Thinking of installing MediaPortal - A few questions about features (1 Viewer)

[JohnFish]

Hi all,

I am thinking of giving MediaPortal a try since media center does half of what it advertises. I have a few questions regarding some of features I would like to find. Please let me know if these are available. Thanks in advance.

1) Multiple tuners? I have a digital satellite tuner (Floppy DTV). Will this be available with the native driver?
2) DVD ripping. In media center I use the my movies plugin which works great. Is there anything similar available for media portal?
3) Subtitles through freeview. I have an avermedia freeview tuner and I would like to enable subtitles. MCE does not support this feature. How about media portal?
4) Media center remote control. Can I still use it? I would rather use a remote control than a keyboard or a mouse.
5) HD videos - Through hd-dvd, blueray or satellite (my tuner is HD compatible).

Thats it for now. Anything else with regards to the comparison between the two apps? Thanks

 

[idioteque]

1 dont know
2 MP does not support ripping DVD's out of the box
3 dont know
4 yes MCE remote works out of the box
5 HD video's depends on the format. HD, h264 can be seen in MP with right codecs, as a rule: if you can play them in MCE or windows mediaplayer or Media Player classic they should work inside MP

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

1) Multiple tuners? I have a digital satellite tuner (Floppy DTV). Will this be available with the native driver?

Should work fine, as this is one of the promoted cards.

3) Subtitles through freeview. I have an avermedia freeview tuner and I would like to enable subtitles. MCE does not support this feature

Current versions of TVE3 support this, these versions can vary on usability, so try a couple from maybe the last 2 months to get a working version for you.

hopefully this answers your immediate questions, and thanks to idioteque for filling in the rest.

Regards

 

[level20peon]

Hello JohnFish,

1) Do you mean whether it is possible to build multiple of these cards into your PC ? If so -> Sure, this is possible. EDIT: PD was faster
2) ...
3) No idea - Try the forum search function
4) ...
5) ...

Thats it for now. Anything else with regards to the comparison between the two apps? Thanks

Have fun.


-level20peon

 

[JohnFish]

Thanks guys. How about this dvd ripping? is it possible even with a plugin? Thanks

 

[JohnFish]

Also, I am using my htpc in a single-seat setting. Its the only machine in the house connected to the only tv. Do i still need tvserver? Or should I install just mediaportal? thx

 

[rekenaar]

I would still go for TV server. The recordings is then handled by a background service. No need for MP to be started.

 

[JohnFish]

Thanks guys for your help. I did install it and its an amazing piece of software. Both my tuner cards work and the interface looks nice too (important to have the WAF).

Few questions though. I am using it in a signle seat configuration. I have tuned all my channels through the tvServer and they all work fine. But:

1) I cant get the EPG to work. Is there anything I need to configure/enable/disable/install which is not the default option?
2) More importantly, I am facing a problem in watching a channel. I select the channel in channels in my tv and it displays fine in the small window on the right. At this point I have three issues:
a) I cannot get the screen to maximize. If I move over to the 'now playing' window and click, it starts from the beginning of the timeshift buffer (why would it do that?)
b) If I press back to go the main menu the 'now playing' window is still visible in the screen (sort of persists over menu options)
c) It takes about 3 seconds from the time I press 'channels' till the time I see the list of channels. Meanwhile the system is locked.
3) Something aside, but equally important. Is there anyway to make the green 'media center' button in the mce remote control to start mediaportal against mce?
4) Finally, I read that you can have different clients accessing tvengine apart from the standard mediaportal. Is this true? What clients can access it? Front row? MCE? Thanks in advance.

please ignore 3. I discovered mptray and gonna try it out soon.

 

[level20peon]

1) See my signature for a HowTo
2) ...
3) right, MPTray
4) VLC and TVclient are the only ones I know of

 

[JohnFish]

Thanks!

How about this no. 2? Is this a know bug or a problem with my config?