Why don't use a good working TV engine like DVBViewer or VDR? (3 Viewers)

[tpeosl]

Hi everybody!

I'm new to the mediaportal community and I think this is the best looking HTPC-SW, one of the functionally richest and the one with the best useability I've found so far.

BUT it is also the one with the worst TV engine I've found so far. Both, the 0.2 and the new 0.3 TV engines are difficult to configure, very unstable and switching channels takes sometimes very very long (up to a minute). On the same mashine with the same TV card drivers, I've used DVBViewer. Switching channels is fast, there was now hanging of the program at all, and you even can record several programs on the same transponder with one card. I recorded 5 programs concurrently with only two TV cards with minimal CPU usage. So this program shows, that it is possible to build a stable TV engine on a Windows system. But DVBViewer is far far away from beeing so useable and good looking like mediaportal and has not such a big community to extend the basic program with skins or plugins.

I don't know anything about the way both engines are build, but DVBViewer works much better than mediaportal. The Program DVBViewer seems to be a port of the open source Unix program VDR to Windows and I know there has been some trouble with the developer and the mediaportal community in the past, but the developers of the TV engines in mediaportal should have a look at the source code of VDR or work together with the developer of DVBViewer to build the best HTPC software on the market. If you don't, Microsoft MCE, Sceneo or any other company will catch up sooner or later and you will be gone like so many open source community in the past.


No offense meant!
Peter

 

[knutinh]

I am guessing that building a general, flexible, light-weight complete HTPC solution means that you sacrifice some performance compared to building a low-level C++ application that exploits the features of every specific tuner-card.

This is purely speculation. But the application that came with my DVB-T tuner is a lot faster than MP. This does not necessarily mean that it can be scaled up to the kind of application that MP is, and the numerous other benefits of using MP.

Also, I think that Frodo and the other "gurus" have been working really hard to get the Tv-server up and running. Again, I am speculating that moving the functionality to a different system may have diverted resources from speed/functionality temporarily?

-k

 

[infinite.loop]

BUT it is also the one with the worst TV engine I've found so far. Both, the 0.2 and the new 0.3 TV engines are difficult to configure, very unstable and switching channels takes sometimes very very long (up to a minute).

i can not confirm that.
the TV-Engine V2 in 0.2.2.0 is working very stable here with dvb-s and dvb-t.
switch times are ~2 seconds

the TV-Server (also known as TVEngine V3) is still beta.
but in a single seat configuration it is damn stable.
switch times are even better ~1second
it has issues, true. but its also still beta

I don't know anything about the way both engines are build, but DVBViewer works much better than mediaportal.

TV-Engine V2 in MediaPortal 0.2.2.0 is using Microsofts Streambuffer engine.... so......

If you don't, Microsoft MCE, Sceneo or any other company will catch up sooner or later and you will be gone like so many open source community in the past.

We hear that since the beginning of MediaPortal.
- we are still here
- the community is growing and growing
- more and more ppl are interested in MediaPortal
- and we have some very nice things in the line (some of them are not public yet)

 

[and-81]

You're such a tease.

 

[geov]

Hi Chris

You can’t tell us that there are things coming that we don’t know about.... that is seriously unfair. In any case this is open-source.... so spill the beans and tell us...

Please Please Please

Cheers
GeoV

 

[tpeosl]

BUT it is also the one with the worst TV engine I've found so far. Both, the 0.2 and the new 0.3 TV engines are difficult to configure, very unstable and switching channels takes sometimes very very long (up to a minute).

i can not confirm that.
the TV-Engine V2 in 0.2.2.0 is working very stable here with dvb-s and dvb-t.
switch times are ~2 seconds

I'm using DVB-C. Maybe this is the problem, but I don't think so. A frind of mine (DVB-C too) has switched to VDR, because he couldn't get mediaportal up and running and another person has told me he has a stabel installation (DVB-S) and when I tested it by changing channels, groups go to home screen and back to the "my TV" screen and so on, the mediaportal crashed after about 5 minutes playing around. All people envolved in this scenarios are IT experts, who are used to build ther own PCs.

So right now, I doubt that there is a stable Installation of mediaportal out there since I've seen one or someone swear an oath that he can playing around with the TV engine a longer time without crashing it.

If you don't, Microsoft MCE, Sceneo or any other company will catch up sooner or later and you will be gone like so many open source community in the past.

We hear that since the beginning of MediaPortal.
- we are still here
- the community is growing and growing
- more and more ppl are interested in MediaPortal
- and we have some very nice things in the line (some of them are not public yet)

You know this man who jumped from the multi-story building and said when he reached the first story still falling: "Until now, everything went well".

I think this is the advantage but also the basic problem in this open source project. There are a lot of new features every day and many developers are working on plugins and other new features, but the basement of this building is rotten and needs rework and no, I don't think that TV server will be the solution to this problem.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

So right now, I doubt that there is a stable Installation of mediaportal out there since I've seen one or someone swear an oath that he can playing around with the TV engine a longer time without crashing it.

Running 0.2.2.0 Stable here

 

[tpeosl]

I am guessing that building a general, flexible, light-weight complete HTPC solution means that you sacrifice some performance compared to building a low-level C++ application that exploits the features of every specific tuner-card.

This is purely speculation. But the application that came with my DVB-T tuner is a lot faster than MP. This does not necessarily mean that it can be scaled up to the kind of application that MP is, and the numerous other benefits of using MP.

I don't compare mediaportal with the applications which came with the TV cards. I compare it with another flexible, general perpose application which works nearly with any TV card mediaportal works with.

Also, I think that Frodo and the other "gurus" have been working really hard to get the Tv-server up and running. Again, I am speculating that moving the functionality to a different system may have diverted resources from speed/functionality temporarily?

Don't get me wrong, I think those "gurus" have done a remarkable job building this application and it must be a lot of work doing it. I'm a developer too, but I wouldn't be able to do anything close to it in a reasonable time period. But maybe those "gurus" know how to tune the TV engine to a stable level but get overwhelmed by new feature request. BTW, building new features in an application is much more fun and you can harvest much more reputation than rework an application for stabillity and performance.

 

[tpeosl]

So right now, I doubt that there is a stable Installation of mediaportal out there since I've seen one or someone swear an oath that he can playing around with the TV engine a longer time without crashing it.

Running 0.2.2.0 Stable here

just a another statement. No oath and I havn't seen it jet

 

[igalan]

I'm using DVB-C. Maybe this is the problem, but I don't think so. A frind of mine (DVB-C too) has switched to VDR, because he couldn't get mediaportal up and running and another person has told me he has a stabel installation (DVB-S) and when I tested it by changing channels, groups go to home screen and back to the "my TV" screen and so on, the mediaportal crashed after about 5 minutes playing around. All people envolved in this scenarios are IT experts, who are used to build ther own PCs.

The discussion about building for stability has been brought many times, already. Many developers of the core of Media Portal have spent a lot of time on this, and continue to improve this area: we've been having stable paches lately .

If you know how to crash a so called stable Media Portal, you can help writting a test plan that leads to the crash and then developers can check it and fixes should come. There is a forum for that, and maybe you could help that way .