Guide for HTPC

Ok, so once again I've been massively dissappointed with MediaPortal. What a total waste of time, space and effort. It's so unrefined I don't understand how they could release a "stable" version of it.

I scan for TV channels and it finds 19 freeview channels. I spin up VMC and it finds over 90 :o

So, I've actually bitten the buillet and gone with Windows 7 Media Center. This is simply amazing. With "Media Browser" plugin you get your "moving pictures" style media layouts and the ability to customise themes is great too. Also, the fact you can easily choose which codecs media center should use is a big plus now too.

No messing around with remotes either, my remote with my Origenae case just works straight out of the box.

Music Library is stunning also so I urge those unsure to give it a spin.

I'm creating a theme today so will post it up later with some screen shots.
 
Lucero said:
Ok, so once again I've been massively dissappointed with MediaPortal. What a total waste of time, space and effort. It's so unrefined I don't understand how they could release a "stable" version of it.

I scan for TV channels and it finds 19 freeview channels. I spin up VMC and it finds over 90 :o

So, I've actually bitten the buillet and gone with Windows 7 Media Center. This is simply amazing. With "Media Browser" plugin you get your "moving pictures" style media layouts and the ability to customise themes is great too. Also, the fact you can easily choose which codecs media center should use is a big plus now too.

No messing around with remotes either, my remote with my Origenae case just works straight out of the box.


Music Library is stunning also so I urge those unsure to give it a spin.

I'm creating a theme today so will post it up later with some screen shots.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your post I my HTPC parts were meant to come today but my parcel got miss sorted so is coming tomorrow. I set media portal up but I just don't like it at all so many people use it but I find it utter tripe
 
Lucero said:
Ok, so once again I've been massively dissappointed with MediaPortal. What a total waste of time, space and effort. It's so unrefined I don't understand how they could release a "stable" version of it.

I scan for TV channels and it finds 19 freeview channels. I spin up VMC and it finds over 90 :o

So, I've actually bitten the buillet and gone with Windows 7 Media Center. This is simply amazing. With "Media Browser" plugin you get your "moving pictures" style media layouts and the ability to customise themes is great too. Also, the fact you can easily choose which codecs media center should use is a big plus now too.

No messing around with remotes either, my remote with my Origenae case just works straight out of the box.

Music Library is stunning also so I urge those unsure to give it a spin.

I'm creating a theme today so will post it up later with some screen shots.
Click to expand...

Screen shots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Ok, some screenshots of Windows 7 media center normal:

Media Browser Plugin
onedd7.jpg


twocs4.jpg


Weather Plugin
weatherlp2.jpg


Music Library
musicko0.jpg
 
and now my modded theme (wonder where I got that from!).

I've just knocked this up in the last 20 minutes so only the background has been changed. I will mod it further at some point.

Media Browser
modifiedmoviell8.jpg


TV Guide
tvguiddemodyl8.jpg


Normal Menu
menumodhb7.jpg


:)

Also worth noting is that the default media center skin is 500 x 300 pixles scaled up! media center scales the image so I created mine at 1920 x 1080.
 
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looks good. mediaportal does take a lot of setting up & does have some problems still. It is a lot better than it was in 2005/06. ITs getting there, needs another year ot two development.

Win 7 MC does look a lot better, think I'll try it at some point. My only worry is that I need to rebuild a hybrid homeserver/media player comp. I refuse to pay for win 7, so that would take me down one road *cough*, which I wouldn't want to go down on a home server kinda setup. So I'll probably go debian with XBMC installed. I only need avi playback ability as TV recording is handled by Sky +
 
okay thank you :)

Also could anyone tell me why I can't get My Tv plugin and Moving Picture on my home menu ? All I can ever get is the usual stuff , like weather video etc.. :(

Another issue I have is that some movies are cut in two files, is there any convenient way to get them under the same movie title without having two separate entries?
 
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photoshop said:
From the top of my head, you need to go into MP config, then plugins, then right click on MYTVSeries and tick "show in home screen". Same for Moving Pics
Click to expand...

thank you mate will check that out this evening, when the new telly ARRIVES :D

One more thing tho, most of the stuf works fine but I have one more issue I'd like to fix with your help.

Is it possible to display on screen information with KMPlayer? Like when I pause, fast forward, change volume etc..? Would come handy because at the moment nothing is displayed.
 
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photoshop said:
This is not possible as far as i know. Its only mediaportal's own built in (rubbish) player that does this.
Click to expand...

For me that is one reason why I do keep the internal player. I like the option to press "i" on my remote and get all the on-screen options that comes from doing that, as well as the pause, FF, RW etc etc screen options.
Setting up MPC-HC as a player is not too difficult with my MCE remote but I have found that since using the latest SVN build (which is very nice with the Purevision 2.2 HDX skin) I get an error message every time that the external player is closed.
So the internal player is fine for me.
 
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