Ranting about: MediaPortal SVN-Snapshot:-06-07-2008 02-05h - Revision:19311 (1 Viewer)

[parkuhr]

the point is that users get afraid of posting here.
you can t say anything without haveing a bunch of angry people jumping out of the darkness, screaming at you: "THIS IS OPEN-SOURCE and everything is your fault".
under such conditions, i have a better feeling, if i am paying for anything.
then i am at least a costumer. so, the open-source geeks and nerds(the devs are not meant. they make the most time a good job), give you the wrong impresson, that you have to shut up.
other people call for the sherif and censorship, if they read anything, what they don tlike.

Somebody wants to censor azimeks post...

right! forget about democracy. lets have censorship for all.

 

[SpudR]

Oh dear - I meant simply the use of the F word. Swearing is the last resort for those not eoquant enough to get their point across.
I think the people here know that I'm not a yes man (I believe I caused quite a storm when the pre release MP2 came out )
If you cannot raise your point without resorting to obscenities, then you shouldnt bother at all - I'm no prude, but feel there should be a little decorum here
If the devs feel that the point is dealt with then who am I to complain?
From the rules:

Be respectful of other users
Profanity, pornography, sexual innuendo, personal attacks, harassment, racism, slander/libel, threats, flaming, trolling and impersonating other users are all inappropriate.

It is not allowed to publically post PM's or part of private messages without asking the sender for permission first.

If you have got a problem with someone or a member is insulting you, then report the post by clicking at the "report post" button or directly get in contact with one of our Moderators/Admins.
Do not insult the person who offended you, or we will also have to take actions against you.

Be courteous & polite. Show respect to the opinions & feelings of others. Use of the forums is a privilege, not a right.
Engage your brain before your mouth. You are responsible for your own words & any harm they may cause.
Deviance from these guidelines may ultimately lead to disciplinary actions.

This is totally off topic though...

 

[midiboy]

Hi !

As for this discussion about MPs stability and the ability to post questions etc. for "normal users" on the forum:

It is my experience that a very large percentage of questions or posts I make are ignored and left unanswered. I would say that 8 out of 10 times if something goes wrong and I post in the forums, there is no reaction. I know, there is no guy here who is paid for helping dumb users with questions so I am not expecting much anyway but it disappointing still. So most of the time, I don´t even bother anymore if something goes wrong.

As for the stability ... yes, IMHO MP is not the most stable program out there but the recording functionality usually works fine so I am still using it on my TV Server. The thing I really dislike about MP is the limitation in OS support. MP TV Server has the word "server" in its name and it is a program serving clients a service. So why not support it on Server OSes. It is just too damn stupid to have a server with Microsoft server OS in the house and then not be able to use that for Mediaportal TV Server.

The moment, W2K8´s Hyper-V will be able to utilise PCI cards in virtual machines I will be able to install a client OS just for MP TV Server and still use a server OS on my real server but in the meantime I either have to stay with W2K3 (which works with MP TV Server most of the time) or use something like Vista x64 for a server ... not very nice and not possible if I need special server services from that OS.

Bye,
Alex

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
Since this it's a "hot" topic for some we have moved it out from SVN thread(which is for bug reporting etc) & on to this.
If it goes wild it will be closed!

Regards
Roy

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

It is my experience that a very large percentage of questions or posts I make are ignored and left unanswered. I would say that 8 out of 10 times if something goes wrong and I post in the forums, there is no reaction

That's because the right person has not read your question, so cannot give a reasonable answer, team-mediaportal relies heavily on its users helping each other and us with plugins\skins\patches etc.

Try scanning any major forum, and i would say we have the best answer rate to posts going.

Regards

 

[parkuhr]

Oh dear - I meant simply the use of the F word. Swearing is the last resort for those not eoquant enough to get their point across.
(...)

in short. its not nice to see the f-word. right.
he didn t used it, against other pepople and in some aspects, he depects, i agree in.

it seems that i have understood you in a wrong way, becoue your request for censorship.
a big sorry for this missunderstunding.

greetings and a nice weekend.
parkuhr

 

[elliottmc]

Why you always need logs? A better feedback from the GUI would be better.
Just tell the user what is wrong! Then the user can place his question here with a perfect description what the problem is.

Vista users are f**ked up twice, because they will not find the logs!

Andre's post edited for profanity!

Why not give feedback in the GUI rather than in the log? Well, there is always a reason why a program crashes, and it isn't always the last thing it is doing. Giving feedback in the GUI would probably be misleading. There is a really good reason why the developers need the logs. You either need to trust them a little, or use software which you pay for and therefore works better! Oh, wait! You pay for it, and it doesn't work better!

The MediaPortal team are not responsible for writing the drivers for your motherboard, graphics card, TV card, etc. They can't possibly anticipate all problems which might arise as a result of combinations of hardware and software. They do a fantastic job. I would say that for most computer literate users, MediaPortal is not too difficult to setup, and it stable when setup. RC1 with a recent SVN has been running on my server for a couple of weeks now without a reboot. Mind you, my HTPCs are exactly that. They do nothing else, and hardware was chosen with this in mind (and reading advice on these forums). There is no software on them which is not required for and by MediaPortal, and I stick to MPV and MPA as filters.

You really have to decide what you expect MediaPortal to be able to do, and what YOU have to do to get it.

As for Vista users not being able to find the logs, why on earth not? It isn't that difficult.

I don't think anyone has a problem with people posting bug reports. But you didn't do that at all. There is nothing in your post which gives the developers anything to go on. Report a bug, and it will be fixed, eventually. It might take a while before someone is able to work out what the problem is. Maybe the problem which you are seeing is unique to your hardware/software setup? Who knows?

I'm not claiming MediaPortal is perfect. There are bugs which I have been reporting for a while now, which have not yet been fixed. Sure, it can get frustrating feeling that no-one is listening, but at the end of the day, the developers have no obligation to you, me or any other user.

Report bugs if you want to, but quit complaining.

Mark

(For the record, I am not a member of the team, or an official tester, or anything else like that. Just an extremely grateful user)

 

[SpudR]

For what it's worth...
I jumped into the fun world of HTPCs recently, built my own system, and played with a few of the packages out there to provide what I wanted.
MP simply fits my requirements better than the rest
I have asked and received lots of help and advice from this very forum, and have a HTPC that works well enough to astound my friends when we 'do beer'
My experience is far from coincidental - I took the time to research the hardware and software and settings BEFORE I dipped into the pot and paid money for the kit.
In the case of the (few) issues I have had, I posted ONLY when I'd done an exhaustive search of posts similar to my own issues. There is much to be said of the search function!
When I have asked for help - the community at large and several notable members have come to my aid - for this I am very grateful.
The result of everybody's time and help is that I have a great little HTPC - running well enough for my technophobic GF to use when she likes - a feat nothing short of a miracle!!
I have no problem with people not liking things - as my posts on MP2 will illustrate - but random ranting achieves nothing but annoyed devs. Something we all want to avoid.
I would hope that my experience is far from unique and will continue to give back to the community as much help as I can offer.
The people taking the time and effort to post, obviously have some frustrations, but constructive posts, written in a polite manner will achieve much more than the "MP is bad because" posts. These in turn will help people, like me, who exercise the old search and read skills.

More people should take the time to say "thanks for helping" - sometimes that is all it takes!
(I work as an IT consultant - I live and breathe everybody else’s IT issues! A "Thank you" goes a long way.)

As for ranting about the SVNs - doesn't it state, very obviously, that these are EXPERIMENTAL builds. Use at your own risk.
If you are not happy with the SVN, use the stable build, or, I believe there is a succinct phrase from God to Noah that fits. It's available in your bible at Genesis 1: 22.

 

[azimek]

OK! Excuse the F*** word

Hi guys!

First of all excuse the F*** word. I did not use it against MP or any person!
You said that you are reading between the lines.
I did not write anything between the lines. Just read the text.
First off all I said that I really like MP. And I am using it for over a year now.
I said that ist was very stable in 2.3 an no mayor problems came up.
So no user hat to do taskswitching to kill processes and stuff.

I am talking about the normal user who just clicks the setup button and wants to use the really great programm.
I said a lot of positive things about MP! Just read the text.

I was mistaken when saying that MP ist sold with some systems - OK sorry for that too.

On the other hand - under Vista - and that is not MPs fault - everything is more difficult.
Just show me a normal user, who will find the hidden programdata folder!
I am just using Vista because I can not get all the latest drivers for my XPS system.

Error messages: If you start a movie (mkv or something) and the screen becomes black and then you
are back in the movielist - how should anybody know, why the movie is not playing. There is no message from MP.
Something like - Missing codec - Codec XYZ needed - would be helpful.
You all started using MP. Did you know every problem right from the start? I think not.

But I think that this disussion is not getting us anywhere.
Thanx for all your responses.

Andre

@ last:
MP developers are doing a good job. I develop software every day and when a user tells me that he needs a better
helpsystem in the application I normaly try to make things --- even better --

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Missing codec - Codec XYZ needed

MEDIAPORTAL - free MediaCenter HTPC Software - simple mediaportal codec guide

Yes, would love error messages to be shown for things like this, but we also have to work on the principal that all the files you have on your pc, actually play in windows xp\vista already.

But I think that this disussion is not getting us anywhere.

I have to agree, so closing thread, so people can get back to what we are here for.