Today I’ve managed to do a little more browsing of the Mediaportal forums and it looks like this problem is one that’s been around for a while. There is a possible fix (well, i’d call it a workaround) where disabling the EPG grab when the TVService is idle stops the hang.
I’ve set this option, so fingers crossed it does the trick. The stuff mentioned in this thread is pretty much the exact behaviour I was seeing.
RC3 is going OK, but since the update there seem to be a lot more instances of the TV server hanging, and recordings not being made.
The log files aren’t giving me many clues unfortunately, so I’ve put a post into the Mediaportal forums here to see if anyone can advise.
One thing I might try is turning off the option to do EPG grabbing while timeshifting. Will update here with any results!
Over the weekend I’ve upgraded the system to the latest MP build, RC3: http://www.team-mediaportal.com/news/global/mediaportal_1.0_rc3_released.html
So far this build looks to improve on things quite a lot. Specifically I find that now my aspect ratio switching works ok (although not with the MPV codec in use??) Hopefully everything will now be even more stable than before. The supplied new style skin is quite nice, although only in 4:3 at the time of writing. Inspired me to attempt a skin myself at some point…!
A new problem I came across is that the Hauppauge remote supplied with the Satellite cards didn’t seem to control anything outside of MediaPortal (asides from the green power button, which simply loaded the Windows Media Centre software!). Clearly this would be a problem - particularly as I am using external applications such as PowerDVD or WinDVD for watching DVD, HD and BluRay disks.
The IR software that runs in the background seemed on first glance to have next to no configuration options. There was a utility to restart the software, but that was it. I started investigating other remotes, and also tried a couple of different applications that would run in the background and “take over” the remote to allow more stuff to be done with it. Unfortunately none of those seemed to work, and while the official MS MCE remote is available pretty cheaply, it didn’t seem to have the useful buttons for direct access to Pictures, Video, Music and so on.
A bit more research, and I eventually discovered that in the Windows folder, there is an “Irremote.ini” file, and this contained a lot of configuration for the IR software that came with my remote! Hurray!
I found some useful information on editing this file in the SageTV forums here and proceeded to make some alterations. Firstly, in the [Default] section, I edited the Green Power button to launch Mediaportal - bear in mind this can’t have spaces in, so you need to use the DOS version of long filenames:
GRNPOWER={run(”C:\Progra~1\TeamMe~1\MediaPortal\MediaPortal.exe”)}
Next off, I added two sections, one for Corel WinDVD, and another for Cyberlink PowerDVD:
[CyberLink PowerDVD]
OLD0={alt}y
0=0
1=1
2=2
3=3
4=4
5=5
6=6
7=7
8=8
9=9
STOP=s
PAUSE={space}
PLAY={enter}
REWIND=b
OK={enter}
FASTFWD=f
SKIPFWD=n
SKIPREV=p
GRNPOWER={alt}{f4}{mode(Default)}
MENU=l
NAVUP={up}
NAVDOWN={down}
NAVLEFT={left}
NAVRIGHT={right}
[Corel WinDVD]
OLD0={alt}y
0=0
1=1
2=2
3=3
4=4
5=5
6=6
7=7
8=8
9=9
MUTE=m
VOLUP={shift}{up}
VOLDOWN={shift}{down}
CHNLUP=c
CHNLDOWN=c
FULLSCREEN=z
STOP={end}
PAUSE={space}
PLAY={space}
REWIND=r
OK={enter}
FASTFWD={ctrl}q
SKIPFWD={pgdn}
SKIPREV={pgup}
GRNPOWER=x
MENU=q
NAVUP={up}
NAVDOWN={down}
NAVLEFT={left}
NAVRIGHT={right}
You also need to add headers for these in the [Applications] section, using the Window Title for the app to be controlled. The easiest way to do this is to launch Task Manager while the program you want to update is running, and see what it is listed as:
CyberLink PowerDVD=
Corel WinDVD=
That’s it - the way it then works is that when an IR signal is received, the IR software looks up in the .ini file to see if a section exists for the current foreground app, and if so, sends the appropriate keypress. There is quite a bit more that can be done I think, but for now, at least DVD navigation is working so we’re getting there!
So, I had a spare half hour last night, and figured I may as well fit the two DVB-S2 cards into the PC.
They slotted into the two PCI slots quite happily, and I installed all the drivers off the supplied CD, along with the Hauppage software (I may not use PowerCinema but it seems that the program also installs the IR drivers and so on…)
I unplugged the two feeds from the SkyHD box and connected one to each of the cards, and went into TV server config. Hmm. No cards showing up! I then remembered TV Server runs as a service, so I restarted it, and it picked up the cards fine. I then hit the scan button on each card and waited… Overall they picked up over 700 tv channels (Ape TV?!) and a couple of hundred radio channels. I need to have a bit of a sift, but doing a quick default map I could see the TV channels listed in MediaPortal! Selected one and it appeared on screen after a few seconds… success!
Ok, there are a few issues. Firstly I need to go through and untick all the channels I don’t want (or rather, untick all, and select just the ones I *do* want…!) then sort out the XMLTV stuff as I didn’t seem to have any program details in the MediaPortal TV Guide. Also, the supplied Hauppage IR Remote doesn’t appear to work yet, so I’m obviously missing some steps to make that spring into life. On the plus side, BBC HD worked first time and looked lovely, but I need to do a bit of fiddling for ITV HD as they pipe it down a “red button” option on real Freesat boxes. There are instructions online, and I’ll post the link back here when I get around to doing it!
Finally! I’ve not had chance to fit them yet, but the two Hauppage DVB-S2 PCI cards have turned up at long last.
Friday evening should be test-fit time…
In the meantime, here is a nice photo of the remote… 
Oh no!
So, Mediaportal is all installed (at least in an initial sense…!) so I tried playing some of my music and a couple of .mkv files I’d had for a while. They worked, but every minute or two there was a horrible slowdown/stutter in the audio. It would last for maybe 4 seconds. Not a good start!
I spent a while playing around picking different audio outputs, checking for background processes and all sorts of other stuff, before turning to google.
Unfortunately, a problem like “random stuttering” leads to some pretty random results - however one thing that kept cropping up was wireless networks. In theory, this shouldn’t affect anything, but from what I read the auto-scan for new networks in Vista runs at a pretty high priority, so playback of media can suffer. To test the theory I disabled my wireless network card and tried again - playback was perfect!
Of course, I need a network connection to download the EPG, movie details, the weather…
I looked around some more. Some people had written batch files to disable the auto-scan feature without disabling the network device itself, and set these to start/stop with windows, and I was about to do this, when I found a simpler solution in the shape of http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/downloads.php. This simple app autostarts with Windows, and configures the network card correctly to stop the stuttering. Problem solved!
One of the great things about MediaPortal is the amount of different skins on offer. The default blue skin is a little plain, and almost a carbon copy of the Windows MCE skin. I wanted something that looked a little neater, and after some testing I settled upon “Revision”. XFace is one of the most popular skins and I might try it out at a later time, but I wanted something reasonably conventional to start off with. Revision works with the latest versions fine, and comes with XML files for lots of the plugins you might use, so everything looks pretty well integrated. Below is the preview for this skin…
One issue was that by default, MediaPortal gives a nice big warning if an out of date skin is being used - this is to remind you that bugs might occur due to the skin not being entirely correct for that release. This is fine, but it comes up every time and looks horrible!
Luckily there is a simple workaround; edit the “references.xml” file the skin uses, and amend the version to match the version of MediaPortal you have installed. Nice and easy.
So, Vista installed fine. Next problem, the default 800×600 looked ugly on my 32″ LCD (as expected) but the ATI Catalyst drivers didn’t offer 1360×768 which is the native for my TV (a Samsung LE32T5). I was using DVI at this point, so figured I’d try VGA. Same problem. Hmm, this could be a showstopper!
I did more googling… I found a few people with a similar problem, and a common solution was to try a utility called “Powerstrip”. This lets you create custom graphics resolutions and timing settings. I put in all the figures as per the manual for my TV and lo and behold, the display changed to the correct resolution. A new problem - I can only see half the screen! The rest of it has disappeared off the side of the display. Bit strange, as I’ve used my TV with a laptops’ VGA out before and it was fine. I played around with the custom timing in Powerstrip and got it centred perfectly, until I hit OK - the display then just said “mode not supported”! Something a bit odd there… I rebooted and tried again, this time clicking the arrows rather than dragging… and luckily it kept the setting. So, now when I boot the machine the display appears off-centre for a few seconds until Powerstrip auto-runs, and it fixes itself. Acceptable solution for now!
Once Vista was installed (I’m using the x86 version btw), I installed MediaPortal along with the latest SVN. Or rather, I TRIED to install it. One part of the installation pops up asking whether the installer should open ports on the firewall for TV Server. Now, I don’t use a firewall on the PC - all my machines sit behind a NAT router, so I leave the thing turned off (I find firewalls cause more problems than they fix sometimes!). Unfortunately the installer didn’t cope too well with this, and went pop in a lovely .NET error! I fiddled around and eventually worked out what it was - turned the windows firewall back on and all is well. There is actually a thread on this in the MediaPortal Forums, and it’s been fixed for RC2.
It’s all very well having this nice hardware, but something was needed to bring it all together. Setting up a keyboard and mouse, and navigating around various windows apps just to watch TV or listen to music is pretty much a no no…
The obvious choice was the media centre built into Vista - I wrote this one off fairly soon on, as it didn’t sound like it supported satellite tv cards too well, EPG options were a bit American biased and it also struggled with HD formats… I did a little research, helped a lot by the list of applications at eirikso.com
I narrowed my choice down to two applications: GBPVR and MediaPortal. Both of these looked good- they were created by enthusiasts, seemed to be fairly regularly updated, had active forums… I installed both onto my existing desktop PC to take a look.
Of the two, GBPVR was initially easiest to get to grips with, it seemed a little simpler to set up. On further investigation I eventually decided to go with MediaPortal. To me, MediaPortal had a few advantages:
So, MediaPortal it is. Will this be the right decision? Who knows, that’s half the fun! I downloaded the base release and the latest SVN build (I knew I needed at least one of the more recent SVN’s to fix a problem with the weather plugin, so figured I’d just get the latest one…) and set about the installation.
