'Press Red' (1 Viewer)

[leejw00t354]

Hi,
I was watching a program just a second ago and the program narrator said free view users could press red to get some extra features.
I was wondering if these features are able to be picked up with media portal, is there a plug-in I need to do it?
Or do I need a special type of digital tuner?

If its not available in media portal does anyone know of any other programs I could use (similar to media portal) where I can get these interactive features.

Sorry if this is a stupid question I really don't understand to much on the technical workings of either media portal or digital tuner devices.

Thanks,
Lee

 

[funkstar]

Interactive services are not supported by MediaPortal.

There was a lot of discussion about MHEG support a while back (which is used on the UKs Freeview platform). A couple of MediaPortal users started to piece together all the code required to do this.

Unfortunitely, MediaPortal isn't really designed to handle this, so to get it intregrated into the main app would have required a significan rewrite. The project didn't really get very far.

There is a ground up rewrite of MP going on just now, known as MP2. There isn't a timescale on this being available, and while I doubt MHEG or other interactive services will be functional initially, it should now be possible to include them in MP if someone was to spent the time coding it all.

 

[leejw00t354]

Thanks for your reply funkstar.
Seems I'll just have to wait a while then.

 

[Jimbawb]

I really wouldnt worry too much about missing out - interactive services are pretty naff at best to be honest...though i havent used them in a couple of years the processing power never seemed up to much to be able to do anything of value compared to what MP could do by itself.

 

[leejw00t354]

Yeah I agree in general they do suck but just this once there was something that I was interested in watching and it only just occurred to me that there wasn't a way to get the service.
I love media portal and its definitely not going to stop me using it.

 

[Jimbawb]

Yeah I agree in general they do suck but just this once there was something that I was interested in watching and it only just occurred to me that there wasn't a way to get the service.
I love media portal and its definitely not going to stop me using it.

All the "interactive channels" are just normal channels, hidden from view MP can scan them and pick them up..for example I believe the red button channels for BBC start 301, 302 etc.

 

[funkstar]

All the "interactive channels" are just normal channels, hidden from view MP can scan them and pick them up..for example I believe the red button channels for BBC start 301, 302 etc.

Very true when it comes to complete channels. What Red Button support would be good for is the alternative audio feeds for sport on the BBC. I don't know exactly how these are handled or if MP can switch between them (I haven't tried to be honest). The F1 has several alternative audio feeds, like a CBBC one

 

[Jimbawb]

All the "interactive channels" are just normal channels, hidden from view MP can scan them and pick them up..for example I believe the red button channels for BBC start 301, 302 etc.

Very true when it comes to complete channels. What Red Button support would be good for is the alternative audio feeds for sport on the BBC. I don't know exactly how these are handled or if MP can switch between them (I haven't tried to be honest). The F1 has several alternative audio feeds, like a CBBC one

It can. Press the green button on your remote (dont know what that translates to into a keyboard press, sorry!) but you can definitely change the audio feed over..I do it on the HD channels to switch between 5.1 audio and closed captions.

 

[funkstar]

Well thats good to know. Like I said, never tried it or looked into it before.

Wi'll have to give it a go sometime