MediaPortal 2.1

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877 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#1851794 24-Aug-2017 11:24

Ok I gave it the good old try. Ran NextPVR / Kodi for a week, week and a half. Just wasnt stable enough for me. If Kodi wasnt dropping channels, NPVR was crashing and round and round. Plus it had a habit of freezing up live TV randomly requiring a reboot of Kodi, sometimes the system. Could never get the Aussie IPTV stuff to work with NextPVR either, worked fine if loaded directly into Kodi, just not npvr. Playback of recordings was very troublesome as well for some reason. To the point where I was going to do a reinstall but then decided nah, bugger it.

The good thing was I got my remotes to work with Kodi perfectly - I ditched my old Harmony 880 and setup a new Harmony 650 - what a friggin battery hog of a device! I got Kodi working perfectly in my room with my Harmony Ultimate One as well. The 650 actually is nicer for it. I tend to use yatse to control everything other than turning the system on.

So the main computer in the lounge is back to running MP 2.11 again. It just runs flawlessly, if a little boring. Id love the ability to use iptv etc on it but oh well, its not a game changer. Recording just works, live tv just works. Only downside is still power management. Its just plain sucks and doesnt work. The picture is a crapload more stable than MP1 though.

Its not worth it to me to spend money on Emby/Plex at this stage. If they really wanted my money give me a free trial and let me see if it meets my needs.

askelon

877 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1867508 17-Sep-2017 13:27

Right final update. Dumped MP2.1.1. Dumped Kodi/NextPVR. Back to MP 1.7.1. Working perfectly so far. Trakt works, TV works, OnlineStreaming to the BBC works, power management works, just damned well everything works, and works well! Still have the occasional MP crash (doing a restart weekly tends to fix this). But all in all it just works.

They need to do some major revisions to MP2 before its really a particularly useful product in my opinion. Dont get me wrong, I like the look of it, how quick it is at running etc but just overall its lacking too much to compete with other products. I'll keep Kodi on my machine in my room - at least now Im back to MP1 I can use the Live TV plugins again for kodi - not that they are actually needed - I rarely watch live TV on that system.

rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1867532 17-Sep-2017 15:46

Good to know as I've been considering updating from MP1 to MP2 but it sounds like it's not up to scratch yet. I've been using MP since 2008. They are making more update releases of MP1 compared to MP2 which seems odd to me. I get the odd issue with TV Server getting in some state that it can't recover from, but I have an automated restart of TV Server every day at 6:30am and it can work for months at a time now before an issue occurs. I have separate TV Server and client installations with the server computer acting as the house server for music and videos, etc, and stays on 24/7 in a small office.

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1888340 24-Oct-2017 08:32

askelon:

Right final update. Dumped MP2.1.1. Dumped Kodi/NextPVR. Back to MP 1.7.1. Working perfectly so far. Trakt works, TV works, OnlineStreaming to the BBC works, power management works, just damned well everything works, and works well! Still have the occasional MP crash (doing a restart weekly tends to fix this). But all in all it just works.

They need to do some major revisions to MP2 before its really a particularly useful product in my opinion. Dont get me wrong, I like the look of it, how quick it is at running etc but just overall its lacking too much to compete with other products. I'll keep Kodi on my machine in my room - at least now Im back to MP1 I can use the Live TV plugins again for kodi - not that they are actually needed - I rarely watch live TV on that system.

Damn. I've been messing around with my new HTPC to replace my Tivo, and I have to say that MP 2x looked quite good, but didn't quite hit the mark somehow. I also tried Kodi/NextPVR as well. Less than awesome too. I guess I've been spoiled by the Tivo experience.

I might just have to try MP 1.7.1. I just want stuff to work!

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1888345 24-Oct-2017 08:41

i setup a kodi/nextpvr setup for the first time in a long time.

kodi would switch to software decoding every second time you changed channel causing a 1 or 2 frame per second frame rate. downloaded SPMC kodi 17 beta build (im running this on a sony android tv and nvidia shield tv), solved that issue. now i havent run into a single issue. changing channels is quicker than on my tv (no idea why my sony tv takes 2-3 seconds to change a bloody channel), epg is automatically collected so no epgcollector needed. kodi/spmc pvr is working very very well. timeshifting and everything.

only issue im having is how nextpvr serves the recordings over http instead of a file system (easy setup for end user, just need the hostname/ip address of your nextpvr server) is they dont support comskip files this way. not a huge deal, but would be nice.

i was thinking about switching argus tv to get comskip, but the ease of use with everything else in nextpvr (and the much improved webgui for it) meh, not worth the effort. also argus tv would require epgcollector to gather the epg into an xmltv file.

IME nextpvr (gbpvr before it) has always been a rock solid piece of software. the gui was never the prettiest, but these days you dont use the PVR gui, kodi is a much better alternative.

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#1888356 24-Oct-2017 08:54

I've moved away from MediaPortal and now use TVheadend due to the OpenTV support in the EPG, and SPMC (Android fork of Kodi) on my Android TV box. MP was the most refined when it came to Live TV implementations in the client, but my word TVH is fast, as fast as the official sky box in changing channels! When my Mi Box is upgraded to Android TV 7 I'll use the live channels app as that is pretty sweet and fast too.. My experiences wiht MP where soured with lack of updates and features I would have liked in the DVR world.

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1888359 24-Oct-2017 09:00

Benoire:

...MP was the most refined when it came to Live TV implementations in the client....

That is something I'm definitely chasing. We do a fair bit of live TV.

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reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1888362 24-Oct-2017 09:01

oh, live tv addon for android tv is pretty sweet. my hdhomerun did this but it constantly crashed for me....

i may go bug sub on nextpvr to build this for nextpvr :)

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1888363 24-Oct-2017 09:02

DMCM:

Benoire:

...MP was the most refined when it came to Live TV implementations in the client....

That is something I'm definitely chasing. We do a fair bit of live TV.

what do you mean with this? nextpvr does timeshifting, and err what else is there to do? im curious, wondering if im missing out on anything....

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#1888367 24-Oct-2017 09:09

DMCM:

Benoire:

...MP was the most refined when it came to Live TV implementations in the client....

That is something I'm definitely chasing. We do a fair bit of live TV.

Kodi has come along way, and while it doesn't quite have the same features as MP in terms of setting recordings, I find that when you set up the timers and record options it works well enough and then for series records I then use TVH webgui to edit the timer settings to make it more consistent, e.g. my partner loves married at first sight (aaargh) and it starts at different times during the week... Instead of multiple timers for each day, I set one timer, edit the schedule in TVH to use CRID and then open the start time from 6.30 until 8pm on the days it records.

Once you get used to the quirks of Kodi TV it is fine and has been the daily driver for about a month now... Just find the right skin first!

The Android TV Live Channels App is awesome, integrated in to the system, uses plugins to get the channels so if Sky go IPTV and release a TV channel plugin then it will integrate in to the Android box and will appear near the other channels. Android TV introduced DVR functions but the TVH app has issues with the epg not showing scheduled items in advance due to a database access issue... Request raised with Google but we may not see it until Android TV 8 or later.

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1888383 24-Oct-2017 09:42

Benoire:

DMCM:

Benoire:

...MP was the most refined when it came to Live TV implementations in the client....

That is something I'm definitely chasing. We do a fair bit of live TV.

Kodi has come along way, and while it doesn't quite have the same features as MP in terms of setting recordings, I find that when you set up the timers and record options it works well enough and then for series records I then use TVH webgui to edit the timer settings to make it more consistent, e.g. my partner loves married at first sight (aaargh) and it starts at different times during the week... Instead of multiple timers for each day, I set one timer, edit the schedule in TVH to use CRID and then open the start time from 6.30 until 8pm on the days it records.

Once you get used to the quirks of Kodi TV it is fine and has been the daily driver for about a month now... Just find the right skin first!

The Android TV Live Channels App is awesome, integrated in to the system, uses plugins to get the channels so if Sky go IPTV and release a TV channel plugin then it will integrate in to the Android box and will appear near the other channels. Android TV introduced DVR functions but the TVH app has issues with the epg not showing scheduled items in advance due to a database access issue... Request raised with Google but we may not see it until Android TV 8 or later.

I guess I'm talking about usability - the easier it is to use the better. Now some may not equate refinement with ease of use but I don't see that as an oxymoron, necessarily.

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#1888386 24-Oct-2017 09:45

Usability is fine, most skins these default to Guide as the main interface rather than the older channel view... context menu is easy to use and contains timers/record now options, DVR functions exist as they did with MP.. I just find its not quite as refined yet, but then I was using the Sky plugin version of MP and so had series link recording as an option in the custom record menu, much nicer than default...

xyf

300 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1889053 25-Oct-2017 06:42

I'm thinking of trying tvhead out. Do you just spin up a VM with it all installed then just config it? I have one USB tuner and one pcie

askelon

877 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1889138 25-Oct-2017 09:19

I just didnt find nextpvr/kodi on the same computer reliable enough. Nextpvr used to stop streaming my channels regularly. MP2 worked ok, did the channels perfectly all the time but had a tenancy to crash and freeze when it felt like it and really had no plugins like I wanted. Mp1.7 just works perfectly still for me. Only time it ever freezes is after watching Startrek Discovery - no idea why. In normal every day use for me its perfect. The plugins work. I have ITV on there. Id like some IPTV stuff other than ITV but its not a deal breaker.

Still using Kodi as my main system on my NUC though. I dont bother with live tv on there - the live tv is for the rest of the household anyway :)

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1889144 25-Oct-2017 09:27

So I put 1.17 on last night after removing 2.0, and it was easy to install, and after scanning the channels again I got it up and running in no time.

Seems quite decent.

Any pointers as to how I get my harmony 350 to work with it? I'm using a FLIRC USB IR remote sensor.

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