Windows Multipoint (1 Viewer)

[Benneboy]

Hi All,

I have only just joined the MP but I have spent some time looking through the forums, Wiki and other sources of info and as of yet haven't found the answers. I am therefore sorry if I have missed them and/or have posted in the wrong location.

Question 1) if you have been watching a recorded program, stop it, do something else, return to it. Does it remember the location at which you stopped the program?

2) does this work over multiple users?

3) does anyone use this with windows multipoint?

The reason I ask is I plan to stick the media server in the loft, and run a series of access points throughout the house via multipoint software. Each television (lounge, kitchen, office, bedroom) essentially act as separate PCs on one PC each behaving independently. I am guessing this being the case I would have to set up an account for each location but don't want to sacrifice functionality of Media Portal.

Kind Regards

Ben

 

[Benoire]

Hi Benneboy,

To answer,

1) Yes it does
2) I'm not sure if it does this per user/client device or per file. I think at present it is per file so any device that tries to view a recorded programme will have the same stop point.
3) Ah ok so it is a friendly version of the remote services in Server 2012. I can't see this being such a problem from an installation point of view as I run VMs from my server for this purpose. The only issue you might get is gpu acceleration may not be available for the client unless you have RemoteFX enabled and a suitable gpu (not sure if multipoint has this). If it does the gpu as software then you'll have trouble playing back anything I believe.

 

[Benneboy]

VMs? virtual machines? I haven't bought into Multiport yet so if you have a working alternative I would be very interested. :-D

 

[Benoire]

I haven't fully implemented this yet, but my plan was to use a single ATX consumer motherboard with a suitable CPU (perhaps a quad core intel with hyperthreading to give 8 threads) and use a hypervisor that allows pci-passthrough. The hypervisor allows you to run a number of virtual machines at once (similar to multipoint if you read it) BUT with PCI-passthrough you can actually assign a physical gpu to a VM.

The outcome is that each room would simply have usb ports and HDMI port in the wall that connect to the HTPC server with a single HDMi connection per GPU (with 1 gpu per VM). with a modern TV with CEC I can effectively control my entire HTPC for that room using the TV remote and plugin a keyboard/mouse if necessary. There would be no physical machine in the room.

Multipoint does something very similar, except that it uses terminal services (RDP) via clients to do the same thing locally. I haven't tried RemoteFX yet, but if that works with consumer grade GPUs then that might work except you'll be sharing a gpu across a number of VMs leading to potential loss of performance .. My way will give unrestricted GPU power to the VM. You can also do this to consolidate gaming machines so saving on power, cases, motherboards etc. It really comes in to its own for two or more PCs.

As reference, I currently use VMware ESXi 5.5 to house my Server 2012 R2 TVServer install (passed through my TV Cards), exchange server 2013, and windows 7 test VM. I've had issues with VMware shutting down the TV stream after about 2 hours so there is a problem with pass through so I'm going to test another solution such as Xenserver

There are currently a number of Hypervisors around; ESXi, Xen, MS Hyper-V, Xenserver and a number of other more open source versions that I haven't tried. ESXi 5.5, Xenserver, Hyper-V 2012 R2 are all free to use (with various restrictions) and can easily be tested with linux distros to test pass through functionality. The only one that doesn't pass through is Hyper-V from Microsoft, although this does use RemoteFX for thin clients.[DOUBLEPOST=1389918567][/DOUBLEPOST]I also wanted to ask if you'd look at the price of thin clients? To get them with RemoteFX capability for gpu acceleration, I don't believe they're that cheap. Ebay has some HP ones with support for RemoteFX and they're $190USD.

 

[breese]

Now that is exciting to read...
Question: are you using IPV6 on the local lan and if you are, any pointers?

 

[Benoire]

Hi Breese,

Its surprisingly a fun topic... Its perfect for me as I'm a tinkerer and love to play with tech and stuff. I'm also a neat freak and look to reduce the amount of cables connections as possible. By centralising both my TVserver/file server etc and the HTCP clients in to two 4u cases in a server rack I reduce the mess. As mentioend, you can also virtualise GPU gaming by running more powerful GPUs in the hardware... Again exciting as you could effectively have 3 servers consolidated in one place, with 2 hdmi outputs in each room and multiple USBs for both a separate gaming PC and TV system. This is why I love MediaPortal is the flexibility and ease of use. If XBMC had the same level of tv support as MP client then it would be even cheaper with a single windows os for TV and linux for everything else.

I am using IPV6 in the lan, Server 2012 requires it to be enabled at all times. What sort of pointers are you after as for me it just works fine, but then I am running an Active Directory Domain.

 

[Benoire]

@breese I just read your comments on the WIP IP work and understand why you where asking. At present, I have not come across any problems running IPv4 and IPv6 on my domain across multiple virtual machines.

 

[Benneboy]

As MP works with as many TV cards as you like. Do you think using this method you could tie 1 tuner card to 1 graphics card as well?

 

[Benoire]

Yes you could but you would be linking a whole point slot not just a single tuner (unless it was one tuner per card). Pass through generally works at a pci level unless the card supports ISROV I believe. Also by not consolidating tuners you lose the best of what MP does as a single place to record and manage recordings and live tv

 

[Benneboy]

That last sentence I was a little confused by. Are you saying the cards should or should not be tied to a gpu? My thinking behind it is to create each "TV" location as a standalone TV. If there aren't enough tuners, obviously I couldn't watch something different on every screen at once.

I had been looking at buy a few of these:
http://www.satshop.co.uk/section-1/product2515/TBS-6284.html

Its a shame you can't buy mux tuners. It would be very efficient to tune into the 6 muxes and then you could have whatever where-ever. Some guy has done it but its beyond me:
http://angrytechnician.wordpress.co...very-channel-from-freeview-onto-your-network/