Things to do with the new TV engine (1 Viewer)

[onkl]

Just a small sidestep: What would the system requirements for the back-end be?
I'd guess no DX9 :wink: But, would a small VIA 900 work? (that would make a great silent and efficient recording box for the basement)
Or the old P3 people (I for one) might use as a data server?

Obviously no one would like to give "the final word" on requirements while the engine is not even public beta, but just an indication would be great, to plan ahead on our *asset management*.

 

[Frodo]

the backend does not make use of the gpu/vga card
so any card should work

frodo

 

[onkl]

the backend does not make use of the gpu/vga card
so any card should work

frodo

Great.
For processor demands, will "anything" (say Pentium3 and upwards) do, so we can start recycling older PC's or will the demands be more substantial?
If I look at the requirements for the "classic" MP approach: min=1.4GHz/256MB, rec. 2.0GHz/512MB, my intuition would say that MP minus the GUI (the new TV engine process) might manage on older hardware. However, I tend not to trust my intuition when I'm not sure what I'm talking about :wink:

 

[Nightmare77]

this sounds sooo sweet frodo, i will be able to dig up the athlon 2400 and my ti4200 and reuse them as the server. Cant wait to test it out , glad i installed the cat6 cable in the house now .
Really looking forward to the beta release of it

 

[marshall]

Just some thoughts

I don't know how far MediaPortal wants to delve into distributed computing, but if it was written into the program, I wouldn't mind letting people placeshift off my signal or send their signals to my computer (when it is idle) to rip streams to DivX.

One of the problems (though by design) with the slingbox (which is a placeshifting device available in some regions) is that only one remote use is allowed, and it has to be logged in to. If MP could allow multiple people to placeshift off one signal, that would be awesome. If this is not possible, it would at least be cool to have the option to broadcast that your signal could be used, and what channels are available, and leave it open so the first person to connect could use it, no password required.

What sort of authentication is being written in to allow access from remote lands? The ability to have a list of MAC addresses allowed to connect would be a nice option.

 

[Elvar]

Hello,

there are two things/ideas I would like to see in MP in future.

The first thing is ability to watch/record multiple channels on the same mux with one dvb tuner card. This means that if there are i.e. four channels on a mux I could for example record two of them and watch the third one. And this all would be possible with only one tuner card. Of course if I had two tuners I could do this with two muxes etc. Cpu power shouldn't be too much an issue, because recording isn't that cpu intensive task.

Second thing is related to the scheduled recordings. At the moment there is no proper solution to wake up MP if there's scheduled recording about to start and pc is shut down. That's why I propose that the wake up thing could be done similar way that they do in VDR. They do it with a little module called nvram-wakeup. More info can be found at http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Nvram_wakeup. Basically it works by writing the next wake up time (=next scheduled recording) to the computer bios at the VDR shutdown. The computer then starts at the written time to start recording. The nvram-wakeup works almost on any modern atx motherboard. So I think this would be great way for MP to deal with the scheduled recordings too.

Thanks everybody, hopefully we'll see those features above in MP some day. MP is a great piece of software and getting better all the time!

-Elvar-

 

[amnw14545]

Above comment about waking up from proper shutdown seems an excellent idea - imagine how much power that would save given all the media portal users!

On the surface it looks pretty simple to achieve? Presumably the earliest wake up time out of all the scheduled recordings (and scheduled tasks, since I run webepg and the grabber from tasks) less a couple of minutes could be written to the BIOS.... this would still work with the power plugin and the existing way that MP wakes from suspend/hibernate.

 

[Marcusb]

PVRScheduler already has the function to set the wake up time in the BIOS. Note that this is PVRScheduler, which is fully compatible with MP but it ISN'T PowerScheduler which is actually built into MP.

Also, MP is able to wake the computer from hibernate, which uses just as little power as when the computer is actually turned off.

 

[SweMart]

frodo: Any plans to support teletext or DVB subtitles? Since we have a very strong aversion to dubbed programs here in Scandinavia this is probably the most requested feature in scandinavian HTPC forums.

I've had a look at tourettes "filter" but since I'm only familiar to UNIX C++ programming I have quite a lot of learning regarding DirectX programming to do before I can make any contributions

 

[RoyN]

What would the timeframe be on the rollout of the new wengine? I havent found out too much info on here about what is already coded, what isnt, etc...

Another thing that comes to mind, would this be compatible with say Myth? If not, why not? wouldnt it be positive to have the new engine compatible? (that would allow say, us to develop the client side first, and already start using/testing it with a myth backend)...

It would also allow for greater interchange between users... and would kill some of the unhealthy rivalry between the 2 systems which i have felt.

I love some features and the way tht MP works, but some features (most notable being able to have a set of tv cature cards in one server, and several clients acessing them for live tv watching) are missing and are in myth... but myth has its own shortcomings, so i'm torn...

So basically: what is the useability timeframe for the new engine and its streaming live-tv-over-network ability? (is it planned, is it being worked on, is it in beta, etc?) and secondly is it any kind of standard?