Media MVP Emulator for Network Media Tank (Popcorn Hour)

[trueno]

Has anyone played with using the Media MVP Emulator (via mvpmc.org) that was written for the Network Media Tank (Popcorn Hour) with SageTV's Media MVP extender support? I see GB-PVR works via it and even supports HD video on the Popcorn Hour... Would be an awesome alternative to the out-of-stock and 100% tied to Sage HD-100...

[bcjenkins]

I love the Popcorn Hour box's form factor. There used to be an MVP over VNC before SageTV rolled out there own. I've never used it, but I wonder if it could be adapted to suit the need.

B

[reggie14]

This is a very interesting idea. It might work for standard definition mpeg2, but I don't think it would work with anything else. There's an initial handshake between the Sage server and the extender. In that handshake the extender tells the server what kinds of files it is capable of playing. Presumably, if it's simply emulating the MVP, its only going to tell the server it can play back SD-mpeg2.

Still, I think it strongly implies Sage could somewhat easily support the Popcorn Hour as an extender if they wanted to. Maybe they're making pretty good money on the HD extender and they like making people come to them. Maybe they just don't like supporting lots of different devices, since a fix for one might break the other. It's hard to say what's going on. But, given the extended wait times when the HD extender is sold out, I wish they would have went with a product that wasn't exclusively for Sage users.

I assume Sage is buying these from some place in China, and they don't really know how many they're going to sell. Since they don't want to be stuck with 100's of HD extenders with no one to buy them, they probably have to wait until their stock is pretty low before they're comfortable buying more. I kind of wonder how many they've sold so far.

[emveepee]

I am the author of the this client and it won't work with SageTV because the SageTV MVP client uses its own protocol. When I started the original project on mvpmc a couple of years ago I did contact SageTV and they weren't interested in joining in. At the time, I was actually hoping to create a ubiquitous media extender client but this never panned out.

The Popcorn Hour implementation of what I call emulation mode is certainly not SD only it supports all the formats supported by the PCH/NMT platform. It is also not GBPVR specific it does run with VDR with Linux and I can fake it with the Hauppauge server. I still would be happy to support SageTV.

Martin

[reggie14]

Thanks for chiming in, emveepee. I think I misinterpreted what emulation mode is. Apparently the Popcorn Hour device in emulation mode isn't capable of loading software for the MVP, if I'm understanding you correctly. I'm just guessing, but it sounds like emulation mode is something that let the PCH understand Hauppauge's protocol for the MVP.

To be honest, I'm really not sure what everyone's talking about in this thread. Everything I see on mvpmc.org seems to be focused on the MediaMVP device, not other devices. I can't find anything that talks about software for the PCH/NMT.

It's too bad that Sage isn't interesting in helping people get the PCH/NMT working with the SageTV software. I'm sure they have a lot of money tied up in the HD100, and they need it to sell to recoup those costs. I certainly would have liked to see them work with another vendor to support a more general product, like they did with the MediaMVP.

Originally MVP support was hacked together by a Sage user. Is there some reason somebody couldn't reverse engineer the protocol Sage uses (other than the fact that that's a hard thing to do)?

[emveepee]

Yes you have basically captured emulation mode, although it is a modified Hauppauge protocol to allow for native FLAC and vorbis, mpeg-ts, and true incremental vnc updates using various vnc methods. There also is great Vista performance and a few other things. The Hauppauge protocol also has been extended to provide HD, DVD iso's, native non-mpeg formats, and all those nice things modern media extenders provide. Of course the frame buffer was expanded to support full 1280x780 and even 1920x1080 (which I find not worth)

Work on mvpmc for the PCH and other platforms is definitely low profile on the web site, wiki and mailing list. The same can be said for Emulation Mode running on both the MVP and PCH but that is because I support it where the users are.

I don't support hacking the protocol since I don't think it is necessary. With proper SageTV support because they would still get the Timeshifter license hacking shouldn't really be necessary.

Martin

[dagar]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I love the Popcorn Hour box's form factor. There used to be an MVP over VNC before SageTV rolled out there own. I've never used it, but I wonder if it could be adapted to suit the need.

B

I believe the original Sage MVP client was a VNC socket connection too. The VNC way is certainly not Scottish