Why mediaportal on Win 7? (1 Viewer)

[NorthernJohn]

Thanks Cybertex. I'm actually saving the pennies for some new hardware which will involve a reinstall. I might shuffle things around and put trusty old XP onto the new motherboard / processor / memory combo that I get.

If W7MC winds me up to the point of breaking, I'll consider your suggestion though. Thanks.

 

[Mike Lowrey]

AW: Why mediaportal on Win 7?

Instead of using one of the two nice products i decided to use both together.

The combination of a Windows Home Server and it's integration in Windows 7 MC together with the great Media Portal TV server is nearly an ultimate solution.

Because you have the features of a multi seat solution, all TV Server Plug Ins like Web TV Guide or Live TV Streaming on mobile Phones etc. and the really fast Windows 7 MC with it's good Keyboard and Remote access.

 

[cooper2k4]

I have just removed the 7 MC and am happily back to MediaPortal 1.1 SVN only. After some problems with the 1.0.2 TV server now everything is working as expected, including HD TV. All in all I feel much more comfortable with MP and its possibilities.

MC pros:

• Good integration into operation system (quick start, recording from standby, etc)
• Nice skin

MC cons:

• Configuration possibilities are weak, particularly usage of different codecs (Windows Media Foundation). I couldn't get AC3 passthrough for TV to work.
• Video database confusing and unusable (needs MediaBrowser plugin)
• TV Channel editor sucks. No HD channels for my TV card. Recordings in proprietary format.
• Plugin integration difficult and incompatible to previous MC versions (e.g. Heatwave Weather)

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Video database confusing and unusable (needs MediaBrowser plugin)

Nice plugin, but needs a lot of work to catchup with MP's TV-Series and MovingPictures plugin's

 

[jellybeard999]

I've used Vista and now 7 MC for a while, and though it's acceptable, I'm waiting for the new MP RC to give it another go. I used to use MP, but a lack of Imon support and the clunky TV interface niggled me.

7MC is very reliable and a massive plus for me was that it has a FAR better TV side (though it was 0.9.x version of MP that I last used). I don't understand what the initial screen in MP is for - the direct to TV/Guide is a far better approach IMO. I know MP can go direct to fullscreen TV on entering, but it's more a workaround tbh.

Anyway, I'm going to give MP another go as I like the speed, configurability and the plugins. MediaBrowser is very good, but MyTVSeries is the best I've used. MB needs a lot more options to get it looking how I want. I want to give the MyEmulators plugin a go, as I've tried several in MC and none work well.

 

[bugmenot]

I can agree with the people who say MC is better than 1.0.2. MC at least has good abilities for pics and so on, which seemed bugy in 1.0.2.
But since I checked out the SVN ))))

IPTV support
(am i seeing it right you can get more then one frequence per channel? will try soon, as i am changing location often)
record from beginning (when you already watched before deciding to record)
comskip (ok here i didnt try yet)
and the problem I had with Music and Pics, gone.

contra still:
-TV service is not initializing cards on on need (=> often take it off from lapton and then i need to restart service)
-no recording from standby without additional stuff running

=> all in all:
MP 1.1 will be greate for HTPCs, for Laptops you can discuss it

 

[funkstar]

I don't understand what the initial screen in MP is for - the direct to TV/Guide is a far better approach IMO. I know MP can go direct to fullscreen TV on entering, but it's more a workaround tbh.

There are a huge number of people that don't use MP for TV, to them it's a media player interface using Moving Pictures or MP TV Series. Plus you have the streaming TV plugin, music, weather, and loads more.

 

[Baboonanza]

After reading this thread yesterday I actually went home and spent some time setting up and using WMC7. Compared to a completed and customised MediaPortal install it's horrible!

For the record I'm comparing it to my config of MP 1.1 BETA with the X-Factor skin, TV Series and Moving Pictures but not much else (yet ). Windows 7 64bit. I didn't try out the Music features of MC (which are apparently quite good) as I don't really use my HTPC for music

Pros:
- Very easy to set-up, clearly geared towards non-technical people.
- Quicker to start (but how often do you do this anyway?)
- Works well with both mouse and remote (MP is pretty bad at mouse support IMO)
- Channel changes are 1-2 seconds faster
- The GUI is more responsive and less CPU intensive
- It's obviously very slick. Having video and GUI visible at the same time doesn't flicker as it does in MP.
- The series link features are more advanced tha MP. I'll try 4TheRecord sometime, but I think that may actually be too advanced.

Cons:
- Oh my god the interface is horrible. Its worse than vanilla MP and compared to StreamedMP or X-Factor it like a child's toy. I believe you can change the ghastly blue, but not the font or most other things.
- The fade effect they use at the edge of menus (which they seem to think is really clever) is a disaster IMO, I could never live with it.
- The tabbed programme information is another bad idea. And the timeshifting/skipping works really badly compared to MP (to give them the benefit of the doubt maybe I didn't understand how it was supposed to work).
- There is no way to change the codecs, and the default ones are really bad. Before fiddling with MP this probably wouldn't have bothered me, but now I know how good TV and SD video can look (better than the Virgin box and TV tuner) its a real handicap.
- I installed MediaBrowser, but I couldn't actually get it find my files so my experience here is limited. From what I've seen/read it doesn't seem as capable as TV Series/Moving Pictures and it still hamstrucng by the awful GUI.
- While it's nice that they support online video streaming out-of-the box, the only service on the menu is Sky. A service that requires a subscription to use. No iPlayer, 4OD, nothing. That really annoyed me.
- Did I mention that I hated the GUI? And that you couldn't change it?

Honestly, I was hoping that WMC would be good and I would have moved to it if I could because it would make my life simpler. In fact there is just too much wrong with it, and not nearly enough configuration available for me to be able to fix it. MP goes the other way, there really is too much configuration necessary but at least when you're done you get the perfect system for you rather than the generic pap that Microsoft has created.

So lets just say I won't be moving