xbmc (Frodo) with pvr functions (2 Viewers)

Paranoid Delusion

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  • June 13, 2005
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    Hi All

    Inspired by this thread in the German language forum thanks to Lehmden

    Just been trying the very latest Frodo release of xbmc, not bad at all, setup was a breeze, had all folders setup for media in under 30 minutes, enabling the pvr for ARGUS TV, took 10 min, but that was with using an existing installation of ARGUS (rebranded 4TheRecord in case you did not know), and just pointing the pvr plugin to the correct ip.

    Very smooth running through menu's in fact so fast you could easily blast past the media you wanted to select ;)
    Remote support still very hit and miss, but now with the standard keyboard\mouse settings, xbmc seems to recognise the back button of my M$ mce remote as keyboard escape, which never worked previously for me.

    Scanning media was good and did not slow or stop xbmc from doing other tasks ie playing video, so another plus there, information for the most part was accurate, the downside was, if no info found, you were not informed of that, so you could go into the movie library and find x amount of movies missing, if you did not remember them, rescanning needs to be done against these files manually, a real time consuming thing, same applied to TVSeries and Music.
    For me, MP still beats xbmc hands down regarding what is not found on a full scan of media folders.

    The other thing I did like, if you hovered over live tv, you were informed of current\upcoming recording, that to me was a really nice touch, epg I hated, you had to choose a program and ok it, which brought up the info screen, hittingthe ok again, takes you back to the last tv station viewed as live tv, so this is a bug, really got me jumping around the whole epg and a complete pain just to read what the program was about.

    Recording works fine from the GUI, just don't try and record a series, not supported in any way with the current release, again makes it pretty unusable for a 10ft experience :(

    Comskip is supported, at least on my singleseat system when playing back recorded tv.

    Overall what I missed was

    Full M$ MCE remote support.
    Easy zoom mode access, again via remote as in the blue button, the one built in non-linear stretch for 4:3 is not the best.
    Feedback for not found media whether TVSeries\Movies or music.
    Recording TV Series is currently impossible, unless manually added.
    In MyVideos or MovingPictures, if I hit a letter on remote it sends sms keypress, allowing easy movement around my media, I know I already stated how fast xbmc is, but you easily go straight past the movie you wanted ;)
    Info option about playing media, as our i button works, you can get a timeline up, which has access to filename, media settings, but there is no way of getting a quick glance information screen of what you are watching, without going backwards to the media list, important to me when i walk in on a part way playing tv program and I want to know whats it about.

    Screenshots taken are from a early prototype of Titan, so ignore quality, and have been hacked to work with my ARGUS TV system

    screenshot001.pngscreenshot000.pngscreenshot002.pngscreenshot004.pngscreenshot005.png
    screenshot006.pngscreenshot007.pngscreenshot008.pngscreenshot009.pngscreenshot010.png
    screenshot011.pngscreenshot012.pngscreenshot013.pngscreenshot014.pngscreenshot015.png
    screenshot016.pngscreenshot017.pngscreenshot018.pngscreenshot019.png

    Now this is what I meant by information about program, none of the pretty bits in the very next picture gives me that compared to MP :(

    screenshot023.png


    22-01-55.png
     
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    Benoire

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  • March 17, 2012
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    I've found so far that XBMC is fantastic for everything except Live TV / Recorded TV. When dealing with TV, MediaPortal wins hands down. I use MP on my HTPC as XBMC isn't ready and while it is improving and showing massive promise, I still think it is a couple of iterations away from rivaling MP for TV. MP still has its querks, such as slow parsing of the intial tv stream on first tune and the inability to have the 'groups' option bound to a button on the remote but it still easly beats XBMC and I expect 1.3 to continue with this.

    Where I think XBMC will be better, once at a decent level of PVR support, is operational speed as it just simply flies, in program option editing and multiple support for other OS's. XBMC also feels a little less 'clunky' than MP... Can't quite put my finger on it but XBMC just seems 'smoother'.
     

    SciDoctor

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  • February 2, 2005
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    Tried out the 12.0beta latest on my test pc, couldn't get it to run without 100% cpu usage GUI.

    Tried the stable 11.0 and this worked fine, excellent GUI setup felt very logical and settings changes react without needing to restart , fast start up compared to MP.

    Used an Eden 11.0 PVR bulid that simplified TV PVR setup, it worked well not as quick as MP, but the EPG was dire to view/navigate.

    1080I playback wasn't good at all forced to progressve without deinterlacing, no droped frames and reasonable CPU usage. 1080P fine. 12.0 may correct this but wouldn't run stably and did BSOD, thats beta's for you.
     

    emphatic

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  • August 25, 2006
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    Anyone know how to set up XBMC to use an MS MCE remote properly? It's a joke in the default setup. Also, how do I get XBMC to import TV-Series?

    Emph
     

    Benoire

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    There is a thread in the pvr development section asking about remote buttons and what should happen when you press them. XBMC can be quite a contradiction really, some parts are so easy to setup and use but some of the most obvious things that should work out of the box just don't! At least MP, at present, works well at most things even if it seems a little less smooth.
     

    Vimes

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    Anyone know how to set up XBMC to use an MS MCE remote properly? It's a joke in the default setup. Also, how do I get XBMC to import TV-Series?

    Emph

    I use a MCE remote (and it is a true MCE remote and not just an imitation keyboard type remote) and it sees to work a treat with the Frodo (as it did with Eden) release of XBMC.

    But to get that level of functionality I installed this...

    http://xbmccustomregis.sourceforge.net/


    the auto installer is here....

    http://xbmccustomregis.sourceforge.net/remote_auto.html


    just carefully follow the above instructions.

    for me after using that the functionality of the MCE remote is superb.

    It ran fine with Win 7 x64 and does the same for me with Win 8 x64.

    Not sure what you mean about the TV series...?

    I have mine like this....

    http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adding_videos_to_the_library/Naming_files/TV_shows

    So a folder for (for example) the TV series "24" would be a folder called 24 with the first episode named 24 s01 e01.mp4.

    That would be imported from the "Video" menu and a TV scraper selected.
     
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    emphatic

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  • August 25, 2006
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    Yeah, I really don't like having my shows in folders as I rarely keep full seasons long enough. Not very user-friendly to force people to re-organize their whole library IMHO. MediaPortal's TV Series plugin have the upper hand x 100. :)

    I'll check that remote stuff out, thanks.
    Emph
     

    Vimes

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    When I used MP I still kept my TV shows in folders, I suppose I just got used to that type of structure. Some of them I have kept and others just get deleted. So, in that respect, the transition to XBMC was easy.
     

    emphatic

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  • August 25, 2006
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    Even the shows I have in folders doesn't appear in XBMC as expected. Only empty folders mostly. I have no clue what's going on, LOL.

    Emph
     

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