Reclaim WMC Media ? (1 Viewer)

[RobDownUnder]

If we install MediaPortal 2 into W10, will that be able to access previous WMC media ?
(Laptop had W7 Pro, and was upgraded to W10)

I have never used WMC, however my neighbor does.
I help with his laptop, etc.
He upgraded from W7 Pro to W10, without checking with me.
He now laments that WMC is gone
His main concern is - the loss of all the stored media he had.
Is there a way to recover that ?
If we install MediaPortal 2, will that be able to access his WMC media ?

 

[Skywizard]

You can revert from win 10 to your previous OS I suppose that will restore the lost files. Do a net search for more info.

 

[CyberSimian]

His main concern is - the loss of all the stored media he had. Is there a way to recover that?

Do you mean that during the installation of Win10, Windows deleted from the hard disk(s) all of the recorded TV, music, and digital photos that the user had?

Although that is possible, that is probably not what you mean. So, if the digital media files still exist:

(1) Install MP1 (better for novices than MP2, although opinions vary).
(2) In "MP Config", define the folders in which MP should look to find the media.

Note: if your user has recorded-TV files created by WMC, the files will be WTV (or possibly DVR-MS if he used Vista before Win7). MP1 can play these files with no special setup required. However, there will be no metadata for them (e.g. programme info). I think that MP2 can extract and display the metadata from WTV files, but I have no experience with that (so I may have misunderstood what MP2 can do).

Bear in mind that MediaPortal is not Windows Media Center. Some aspects of MP are better than WMC, while other aspects are worse. Only your user can decide whether MP represents a compromise that is acceptable.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

If we install MediaPortal 2, will that be able to access his WMC media ?

You need to separate "average" media (avi, mkv,... videos, mp3,... audios and pictures) from TV recordings (also they are videos too). All those "average" media are completely independent of WMC and for this they are working with every HTPC or Media software available. On TV recordings there are two special things. First the metadata (date and time of the recording, channel, description,...) included into the video file. MP1 has external metadata files in XML format alongside the recordings containing nearly the same metadata than the WMC recordings. MP2 is able to read those external xml files (from MP1) and also the metadata inside the WMC recordings without any further user interaction. All fine that far.

But there is another "speciality", a possible DRM protection on the recordings. If your provider has protect the recordings so you can't play them on another system than yours (possible but not too widely used) then you can't play the videos inside MP1 or MP2 (or any other media software).