Why i no longer use MP (2 Viewers)

[alexodwyer]

As far as i know, and i haven't really looked into this properly. XBMC has a script which integrates it with a dreambox. Beyond that i don't think it has any tv capabilities. Certainyl nothing "official"!

Of course, i could be wrong

 

[rekenaar]

The script I referred to can be found here.

 

[kkendall]

1) Ease of installation, XBMC installs and is done. I found MP to be a delicate juggling act of codecs, vobsub, halli, and various other 3rd party apps, to get subtitles, mutli audio track videos etc to work.

2) XBMC is configured directly from the the menu, no second configuration app, which means I can do all my set up off my remote on my couch. No more sitting on the floor 1 foot away from the tv with a mouse in my hand. With the exception of the fiddly network shares etc which are done out of XML.

I hope this post didn't seem like me slamming MP, I do like MP a lot. Its just XBMC is far less work to keep running, I think MP's biggest problem is that it has two personalities, on one side its a couch friendly media centre. On the other side its a pc app you need a mouse and keyboard for, which totally defeats the software's purpose.

I have high hopes for MP2, if my dreams are realised it will be an app with the smoothness and slickness XBMC has now, with tv support and and advanced user mode for diving into the guts and doing things my own way. I hope it happens and I wish MP all the luck in the world.

In the beginning I struggled a lot with these 2 points you're making. Now, after 1,5 years of MP use, I'm used to it and know a bit where I have to be to change something. But this frustrated me in the beginning a lot I can tell you. In fact, it almost made me throw MP in the bin to try something more userfriendly. But I persisted and now I'm quite happy with MP. It's certainly not there yet (sometimes slow reaction, dropped frames, hanging mini-epg, random crashes, not able to play all files), but it's getting better and better.

So for me MP is almost perfect but still, for new users it's a really hard job to set up MP for the first time.

 

[Mats42]

After trying Vista Media Center with TV-pack I have noticed a few pro:s and Cons compared to MediaPortal.

Setup: MediaCenter, well since it's included it not much to say about that, TV-pack requiers a few patches and has to be installed in the right order. MP:s installer is a very nice touch but it needs improvement, for example it requires Dotnet framework 2.0 but it doesn't check for it first, instead you get a dotnet error wich isn't user friendly (I posted a few lines of code how you could check for it but im not a Cx-dev). Also it would be nice with a check for FFDShow and a button to install it if it's missing

Configuration: Built in in Mediacenter and can mostly be done from a remote (some settings requieres registry hacking though). MP has two different setup programs (one for MP and one for TV-server) wich requieres the Main app to be closed... they do requier a keyboard too. In my eyes this is the largest lack of useability in MP and the point there development went backwards from XBMC.

Usage: Now it starts to get even. Mediacenter has in my eyes a better consistancy between modules but MP has more modules out of the box. HD support is a great bonus for MP and MCE has better remote integration. For example channel up/down did nothing in MP but in MCE it changes the channel. Same thing for teletext, if im in fullscreen mode in MCE and push the teletext button, I do get teletext.
One thing both (almost all HTPC apps) could do better is navigation from a remote. A modern telly or settop box can be fully used with around six buttons, ofcourse it more efficient to use more buttons but you can use do everything with a few. Thats userfriendly and very easy to get started with

Stability: Unfortunally MCE wins. I have been able to hang MCE two-three times. MP crasches a lot quicker. Will try to be a good tester and provide propper logging on this


Disclaimer: all funny spelling errors are copyright by me , no but english isn't my native language. It's quite possible that some of the things above is user errors by me, in that case please tell me so, I guess we then could use it to improve the usability for begginers instead

 

[BennieBoy]

Hi,

I love to use both MP as XBMC, but I think it has two different audiences.
As already said, XBMC works out of the box and gives simple direct access to your Multimedia content.
Where MP is a bit more difficult to install, but gives the user a lot of room to fiddle with settings to get things the way you like them.

What I noticed:

• XBMC has an incredible fast response, even when I use a network drive
• XBMC uses quite a lot of power when doing nothing (when looking at the main screen, power usage is 20Watt higher in respect to MP
• HD content in XBMC is looking good, but in respect to MP it seems to have a bit less performance. Athlon X64 939 3000+ can handle 1080i quite nicely while XBMC is just not fast enough to give the same bitrate.
• MP Can start from a network drive. XBMC crashes (probably there is a work around).

Greetz,
Ben

 

[Dexx]

What is XBMC like at supporting and playing HD-DVD and Bluray disks?

 

[Darre]

I tested XBMC windows port;

- No remote support, and after hours of fiddling I only got down some basic buttons via external apps(not very userfriendly, for now)
- CPU Usage skyrocketed, one core was at 100% constantly, making my cpu fan sound like a jet engine.
- No TV-Series plugin!
- And now we have Moving pictures(movie plugin) for MP thats makes the one in XBMC crap in comparison

* What I did like was the fact that I could with ease change (basic)settings inside XBMC.. But on the other hand I missed the configuration app of MP which I know in and out after using it for 2 years
* I also liked the cool effects of the menus, XBMC is in OpenGL(I think?) and that made stuff look really cool!
* A lot of cool skins come from xbmc, and that iam very thankfull for

Now I know both of the above is going to be implented in MP2, I really hope that we get some basic config stuff inside, while we can keep that awesome config app for the more advanced stuff Lets face it, even changing skin inside MP now is a hazzle when you have 10 of them like I do.

Thx for making MP, its an awesome HTPC app! And it has a great community with a lot of helpfull people that makes great plugins/skins.

 

[Scha]

I tested XBMC windows port;

- No remote support, and after hours of fiddling I only got down some basic buttons via external apps(not very userfriendly, for now)
- CPU Usage skyrocketed, one core was at 100% constantly, making my cpu fan sound like a jet engine.
- No TV-Series plugin!
- And now we have Moving pictures(movie plugin) for MP thats makes the one in XBMC crap in comparison

Remote support suck in XBMC, I was able to figure out how to use my Hauppauge remote, but it took some time, and there was no guide anywhere on how to do it (people suggested that I needed some additional software, but I didnt).

CPU usage is VERY high on some computers but not all. I have no idea why...

TV-Series is built in. You just set the content type of a folder to be TV-Shows and it works.

I LOVE that MP implemented the moving pictures . It doesnt make XBMC crap tho, because MP still crashes more than XBMC and MP requires more resouces with some skins than XBMC do.

They are both pretty good, but both got a lot of work to do.

 

[infinite.loop]

because MP still crashes more than XBMC

i have not seen Mediaportal crashing here (no 3rd party plugins used!) since more then one year.
and its used by wife and kids virtually the whole day.

 

[GoldenEye]

because MP still crashes more than XBMC

i have not seen Mediaportal crashing here (no 3rd party plugins used!) since more then one year.
and its used by wife and kids virtually the whole day.

"MP" used to crash here from time to time, too. But upgrading some hardware components solved this. I replaced
- the onboard ATI Radeon Xpress 200 with a ATI Radeon HD 3400
- replaced my Logitech Bluetooth keyboard with another one without bluetooth
- replaced the x10 remote with a Microsoft one.

With the onboard graphics chip, I could not use ffdshow at all - TV crashed after some minutes. After the upgrade, everything was ok - without any sofware changes.

This shows that very often it is not MP to blame for crashes.

G.