Running Vista Media Centre and MediaPortal on the same HTPC

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Running Vista Media Centre and MediaPortal on the same HTPC

Satch

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#21758 6-May-2008 11:11

Hi,

Would running Vista Media Centre and MediaPortal off the same HTPC (one at a time) cause any conflicts or other issues?

My partner and I are both getting frustrated with the "one TV channel at a time" restriction which VMC places on us. I'm thinking of setting up MediaPortal too so I can run both Sky and Freeview|HD into my HTPC, so we can record one and watch another channel at the same time.

Having the two running on the same HTPC would help the transition for her. She's only just got used to the VMC interface...

mentalinc

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#128759 6-May-2008 11:43

No it won't work, you need to have dual tuner cards.

However as you want DVB-S and DVB-T running at the same time you will need to get 2 cards(better yet mack them both dual not hyrid and you can do 4 channels).

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tonyhughes

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#128760 6-May-2008 11:43

You might have issues if there are conflicts between recording and/or viewing in one, whilst recording and/or viewing in the other, and there being a conflict over the tuners.

Mediaportal seemed pretty wife-friendly to me when I had it running... why not consider using it full time?

Satch

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#128763 6-May-2008 11:48

Ok, I realise now that I did not explain myself clearly enough :)

I would like to trial MediaPortal on my HTPC. I want my Vista Media Centre setup on the PC as a fall back if my partner gets in a tangle when I'm not around.

I already have an analogue tuner card (PVR-150) and hybrid DVB card (HVR-3000) installed in my HTPC. I'm really only asking if I can have the two pieces of software co-existing (and configured to point to my media), but never running at the same time.

sbiddle

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#128777 6-May-2008 12:41

I use Vista Ultimate on my HTPC and run GB-PVR (and Media Portal however it's not my main application) on there no worries.

I have never shared hardware such as a tuner card between the two and would suspect there would be potential problems in doing so.

The only real issue is that both GB-PVR and Media Portal can use your MCE remote however when you press buttons such the DVD, guide etc VMC will load as well. I haven't found a way to disable this yet!

Satch

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#128782 6-May-2008 12:58

sbiddle: The only real issue is that both GB-PVR and Media Portal can use your MCE remote however when you press buttons such the DVD, guide etc VMC will load as well. I haven't found a way to disable this yet!

Well I can't go any further with this then. These are definitely deal breakers!

Thanks for pointing this out.

sbiddle

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#128791 6-May-2008 13:43

Media Portal does have an option to capture these and stop VMC seeing the keypresses but I found it didn't work all the time. Media Portal would correctly detect the button (ie guide) but not long after VMC would occasionally pop up on top.

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#128820 6-May-2008 15:02

yea, I've just installed MediaPortal and TVServer on a vista ultimate machine and I just disabled the vista media center stuff because of the conflicts on the remote

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sbiddle

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#128824 6-May-2008 15:13

mcraenz: yea, I've just installed MediaPortal and TVServer on a vista ultimate machine and I just disabled the vista media center stuff because of the conflicts on the remote

Did you disable VMC completely or disable the remote somehow?

geekiegeek

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#128834 6-May-2008 15:42

You can just disable the remote from responding via a reg key change - altough this would mean that you can only use the remote in MP and not VMC.

The change to MP is not that great - my wife has had no issues getting used to it as the buttons are the same - i.e. guide brings up the guide, recorded Tv brings up recorded TV etc. I use IR Server suite plugin for MP and it gives me full remote and blasts to my Sky STB.

sbiddle

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#128846 6-May-2008 16:18

geekiegeek:
You can just disable the remote from responding via a reg key change - altough this would mean that you can only use the remote in MP and not VMC.

Mind sharing the link? It's something I've been looking for!

geekiegeek

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#128847 6-May-2008 16:43

Load "regedit.exe" and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da

Then delete the keys from "CodeSetNum0" to "CodeSetNum3".

To make sure you can recover these keys easily should you want to you should save them by using the export function in the file menu.

Once the registry has been changed you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.

This same process can be applied to disable automatic keyboard handling. Just look at the other registry sections under the "Remotes" sections.

Now if you ever want to re-enable the automatic handling of the MCE Remote and MCE Keyboard you just need to put those registry keys back