Why I think I'm switching back to Media Center (1 Viewer)

[mrkaras]

although I have problems with a lot of parts but that is not one of them, just share the folder on the media holding PC and set MP to include that in its video folders (I did that with pictures anyway, when I get round to re-setting it up between MP unistallls/reinstalls). I didn't map drives at all. is there any issue with the speed of the LAN for videos I wonder?

 

[damaster]

Is there any need for these buttons if not using a mouse?

In MP's current state, absolutely. My HTPC is a dedicated device, but sometimes I like to restart the box to refresh it (there still is a windows OS running on it remember...) and I like to hibernate it when not in use to conserve electricity.

And i KNOW its a very simple question... How to use a Switch bigger than 4 ports... i have a 8 port switch.

you mean this question? https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/showthread.php?t=29497

I have no idea what you're asking and the thread has had 40 views in the span of 2 days. Maybe you're not getting any answers because nobody understands the question? Posting something more than two sentences is always in your best interest.

Complexity is something we really have to tame. With simplicity comes less questions, less confusion, and greater satisfaction with MP. Now that doesnt mean we have to strip down MP; instead we have to take the complexity away from the user and keep it behind the scenes. It's an enormous balancing act - take too much away and its not customizable enough for power users. Take nothing away and new users become confused and frustrated very easily.

Im a huge believer in the KISS philosophy - Keep It Simple, Stupid! - But some people are not. Sometimes I have to remind myself that innovation doesnt come without complexity. It's what you do after you innovate that is important to the end user.

Excellent post! I`m also a huge believer in KISS, and all MediaPortal developers need to start practicing this philosophy.

In addition, MediaPortal needs to start pushing back on feature requests and focusing on what`s important and making what`s broken work well before adding more features. Throw out every feature request you get, don`t even look at it. If there`s a feature that`s really important, it`ll be requested frequently enough that you`ll realize it`s important and needs to be implemented.

On that note, this book is an excellent read: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php. I would recommend every MediaPortal contributor read that book and practice the principles therein.

 

[infinite.loop]

In addition, MediaPortal needs to start pushing back on feature requests and focusing on what`s important and making what`s broken work well before adding more features.

currently i am realy wondering if some ppl just do not read the news nor the forums, and therefore have missed that

• MediaPortal is still in a featurefreeze (more then 6months now!)
• the TV-Server is in featurefreeze too since nearly the same time
• our focus is on stability since more then one year and not on developing new features, but because of the small ammount of developers things just thake long!
• MediaPortal 2 has been announced as slim appplication which only provides the basic features and everything else has to be a comunity plugin

or if these ppl are only interested to get some flamewars started here instead of beeing constructive?

 

[damaster]

In addition, MediaPortal needs to start pushing back on feature requests and focusing on what`s important and making what`s broken work well before adding more features.

currently i am realy wondering if some ppl just do not read the news nor the forums, and therefore have missed that

• MediaPortal is still in a featurefreeze (more then 6months now!)
• the TV-Server is in featurefreeze too since nearly the same time
• our focus is on stability since more then one year and not on developing new features, but because of the small ammount of developers things just thake long!
• MediaPortal 2 has been announced as slim appplication which only provides the basic features and everything else has to be a comunity plugin

or if these ppl are only interested to get some flamewars started here instead of beeing constructive?

There's no need to take such a defensive stance. I was not trying to start a flame war and was only providing a bit of constructive criticism.

 

[m0deth]

wow, all this and nobody noticed the problem from post #1 of this thread(cept iloop, who is too nice to call it like it is).

If you run Vista and have media app problems, no matter what app, and there'stons of issues here....blame M$, not the app authors. Hollywood is also to blame, for not adopting standards and sticking to them. App authors construct programs like this based on standards, if those standards are broken on your media purposely to throw off a computer os or apps, then how is MP or MCE at fault?

example:both Jumanjii and the follow up movie(starts with a Z), came in a doublepack for me...both do horrible things ..to both MP and MCE, VLC is the only app that plays them well enough to sit thru. So I got frustrated, bought dvd fab platinum, and recut the discs without the bs MALWARE(defined by me as anything thats stops me from using my media how I choose to view it), and menus and all work fine now in MP and others. This is just one example of what MP faces, and not just them, MCE, BeyondV, Sage, JRiver, they all have these problems to one extent or another, it's not their fault either.

Would you like to stop these shenannigans? Write to your lawmakers, and tell them to stop taking money from hollywood, write manufacturers, and let them know how you feel about knowing 1/3 of the cost of players/devices is all crap designed to restrain your usage, and YOU pay for it.

As far as going back to MCE goes, I have MP on MCE, and the only thing MCE does right now...is record over firewire and schedule recordings, that's it. If MP coud do this, it would be sitting on TinyXP instead, and using alot less resources. Yes MP requires some work, but it palys everything I throw at it(with the exception of a few badly published movies which were then corrected by me). This is more than I can say for MCE by far. And I won't even go into how much more value the TVSeries plugin brings to it.

With my wife, simply explained the difference, and it's bugs, showed her both, and she agrees MP is the better product, she now finds ways around the bugs, and there aren't that many show stopper bugs either, just make you whine if you're lazy bugs. Keep in mind, you didn't dump 125+ US on MP to have it not be perfect, but M$ got that money, and cares more about how hollywood views their app than their customers, this is dispicable, KUDOS to MP I say!!

/end rant
Good Luck either way.

 

[mrkaras]

With my wife, simply explained the difference, and it's bugs, showed her both, and she agrees MP is the better product, she now finds ways around the bugs, and there aren't that many show stopper bugs either, just make you whine if you're lazy bugs.

Yes, maybe it is unreasonable to expect your programs to keep running and not freeze, start every time the shortcut is clicked and contain the features as advertised.

but I must agree that copy protection/DRM always causes problems and make it very hard to legitimately play DVDs, now there even creating new disks specifically to hold DRM and the movie almost as an extra (blueray/hddvd)

 

[infinite.loop]

but I must agree that copy protection/DRM always causes problems and make it very hard to legitimately play DVDs, now there even creating new disks specifically to hold DRM and the movie almost as an extra (blueray/hddvd)

an other very good exmple is the "Disney's High School Musical 2" DVD.

works like a charm in WIndowsXp, but if you dare to use windows Vista, then all you get is an EMPTY Video_TS folder.
but the windows explorer tells that there are 7+GB of data on the disc

but hey, MS will fix that someday with Vista SP1

so if i (my daughter) wants to watch this DVD then i either

• buy an stand alone DVD-player
• downgrade to WindowsXP
• or install the beta of VISTA SP1 (which i did then )

an other great thing is the BDA patch which MS was so kind to release EXCLUSIVELY for WindowsMCE
well, MS seems to think that no WinXp user uses BDA-devices

or TV-providers which simply do not follow the standards and hack their broadcasted mpg / h.264 signals to "optimize" them which then causes _lots_ of problems and work to adapt our filters to eventually get TV/EPG/subtitles-working for these channels.

or even better TV-providers which put 2 languages in one stereo signal (left=lang1, right=lang2). TVE3 will get an option to fix that issue too in the close future.

and lets not forget about the "i create my own solution for my dvb-s2 card BDA-driver problem" which _all manufatures_ prefer.


i could continue this list forever.



maybe those of you who do not get bored to say "MediaPortal doesnt work at all, its a pile of shit" over and over again, finaly understand and see which shit the industry is throwing at us on a daily basis.

and this is also the reason why it works so well for others.
mostlikely we simply have many developers from these regions where it works so well and MP has been adapted by them to handle the specific "oddities" of that region.

 

[zag2me]

[*]downgrade to WindowsXP

I think you mean "upgrade" to Windows XP

I did this last week after 9 months of vista fudge, Could not be happier! My laptop is suddenly blazingly fast again

 

[Domarkas]

A clear information about the state of MP can help

Hi everybody!
I have watched all the frustrated comments in this thread. I have great respect for the people who do the the lot of work in MP.

But when I posted my issues there is no answer for several times.

My suggestion is that one of the responsibles should give a clear state whats going on and for what we have to wait.

BTW I have tested MCE there are also problems with TV.

I like the capabilities of MP, but to go on I should know what will happen in which time. Ist there a hope to get a running TV3 with HDTV?

Is the someone who can give me a state?

Thanks.

 

[infinite.loop]

But when I posted my issues there is no answer for several times.

it is simply impossible that we answer or even read every single post which is made in the forums (we have way to less ppl in the team for that).
and most of the time one forum-search would allready reveal the answer to your question.

:sorry:

My suggestion is that one of the responsibles should give a clear state whats going on and for what we have to wait.

hmm.... like the news on the homepage?

::MediaPortal 1.0 / TV-Server 1.0::

Ist there a hope to get a running TV3 with HDTV?

erm.....

what do you mean?

• you have problems and it doesnt work for you? (dvb-s2 works flawlessly with my floppy-s2 and coreavc 1.6)
• or do you mean if we will suport hdtv? which we allready do ofc in TV-Server.