Server/Client setup not really useable (2 Viewers)

[einstein72]

Well, I started about a year ago with the standalone MediaPortal and was really impressed by it. I still am.
But the server/client setup, well, no. It simply is too buggy to be of any practical use. I know it's beta, but it should be of -some- use by now right?

To sum up my experience:

- Channel swapping impossible (stimeshifting; no free tv-card available) a ramdisk helped but didn't solve the problem.
- Image quality not as good as stand-alone version (locally on server), drops and jitter (even with ramdisk)
- Image crop settings not the same as stand-alone version
- too many lockups

And I was disappointed to find that the client version of MP is very different in use to the standalone version. Couldn't find that anywhere in the documentation.

Not really something you use to watch your Tuesday evening soccer game on. I tried older svn's, they gave the same result.
Besides that, I found that there are a lot of different 'how-to's' on this site about the same subject. Some of them with different content! (for example about the dvb patch for xp). I got it to work, but I can imagine that a newbie would get totally lost.

I'll keep my eye on server/client development, but for now I'll go back to good ol' MP.

:sorry:

 

[limpwhizkid]

Well, I started about a year ago with the standalone MediaPortal and was really impressed by it. I still am.
But the server/client setup, well, no. It simply is too buggy to be of any practical use. I know it's beta, but it should be of -some- use by now right?

To sum up my experience:

- Channel swapping impossible (stimeshifting; no free tv-card available) a ramdisk helped but didn't solve the problem.
- Image quality not as good as stand-alone version (locally on server), drops and jitter (even with ramdisk)
- Image crop settings not the same as stand-alone version
- too many lockups

And I was disappointed to find that the client version of MP is very different in use to the standalone version. Couldn't find that anywhere in the documentation.

Not really something you use to watch your Tuesday evening soccer game on. I tried older svn's, they gave the same result.
Besides that, I found that there are a lot of different 'how-to's' on this site about the same subject. Some of them with different content! (for example about the dvb patch for xp). I got it to work, but I can imagine that a newbie would get totally lost.

I'll keep my eye on server/client development, but for now I'll go back to good ol' MP.

:sorry:

I certainly do not agree, and I guess several other people aswell, My tvserver is working like a charm, it is running 24/7 since 29-03 build .. and is still running..
clients connected with XP sp2 are stable as a rock ..
clients on Vista are somewhat buggy.. and I do get in trouble once a while..

But I dont understand how the client plugin is so different then the standalone version ..
you actualy have to install the standalone version .and only the TV part is replaced within mediaportal to connect to the server.. thats all ..the rest is mediaportal default.. nothing is changed.

and we are working hard on the documents, its a very time consuming task with making screenshots, and keeping them up to date. Since it is under development the options/features change a lot, so the screenshots need constant updating aswell.

 

[einstein72]

I know the plug-in replaces the tv part. But MP is sluggish after that, even locally on my server. And that is a new and fast pc on which MP standalone really flies.

I can't really get zapping to work on any pc; it simply states 'time shifting; no tv card available', and sometimes locks up after that. Tried several builds; same result. I use a very common setup with a FloppyDTV (latest fw, latest driver) that has no problem whatsoever with MP stand alone.
And what is with the constant time shifting? Can't that be done different/better? That part is very different from MP stand alone. Other streaming solutions don't do it like that but work nevertheless. Channel view is very different (ugly!) and the guide seems somewhat different too.
The way codecs are used seems to differ also. I use ffdshow to deinterlace my content. Because of the streaming this is different also and causes the overall quality to suffer. I could live with that on the clients, but as my server has a HD beamer attached to it good quality here is crucial. Is it in someway possible to have the standalone MP running (on the server pc) when not using the tvserver? (and have a disabled tvserver service?) That could solve my biggest problem.

I know that there are a lot of happy server/client users out there. Darn, that's why I installed and tried it. And when I do something wrong then that's allright too. But I have no problem installing MP or server/client version and used different installs on different pc's. All with the same result.

It wasn't meant as criticism alone as I am more than pleased with the standalone version. I kind of hoped that server/client would be a similar experience. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

--

My remarks on the documents have nothing to do with my trouble getting server/client to work. I know that keeping good documentation is very time consuming work. But maybe you could try to use some sort of version control and use only one location for a document on a certain subject. Like your version control on the svn's.
Good luck with that.

 

[allanp81]

I have to wonder if the problem lies with your server. I've been using TVE3.0 for well over a year now and right now I would say it works perfectly for me. It's rock solid and crashes maybe once every 3 months. Channel changing is great for me and near instant even when switching between DVB-T and DVB-S channels. Recording and playback works great as well. I have multiple clients running off of the server as well and I can timeshift from all 3 at once with no issues and channel change to my heart's content.

 

[einstein72]

Maybe I'll try again when I have to do a re-install of my server pc. But for now, I've spent enough time trying to get it to work. There are so many things were stuff can go wrong (not even talking about all these different svn builds ). I simply haven't got the time.

But it's nice that it works for some.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy my standalone MP. But it's still disappointing that with my kit (several pc's, Gb ethernet LAN throughout the house, 802.11n Wifi (only on my Thinkpad T61 though, rest is 'only' g), I can't make use of client/server technology with MP.

I'll check in again when I find some spare time to reinstall (again).

 

[allanp81]

Yes it is as it's an amazing piece of software. I have to admit that I gave up trying to get my laptop to work via wireless, it just seemed to refuse to connect to the server for some reason and I haven't got round to looking through the logs to see why.

 

[einstein72]

Yes it is as it's an amazing piece of software. I have to admit that I gave up trying to get my laptop to work via wireless, it just seemed to refuse to connect to the server for some reason and I haven't got round to looking through the logs to see why.

Indeed, on my laptop I get a black tv screen and lock-up whenever I try to start a tv session. And wireless use of MP was one of the reasons for me to go for it at all.

 

[Neptuni]

Hi,

I have a TVE3 server setup and one wired client. I have also used my laptop connected with wlan (802.11g/54 Mbit) and I have found it quite stable, very smooth tv on the laptop.
But you have to look at the responses for each SVN, because some are not that good...

I'm looking forward for the RC1 (MP+ TVE3) release that was announced yesterday!

Now I'm setting up another two wired client for my teenage kids.

/Mikael

 

[limpwhizkid]

Yes it is as it's an amazing piece of software. I have to admit that I gave up trying to get my laptop to work via wireless, it just seemed to refuse to connect to the server for some reason and I haven't got round to looking through the logs to see why.

Indeed, on my laptop I get a black tv screen and lock-up whenever I try to start a tv session. And wireless use of MP was one of the reasons for me to go for it at all.

Please try this..

Click start and in the runbox type CMD and hit enter
Change directory to the mediaportal installation folder where tsreader.ax is located
and type
regsvr32 tsreader.ax and hit enter
You should see a notification that tsreader.ax is registered..

now go watch tv..

 

[einstein72]

That sounds not too time consuming, so I'll try that. Will let you know.
Regards