Switching from Snapstream BeyondTV (1 Viewer)

[Logan Price]

Hello,

As the subject line says, I will be switching soon from BeyondTV to MediaPortal. The biggest question I have is - What happens to my existing library? Will it be incorporated into MediaPortal TV or will I only be able to watch these shows through MediaPortal Video? (some are actual TV recordings - in MPEG2 format, and others are downloaded from the internet - in DVIX, XVID, MP4, etc. formats)

Besides that... Is there anything else that I will encounter that I should be aware of?


Thanks,

Logan

 

[robbo100]

Welcome to MediaPortal.

The answer to your question really depends upon what your videos are (in content terms) and how you want to view them. However, your old recorded videos will not be viewable in the Recorded TV section of MediaPortal because this content is registered in a database at the point of recording and can not be done retrospectively without a large amount of effort (and even with this effort, you will probably only be able to import .ts files - but I am not sure about that)

Most people (well, when I say most people I mean "this is what I do and I assume others do to") do the following:

• Split out your videos so that your "TV Series" "Films" and "Other Videos" (one off recordings you don't want to keep forever or home videos) are in seperate folders.
• For the "Other Videos" you will want to configure this directory within the MP>Videos>Videos Folders (http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...Portal_Configuration/2_Videos/1_Video_Folders)
• For the "TV Series" you will want to install the TV Series Plugin and point it to the directory containing those files.
• For the "Films" you will want to install the Moving Pictures Plugin and point it to the directory containing those files.

Clearly you will have a transitional period where your old TV recordings which you are yet to watch will be stored in a different area than your new MP TV Recordings.
What made you move across to MP (if you don't mind me asking)?

 

[ijourneaux]

Logan

I am also trying to move from BeyondTV to MediaPortal. Main reason for trying to move is to see if my HD-PVR is more stable with MediaPortal. That is the only thing I don't like about BTV.

I have made a few attempts to convert in the past and was never completely successful and had to put off the conversion to the next opportunity. Since this is the HTPC used by the family, I need to make sure everything works as expected before I cut over to MediaPortal. I have a relatively complicated HTPC; running BeyondTV with an HDPVR, an HDHomeRun and a Hauppauge PVR500 dual tuner, a USB-UIRT as an IR reciever and blaster (for the STB) EventGhost and XBMC.

The last attempt I made was just before Christmas. Just started this next attempt a few days ago.

I am currently watching TV from my HDPVR in Media Portal. Getting IRSS to work was a challenge but finally got it to work without interferring with EventGhost and I was able to get channel changing on the HD-PVR to work.

Now I have to finish the channel configuration in TVServer so that they are combined correctly.

If this works, then I might actually just use TVServer as a TV service with the PVR version of XBMC. One step at a time though.

Keep in touch. I would be glad to share insight and would much appreciate you posting you success as well.

 

[Logan Price]

Robbo,

Thank you. That will suit my needs perfectly. I like the TV Series and the Moving Pictures plugins. I was under the misconception that they would not work unless the files were created by MediaPortal.

I'm switching for a couple of reasons. First, Snapstream seems to be shifting their priorities away from the consumer and into the enterprise, so I'm guessing they wont have any significant new releases any time soon (they have already stopped developing the media portion of their offering). Second, I am a .Net developer, and this seems like something I could work with, if ever I have the time.


ijourneaux,

My setup seems simpler than yours. I have clients, but they're all running the BTV Client application on Windows machines. I have the Firefly remote, but I found a profile for MediaPortal, so the switch should be simple. My only hurdle was my existing media. Problem solved.

Thanks again,
Logan

 

[RonD]

Logan,

I'm also a long time BeyondTV user who also uses MediaPortal. I'd recommend you get the basic MePo setup running without a lot of pluggins and get a solid running system. You should be able to play BTV shows in MePo but I've noticed some of my raw TS files cause a video playback hang problem. I end up using BTV to compress down to Divx.

When you get around to TV Series, you will need a "parsing expression" to take BTV file names and bring them into TV Series. Message #71 in the following forum has the needed info (pasted below).

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/expressions-rules-requests.21978/page-8

for me the "parsing expression" needs to be 1st in the list and "regex"
(?<series>[^$]+)?-+?.*\((?<title>.*)\)-?(?<FirstAired>((19|20)(\d{2})(.|-|/)([0-2]\d)(.|-|/)([0-2]\d)))-.*?.(?<ext>[^.]*)$