How stable is MediaPortal for you? Honestly?

dan_aka_jack

dan_aka_jack

dan_aka_jack

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Joined
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409
Location
London, UK
Hi there,

If you run MediaPortal on your HTPC, how stable is it for you?

I know a lot of people really like MP but I'm having bad luck with it. It does something unpleasant several times an evening. I've tried multiple different versions of MP, I've tried re-installing XP 3 times, I've tried different driver versions for my graphics card, TV tuner and audio device. I've also run several different CPU and RAM stress-tests on my setup and everything checks out OK. I've been trying to get MP to work properly for about 8 months now and both I and my girlfriend are truly sick of it. Sitting down to watch TV is now a stressful, unpleasant experience. And that's not the way it should be. I've probably spent in excess of 100 hours of my time trying to get it to work properly.

I'm certainly not trying to **** off MP; I'm just trying to figure out whether or not other folks are having trouble with MP or if it's just me.

Many thanks,
Jack

Some specs of my HTPC, if you're interested:

everything's running at stock specs
2.4GHz dual-core Athlon 64
1GB RAM
Windows XP SP2
MediaPortal 0.2.3
TerraTec Cinergy 2400i DT dual-tuner PCI-E card
BioStar TA690G AM2 mobo (ATI Radeon X1250 chipset with integrated graphics & audio)
500GB 7200rpm SATA disk
 
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Ah, that's interesting - thank you for the reply. We mostly use MP as a DVR for Freeview and it's terribly unstable when navigating the EPG, setting programmes to record, navigating the database of recorded programmes etc. Audio-visual sync slips. Live broadcasts stutter. Switching to some channels fails intermittently (you try to change channel and it just displays black). The list goes on.

It's also unstable for playing DVDs on our system. We gave up using MP as a DVD player a while ago and now we use a separate DVD player.
 
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He he he - fancy seeing you on here. After a couple of weeks of teething problems I just dumped mediaportal (was running on Vista Business 64) for Vista Home Premium 64. I'm actually quite sad to have had to make the change as I'd like to support open source and it would have been easier on the wallet. Still, change I did and it was basically because of three factors:
1) Time. I spent a good few weekends fiddling with mediaportal to get past various problems I encountered (e.g. not being able to view tv, not being able to record, not being able to wake the computer from stand-by). And to be fair I did fix all of these. However there were still outstanding issues and at the end of the day I just wanted to use the HTPC.
2) Outstanding bugs and instability. Even after messing around for ages I still had issues like no DVD navigation, aspect ratio on some channels screwed up, failure to record every now and then. I guess I could have fixed some of these but others (like the lack of DVD navigation) are recognised and don't seem to have a fix.
3) That said the thing that really got me to swap was the realisation that for about £60 I could buy a copy of Home Premium and in doing so I was buying into a mature product that's pretty much installed on most new home PCs. At the end of the day I'm just not sure mediaportal can compete with that
 
I had it running great on XP. Admittedly my mce remote would work 90% of the time, so i went to vista mce. mainly moved for better blu-ray support.

I then couldnt be bothered with MP again as I didnt wanna spend hours setting it up again.

Ill try it again after a few more releases
 
On XP SP2 and i find it great generally, one or two issues at times, but I back it up, and its simply a case of reverting back to that.

Main points :
Latest SVN
MINIMAL CODECS - FFDShow, DVD software, FLAC, OGG - thats all i have.
Fully update XP
Set it to run at front at all times

If you get sick, it's understandable, but it really doesnt take long to configure once you get the hang of it IMO.
 
Just out of interest, did you try the TV3 server OP?

....I only ask, as that is the "focus solution" (what all the work is going into).
 
Many thanks for all the replies.

Conrad11 said:
Just out of interest, did you try the TV3 server OP?
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When I first started using MP 8 months ago, I did install TV server but I found it to be really frighteningly unstable so I reverted back to "normal" MediaPortal.

I think I'm going to do the same as Golden Ape and ***** some cash on Vista.

I spend my working hours fighting with technology. When I get home and want to relax, I need an HTPC which Just Works.
 
Are there any reasons why I'd want to use WinXP MCE rather than Vista MediaCenter? As far as I can tell, it is possible to use both the Flash streaming version of BBC iPlayer and 4oD (which requires a hack). All my hardware appears to be supported on Vista64. Is Vista64 a safe bet? I assume so.
 
jbloggs said:
What about trying GB-PVR.....? :)
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I tried using that, amonst others and I had a number of issues with recording, watching full screen and transcoding to .avi. After a few days of trying I went to Vista Media Centre with MCEBuddy for transcoding.

I know is M$, but it's also slicker and easier to use than anything else I've tried.
 
I use Media Portal. Don't use the TV section though. I find it stable, but a bit slow navigation menus, also sometimes when it full-screens the arrow doesn't move- usually press stop then I can use it. DVD playback working ok except for discrete buttons like audio/angle/subs.

XP MCE is too basic- cannot resume or fast forward. Music playback database doesn't work, just creates a mess with missing albums.
 
badbob said:
XP MCE is too basic- cannot resume or fast forward.
Click to expand...

Cannot resume or FF?!? Ick. That's terrible. Vista Media Centre can resume and FF recorded video, can't it? It can FF through ads, can't it?!? I mean - that's one of the main reasons for having a DVR! (I'm pretty sure Golden Ape told me that Vista MC can do all these things last night when I saw him in that alien off-line world but I can't quite remember).
 
For me this was always the problem with MediaPortal. It wasn't stable enough. Having something go wrong every day is just not good enough. My Vista MCE HTPC is on 24/7 and has only crashed once when the hard drive failed! For me at stability is much more important than some functionality niggles.
 
dan_aka_jack said:
Cannot resume or FF?!? Ick. That's terrible. Vista Media Centre can resume and FF recorded video, can't it? It can FF through ads, can't it?!? I mean - that's one of the main reasons for having a DVR! (I'm pretty sure Golden Ape told me that Vista MC can do all these things last night when I saw him in that alien off-line world but I can't quite remember).
Click to expand...

Vista MCE can resume and FF/FR on recorded TV.
Most non-recorded video file types won't though - mpg, mkv, avi etc. Put mpeg2 in a DVR-MS or use a WMV container and the FF/FR rewind works fine. DVDs do the resume, FF/FR though.
 
dan_aka_jack said:
Cannot resume or FF?!? Ick. That's terrible. Vista Media Centre can resume and FF recorded video, can't it? It can FF through ads, can't it?!? I mean - that's one of the main reasons for having a DVR! (I'm pretty sure Golden Ape told me that Vista MC can do all these things last night when I saw him in that alien off-line world but I can't quite remember).
Click to expand...

Yes MS HTPC front end can- I forget it's so bad I class it as non functioning, but it's a lousy, slow seemingly fixed speed. Try scanning through a 2 hour film and you'll be there ages.

MP allows multiples of 2x upto 32x (and same in reverse) plus resume. Media Portal has never crashed on me - ie with the Crash Report thing. Just the sluggishness (but that could just be the HD's gone into power off resulting in the delay) and the stop-fix issue. Not a major annoyance, rather have those than crappy Micosoft Media Centre.
 
I've honestly never had a problem with Media Portal apart from not having any sound the first time I installed it, found a codec, installed it and everything worked fine.

We've got a PC set up downstairs that we use as a second TV, and it streams videos off a computer upstairs (although I do generally use VLC to do this if I'm watching something on there.) Watching TV is as simple as opening MP tbh. My Dad's always in there watching stuff.

I've recorded a couple of programs with it and never had a problem either. Though I suppose I don't ask too much from it really, in the scheme of things, since I tend to watch .avis with vlc.
 
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