What about restricting support to specific OS? (1 Viewer)

[Jean-Christophe]

Hello,

Why can't I use MP to do things it is made for? I mean, I can't watch TV (My dvbs card is officialy supported, but I receive "NoSignal" error), I can't listen radio with a good sound quality, I can't browse my picture flowlesly (it seams there are too much files), etc.
I can watch movies and TV series. The internal My Movies do the job but Moving Picture is very low. My TV Series works fine.
My recent MP experience is made of frustration!

Here is my point of view.
MediaPortal try to be as versatile as possible. Maybe it is not what users are expecting.
We are all trying to have a stable system and a lot of people are using dedicated PC as HTPC (a poll would be interresting).
I'm shure the system would be more stable and easy to maintain if the software spec are more restrictive.

I won't have any problem to keep the software prerequisite very restrictive. Officialy support one OS in one language with specific service pack and patches. Other config won't be banned but unsupported by the dev team but the community can add value.

Hardware is more difficult as it move more quickly, but the dev team could oblige to use specific driver version for specific hardware. This won't be an issue for the major part of us as our goal is to have a stable system.

I wish a great future for MediaPortal and this is why I can't keep this idea for me.

I hope my intervention won't be misunderstoud. I am here with a positive mind to make MP better.

 

[tourettes]

I won't have any problem to keep the software prerequisite very restrictive. Officialy support one OS in one language with specific service pack and patches. Other config won't be banned but unsupported by the dev team but the community can add value.

Users are pretty stubborn when it comes things like OS version. Mainly because Vista did get bad repuation people are thinking it is not a good OS for HTPC (also that is true with

Now it could work a bit better when we have Windows 7 out and no bad reputation has gained for that OS (yet ). I personally have always recommended Vista for MP and nowadays it is Windows 7.

Hardware is more difficult as it move more quickly, but the dev team could oblige to use specific driver version for specific hardware. This won't be an issue for the major part of us as our goal is to have a stable system.

HW is indeed really difficult as even team members don't have same HW (and no money to buy matching / recommended HW ). Also people tend to have different needs so we cannot settle down for a specific HW.

Driver versions aren't any better, as some DVB streams might be broken on some GPU driver version and some HW might not work properly with ATI's / Nvidia's different cards. There is just not a single working driver version available for any single GPU that would work in all situations.

If we were a company and selling something like Boxee HW then those issues would go a way, but MP's one main goal is to be flexible and it comes with a price that can be seen as imcompatibility issues (either purely HW & driver issues or MP and HW related issues, like the ATI and flickering GUI ).

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Can you fill out your system specifications, under the user control panel and enable, this allows others to know the hardware you are using to run MediaPortal on.

 

[edterbak]

It would probably be good for minimizing bugs and getting MP faster.
But in my opinion the downside is:
-I dont think the people (I) would like to hear their (my) current OS windows XP license in native language is now 'worthless' for use with MP.
-The amount of users of mediaportal will reduce significantly as well. The cross-windows-OS of mediaportal is its strength in my opinion.
-To be honest, If using Mediaportal would require me to buy a new specific OS; i.e. windows 7 - english - ultimate - 32bit license I would probably skip to other software. I doubt the majority of the people dig deep in mediacenter software before buying a new system.

Just my thoughts ofcourse on this.
I do understand why you could be frustrated with things. I think the way of dealing with the source of that is creating good bugreports and improve on the current system. Most of the frustrations originate from bugs (tsreader) or plugins (movingpictures) from what I see what you wrote.

Maybe it is a good idea to create a "Recommended Software/Hardware list". Things like preferred OS, OS language, Hardware TVcard, soundcard, memory amount, cpu speed etc. etc... Or maybe such a list is already there, I actually never looked for it.

 

[tourettes]

f users of mediaportal will reduce significantly as well. The cross-windows-OS of mediaportal is its strength in my opinion.
-To be honest, If using Mediaportal would require me to buy a new specific OS; i.e. windows 7 - english - ultimate - 32bit license I would probably skip to other software. I doubt the majority of the people dig deep in mediacenter software before buying a new system.

MPII will change your mind

 

[edterbak]

f users of mediaportal will reduce significantly as well. The cross-windows-OS of mediaportal is its strength in my opinion.
-To be honest, If using Mediaportal would require me to buy a new specific OS; i.e. windows 7 - english - ultimate - 32bit license I would probably skip to other software. I doubt the majority of the people dig deep in mediacenter software before buying a new system.

MPII will change your mind

Oeeh.. Now that is a BIIIIG tease...
I dont expect MPII replacing MPI within this year Maybe a beta for testing the basics, but nowhere near the completness MPI offers right now. But thats just my expectation right now.

But I really really really hope you are right.

 

[Jean-Christophe]

tourette > Thanks for your reply.
Just to be sure, do not misunderstand me. I don't blame anyone! I understand the goal of having a wide variety of HW/SW supported. This is a very good thing. My point is Reducing the OFFICIALY supported list can make it easyer to manage and then, better maintained.

edterbak > I agree with all your points. I have a specific use of MP. I don't want to reduce possibility.
About localized OS, supporting them is not an issue, this point could be transfered to the localized community. I mean, I use French OS at work (yes, I know...), I have two english system at home (my personal PC and the HTPC), IF I had to install MP of the French OS and have any problem, I would ask to the French community.

Paranoid Delusion > Here it is

tourette > Up to now, MPII is nothing else than a hope for end user like me.

(I relay need to setup the english spell checking, sorry for my mistakes)

 

[Jean-Christophe]

I have to appology, my TV problem is not MP related but a driver failure.
I made the appropriate post in the forum to clarify the isstuation if someone else face the problem.

 

[el Filou]

And what about configuring your system correctly so that MP works with it?
It is perfectly possible to get MP to work flawlessly on many different OS versions, languages and hardware. Just because your specific system has a problem doesn't mean MP would work better on it if it was developed for a specific OS/language (and the idea of developing for specific hardware just isn't right on the PC platform, nobody wants to go back to 1994).
Actually most issues you encounter on a PC don't come from the platform itself, but from a platform/hardware/drivers/software combination. You could have some hardware that doesn't work at all, or doesn't work very good on XP, but some other hardware that doesn't work as good on 7 on the same system.
Every problem has a solution, and most have a workaround (especially on a PC), it just takes time to get everything working fine, but that's the essence of using a PC.
In fact MP does everything it says "on the box" when installed from scratch on any fresh Windows OS, and most other programs also encounter the same problems as MP when the load gets high, such as with gigantic music/movies/pictures collections (did yoy try organising your pictures folders differently and see if that works better?), and using many 3rd-party plugins (try MS Media Center, try do get it to do the same things you ask MP to do with the same flexibility, then come back and tell us what you think of it ).
Now you're right if you think it could do some (many) things better compared to highly-specific dedicated players/applications, but I don't think that would improve just by restricting the target platform, and to be honest even though I am kind of a perfectionnist, I find MP to be quite good for something that tries to be a one-thing-for-all for HTPC. You could use a dozen different players/apps, each with their own forces and weaknesses to get better results, but I prefer the convenience of MP even though I'm sometimes fed up with some of its glitches.
Plus by reading the list of your problems, I can't help thinking they are not OS-related nor language-related. Different developers tend to different parts of MP so even if the general development would get a bit faster by tailoring for specific OS/language, that doesn't mean the parts you have a problem with would get better development. And as MP works on the basis of user feedback, losing all the user base that would ditch MP if it was platform-specific, you would also lose a big chunk of the user feedback and so development would probably slow down more.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

 

[cecolon]

Instead of calling some configurations supported, what about making one or more recommended setups, both for hardware and software?