Thinking of changing to Mediaportal - Does it have these features? (1 Viewer)

[yunti]

I'm thinking of changing to Mediaportal - currently I'm an XBMC user.

Mediaportal seems to have 2 main advantages over XBMC -

1) TV support
2) DXVA (harware support) for superior rendering

however I'm not sure of the features that Mediaportal has (the website seems pretty out of date at the moment)

Does Mediaportal:

- Have media scraping support (so that it displays plot/movie/tv series info)?
- Have UPNP/DLNA server support so that it can serve media to other devices?
- Can it transcode (as per TVersity) so it can serve media to devices that can't playback that format?
- Does it have a BBC iplayer plugin?
- Does it support other online streaming media?
- Are there any limitations (or benefits) with the TV support vs Windows Media Centre (I'm on Windows 7 x64).
- Any support for launching games/emulators

One of the biggest downsides vs XBMC seems to be how it looks. What are the best skins on Mediportal? Do any of these compare to something like Aeon Auriga (plus Hitcher mod) on XBMC?

Thanks

 

[Inker]

I like how people come here and want everything put on a plate for them.

Most of these questions can be answered with a quick forum search or two....some even simply by looking at the forum structur itself and adding 1 and 1 together. Also, on the issue of best, I like the rule on another forum I visit, that is that there is no best as per the rules as it only leeds to flamewars. What is the best Fruit/football club/movie/skin?

Anyways:
1) yes
2) i think there is a plugin, but don't know its current status, id say no
3) dont know
4) yes
5) you'll have to be more specific for people to answer that
6) yes

just try it, not like you have to buy it first.

 

[CHli]

- Can it transcode (as per TVersity) so it can serve media to devices that can't playback that format?

Look at https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...iaportal-ipimp-3-5-0-a-46556/?highlight=IPimp I think it can do offline transcoding, or you can also use MCEBuddy to do the transcoding (also offline). If you want to stream to a mobile phone in realtime (online transcoding) or over the internet you can use that : https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/.../my-small-contribution-i-call-streamtv-50470/

- Does it support other online streaming media?

Maybe you want to have a look at https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/onlinevideos-244/onlinevideos-0-9-8-09-01-2009-a-57467/

One of the biggest downsides vs XBMC seems to be how it looks. What are the best skins on Mediportal? Do any of these compare to something like Aeon Auriga (plus Hitcher mod) on XBMC?

Have a look at this section :

Maintained Skins - MediaPortal Forum

We also have some very nice looking skins coming (hopefully) soon :

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/skins-50/new-simple-skin-picture-update-68747/

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/monochrome-249/starting-over-70957/

But in general I would say that MediaPortal offers a lot more customisations than XBMC (also to reach the best quality). For an hifi/htpc enthusiast it's really offering everything you need to set-up the perfect system. But this take time and efforts. XBMC is more everything in a package and should run out of the box. (but this also offers less choices for the user)

 

[yunti]

Thanks for your replies, some great info!

My apologies if I was asking rather obvious questions but there doesn't seem to be an up to date guide or feature list for users that I can find. (only things I can see seem pretty out of date)

That Iphone app looks superb and very handy.

Just a few quick questions around a typical setup:

1) I take it to watch TV and use Mediaportal as a media server I need to install the TV server and Mediaportal?
2) For scraping media info do I need to install plugins or is this built into Mediaportal? (I did see one for TV shows - couldn't see anything for movies- and I'm not sure if this is no built in)
3) Media flags- (showing resolution, aspect ratio) I did see some screenshots of this in one of the skins - is this built into Mediportal or does it require a plugin or different method? ( I use this feature in XBMC)
4) Trailer support - is there support for scraping and playback of trailers in Mediaportal?
5) Codec setup - Does Mediaportal use windows Directshow codecs rather than the built in method as per XBMC and VLC? (Is there a good setup guide for Windows 7 codecs and mediaportal?)


I'm a bit confused about the way development works on Mediaportal. Peopl seem to be working on Mediaportal 2 as well as on updating the 1.1 Beta SVN. Do major changes go into Mediaportal 2 and minor ones into the current Beta SVN?

Another quick question about Upnp/DLNA server support. I did see this development post for UPnP subsytem in mediaportal 2
0001742: Develop UPnP subsystem - MediaPortal Bugtracker. Does that mean currently Mediportal doesn't function as a media server (earlier post seems to indicate it doesn't) but that it is heading in this direction?

 

[Inker]

1) yes
2) yes, those are plugins, for movies MP has a build in imdb lookup feature that can display artwork, but better plugins exist (myfilms and moving pictures)
3) tv-series does this, and some other parts of MP too (using mediainfo lib) to read file-info
5) yes, using DS but you can force specific filters for some codecs if you want, or you can fully rely on DS merits

MP2 is a complete rewrite, only thing in common with MP1 is the name and the dev team (although currently its a one man show (Albert)) and its far from usable ATM, but dev. focus will switch completetly to it soon

 

[JoeSmith]

1) For Tv you need to install the Tv-Server
2) Take a look at Mp-TvSeries and MovingPictures
3) Mp (and/or the plugins) use MediaInfo to get these information. TvSeries already displays that stuff, MovingPictures will do that in 0.8 which is coming soon.
4) Take a look at MyTrailers and OnlineVideos
5) Take a look at the MPC Codecs (search for SAF), for TV i'm using powerdvd7 codecs which are quite good

MP2 is in a very early (pre?) alpha stage and right now the main focus still seams to be on MP1. As soon as MP 1.01 is out most of the dev will start to focus on mp2.

 

[etheesdad]

Thanks for your replies, some great info!

My apologies if I was asking rather obvious questions but there doesn't seem to be an up to date guide or feature list for users that I can find. (only things I can see seem pretty out of date)

That Iphone app looks superb and very handy.

Just a few quick questions around a typical setup:

1) I take it to watch TV and use Mediaportal as a media server I need to install the TV server and Mediaportal?
2) For scraping media info do I need to install plugins or is this built into Mediaportal? (I did see one for TV shows - couldn't see anything for movies- and I'm not sure if this is no built in)
3) Media flags- (showing resolution, aspect ratio) I did see some screenshots of this in one of the skins - is this built into Mediportal or does it require a plugin or different method? ( I use this feature in XBMC)
4) Trailer support - is there support for scraping and playback of trailers in Mediaportal?
5) Codec setup - Does Mediaportal use windows Directshow codecs rather than the built in method as per XBMC and VLC? (Is there a good setup guide for Windows 7 codecs and mediaportal?)


I'm a bit confused about the way development works on Mediaportal. Peopl seem to be working on Mediaportal 2 as well as on updating the 1.1 Beta SVN. Do major changes go into Mediaportal 2 and minor ones into the current Beta SVN?

Another quick question about Upnp/DLNA server support. I did see this development post for UPnP subsytem in mediaportal 2
0001742: Develop UPnP subsystem - MediaPortal Bugtracker. Does that mean currently Mediportal doesn't function as a media server (earlier post seems to indicate it doesn't) but that it is heading in this direction?

1. yes
2. there is some support in MP itself, but its probably safe to say that most users tend to use plugins as they greatly extend this function. Moving Pictures and MP TV Series are two of the more popular ones.
3. yes
4. yes - see HERE
5. see SAF

As I understand it, 1.1 final will be the last development release using the Mediaportal 1 code. All development after the final release of 1.1 will be focused on MP2.

[edit] LOL! Yunti - you got three answers in 5 minutes... you have to be happy with that!

 

[yunti]

Thanks for the great (and speedy) responses!

Thanks I'll get hold of Moving pictures and the MP TV series plugins. (are there plans to integrate these into Mediaportal or do the developers like to keep that stuff seperate as plugins?)

As a sidequestion - why is MP2 a complete rewrite (as Inker mentioned)? Is this legacy XBMC code from when Frodo originally ported it holding it back - or is it for another reason?


From your responses it looks like Mediaportal has pretty much all of the main benefits of XMBC when used with plugins (with some big pluses as mentioned in the first post) - so I've downloaded it to test it out.
(However I've encountered some issues with my tv card - but I'll post that elsewhere rather than here).

Thanks