It took me about a month to get a working Myth system. But the issues I have with Myth is more related to some of the options. The main sticking point in our household is the music interface in Myth - absolutely disgusting and unusable. I would much prefer to use SlimServer but I do not know enough about C++ to write a plugin for Myth.

Some of my "selling" points in getting an HTPC in our house were:

1. Transfer our VHS video's to HDD to clear out all the tapes and make sense of them.
2. Move all our CD's to HDD and have an *easy* way of playing them
3. Move *some* of our DVD's to HDD for easier access.
4. Catch all the shows that we miss on FTA TV
5. Connect up and record from Foxtel Digital (cough, cough...in analog!)

So far:
I haven't even tried #1,
partially completed #2 (not happy with the results)
haven't done #3 (well, actually 2 DVD's)
accomplished #4 (and have just boutgh a 3rd card to install)
haven't done #5 yet - need an analog card.

On number 2, the lack of usability of the music plugin is killing the experience somewhat so I went looking for a better solution. I have looked at GBPVR and MP and both *look* like they will satisfy *all* requirements - that's why all the questions. The only spare machine I have is the current Myth machine so I need to be really sure before I zap it. But with that said, I am buying an MCE remote because it "just works" in MP - no building of any IR blasters for Foxtel etc etc. I even considered XBMC at one stage but need to actually buy an X-Box, something SWMBO will not allow.

So I suppose it comes down to a "complete" solution in one box, something that satisfies all our requirements - even if it is on MS Windows....

Cheers
Bruce

 

[speedway]

On the topic of expiring old programs when space is needed, there are a lot more options than have been mentioned.

By default programs are auto deleted to make space. You can choose the limits for what MP considers low disk space.
When you set a program to be recorded, there are advanced options for "Keep Until". One of these is "Space Needed" which is also default. You can change this to "Never Delete" or even how many episodes, for things that are very often repeated.

Excellent, thanks for that. Sounds like just the ticket

Even only six months ago, I would have said that Myth was a better option, since you already have it set up, but recently MP has made great bounds in stability and features and I think it's worth a jump to the dark side of Windows.

Maybe just explain to your wife that you are going to do this. As with any install of a new OS and pretty comprehensive system, there are bound to be teething issues for the first week or so. Best to warn the Financial Controller beforehand.

I think I am leaning this way after spending the past few days reading many posts on here. Over the past couple of days I have been experiencing X-windows lockups and considering the Myth machine is without keyboard or mouse, the only thing I can do is reboot the machine via an SSH session - nothing else seems to work.

I suppose one last question exists...can I take my Myth recordings, all .mpg files, and use them in MP? If that is possible, then I will just move them to another HDD and start the MP experience...

Cheers
Bruce

 

[Marcusb]

Are you able to image your Myth Setup just in case you don't like MP?
I'm sure you'll love it, but to be realistic, if you spend a few days on MP and don't like it and then have to roll back to Myth and that takes a couple of weeks then you'll be sleeping on the couch for a year.

The music system is being massively overhauled at the moment. SteveV is doing most of it and has already made dramatic improvements.

Myth recordings should be fine. MP can play MPG files with no issues.

For the analog stuf you want to do (Foxtel, VCR archiving) you really need a TV card with hardware encoding. The pvr150 is the best bet.

What is the hardware you are using? The Video card is most important, it really has to be better than a 5200 GF card. Anything with native dx9, which some Linux systems don't have.

 

[~ok|]

2. Move all our CD's to HDD and have an *easy* way of playing them
3. Move *some* of our DVD's to HDD for easier access.
(...)
On number 2, the lack of usability of the music plugin is killing the experience somewhat so I went looking for a better solution.

Beware that MediaPortal may be slow as hell to respond to user requests when dealing with large collections of files at once. Something that MythTV seems to suffer less from (in my own experience). The MediaPortal UI looks good but it was not made to handle over-sized file repositories (see your points #2 and #3). Otherwise, everything should be fine and the MediaPortal experience is really, really pleasant in the end.

 

[~ok|]

Excellent, thanks for that. Sounds like just the ticket

I suppose one last question exists...can I take my Myth recordings, all .mpg files, and use them in MP? If that is possible, then I will just move them to another HDD and start the MP experience...

see http://dsmyth.sourceforge.net/
You need these directshow filters to playback your mpeg4 recorded TV shows.

If your video files are located on an ext2/3 partition, then you don't need to move them onto another HDD. I use this driver http://www.fs-driver.org/ for more than a year now and it works like a charm.

 

[speedway]

Yup, I can backup the entire install to a tar.gz file and burn to DVD. Then it would be simply a case of installing Fedora Core 4 again and untarring the backup.

I like the sound of the music overhaul, are the updates available anywhere?

Good news on the MPG files, will just archive them off to the external 120G drive before install.

I had planned to get a PVR150, was just throwing out suggestions tonight as we heard there is going to be a Star Wars marathon on Fox, good for the kids

I have an FX5200 / 128Mb that works fine under Linux with version 8756 drivers. It handles XvMC throughput to take some of the load off the CPU - works great. As I understand it, the 5200 natively supports dx9 out of the box. Still, if it doesn't work out I'll put it back in the machine I am typing on (where it came from in the first place) and get something better. Other than that and an SBLIve 5.1 audio card, this machine is low end - it's an IBM eServer x200 PIII 1Ghz with 512Ram. The primary drive is an 18Gb IBM U160 10K SCSI drive hanging off an Adaptec 29160LP controller. The data drive is a 250Gb 7200rpm IDE drive formatted with jfs (journaling file system). It will actually remain like this via an SMB mount so I don't have to worry about massive defragmentation. It will also allow me to extend the space at anytime as I use Logical Volume Management (LVM) under Linux. I am not expecting fantastic peformance from it under Windows but it should be sufficient to get an idea of the workings of MP, if I do a little tuning along the way.

This box began life as an HTPC purely as a proof-of-concept box. If things work out then a better hardware base will be purchased, although I am unsure how this will pan out with XP and it's reliance on installed hardware.

Thansk everyone for perservering with my continual questions, all the support is really appreciated.

Cheers
Bruce

 

[speedway]

Beware that MediaPortal may be slow as hell to respond to user requests when dealing with large collections of files at once. Something that MythTV seems to suffer less from (in my own experience). The MediaPortal UI looks good but it was not made to handle over-sized file repositories (see your points #2 and #3). Otherwise, everything should be fine and the MediaPortal experience is really, really pleasant in the end.

Aha! Thanks for the tip. Would this be a limitation of the Windows files system or MP itself?

 

[speedway]

see http://dsmyth.sourceforge.net/
You need these directshow filters to playback your mpeg4 recorded TV shows.

If your video files are located on an ext2/3 partition, then you don't need to move them onto another HDD. I use this driver http://www.fs-driver.org/ for more than a year now and it works like a charm.

Interesting links, thanks. Never knew that stuff existed. I think my stuff is MPG2 as .019 did away with .nuv files and records what comes off the DVB-T cards directly to HDD.

My data drive is formatted with jfs, purely for performance issues with large files. So my best bet will be to share them via SMB I think. The drive will just sit in this Ubuntu box I am typing on...

Cheers
Buuce

 

[jawbroken]

It is not that bad at handling large repositories (though, of course, accessing a lot of Music files over a network can be slow sometimes) and work is being done in improving the speed of the Music Database at the moment, or at least it was being mentioned in a few threads. If you have a couple thousand files on a wired network it should be fine.