WMC, MediaPortal, XMBC or BTV?

[CadErik]

I'm in Canada and I don't have a good feel about the next version of google tv. Most online services with content are not available here and since google pushes everything online, I am ready to bet that most features of the next googletv will be only available in the states. Also let me bet that it will have some form of google ads plus learn and track what you do and watch. The alternatives I am considering are WMC, MediaPortal, XMBC and BTV.
I only care about the tv part because I am using JRMC for everything else. I also want something that networks, because I currently have a sagetv client and I use a placeshifter on my laptop (although I don't connect outside of my home network). Any opinions or recommendations?

[valnar]

If extenders are important you may want to consider NPVR too.

[TBacker]

I'm still running MediaPortal since I decided to test it the week after they blew up Frey.

I'm using v 1.2.0 beta 2 with ForTheRecord as the tuner/recorder/scheduler. It's got it's warts, it's definitely not Sage, but it seems stable.

FTR is sitting on the server and handling my two HDHR boxes. Everything is still stored on the server, and I have a Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ND22-U silent PC client running XP with MediaPortal 1.2.0 in the living room. It is handling full HD no problem, even though it's on XP with VMR9. The ION chipset and the fact that it's running a actual dual-core Celeron (instead of an Atom) makes all the difference. It does have small fan but you can't hear it unless you're right next to it and the room is dead quiet.

I have also run XBMC with FTR as my back end. XBMC is much closer to Sage GUI-wise, and much more refined and intuitive than MP, but the PVR functionality, while it kinda works, is very alpha. And unfortunately it's not a priority for anyone over there, so development is damn slow. It looks like it can go weeks or months between SVN updates on the PVR functionality.

I haven't tried nPVR or MythTV yet.

You might want to see if ForTheRecord will work as the back end for JRMC. http://4therecord.eu

[gplasky]

Actually NextPVR is the single solution that is most similar to SageTV. It is client/server in nature. It has PC client licenses and also supports extenders like the Popcorn Hour A100/A110, EGreat M34A etc which are based on modern Sigma chipsets, and play just about everything, with full HD video, and highdef UI. nPVR also has and supports plugins.

Gerry

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Actually NextPVR is the single solution that is most similar to SageTV. It is client/server in nature. It has PC client licenses and also supports extenders like the Popcorn Hour A100/A110, EGreat M34A etc which are based on modern Sigma chipsets, and play just about everything, with full HD video, and highdef UI. nPVR also has and supports plugins.

Gerry

It seems to be the closest, but still a very long way away from sage IMHO. i don't see why one of our talented dev's couldn't make sage run on any of those devices as well. Would be an undertaking to create a firmware from scratch, but well worth it. With the xmltv plugins and the epg plugin from slugger we have guide data for the foreseeable future. If we had an extender alternative we'd be set.

[CadErik]

Originally Posted by TBacker

I'm still running MediaPortal since I decided to test it the week after they blew up Frey.

I'm using v 1.2.0 beta 2 with ForTheRecord as the tuner/recorder/scheduler. It's got it's warts, it's definitely not Sage, but it seems stable.
http://4therecord.eu

Yes my findings that far also lead me to MediaPortal with ForTheRecord. I don't get why both are not integrated yet but ForTheRecord seems to provide most SageTV scheduling features. What do you miss from SageTV with this solution?

I also looked at NextPVR, it looks ok but the UI doesn't seem as nice as mediaportal and not sure if it is a good long term solution, the extensibility through plugins seems quite limited.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by CadErik

Yes my findings that far also lead me to MediaPortal with ForTheRecord. I don't get why both are not integrated yet but ForTheRecord seems to provide most SageTV scheduling features. What do you miss from SageTV with this solution?

Does it have non-PC (Sigma, Realtek) extenders? IMO, nothing is an alternative without that.

[TBacker]

Originally Posted by CadErik

What do you miss from SageTV with this solution?

As close as 4TR is, it still doesn't have the intelligence of the Sage scheduler. For one, it's missing the option to only record new episodes. The data contains flags for premiere and repeat, yet if neither flag is set, 4TR treats it like a new episode. They don't even provide a "Premieres Only" checkbox. Plus I don't believe it tracks what was watched which is a big plus Sage had. And only about 2/3 of the 4TR functionality is exposed in the MediaPortal client, so it's off to the desktop machine to do any real series scheduling.

I got used to Sage MyMovies. The movie section in MP is decent, but all of the data is automatically scraped and many times wrong. I have yet to investigate forcing some corrections.

The menu system with the StreamedMP skin is pretty close to Sage 7, but I keep trying to go back a menu and instead the options menu slides in from the side. That's not MP's fault, just a matter of getting used to it.

The music system is pretty poor IMHO. Having to configure sorts and types of data to display from the MP config utility, some slowness on large libraries, unable to drill down by genre, artist, album, etc. XBMC has the music side down pat.

And yes, I loved my HD200 extender, but truthfully haven't had any issues with my little Celeron Core2 client (other than expense!).

I still would rather run XBMC, but the PVR support right now truthfully sucks. If they had the full 4TR functionality running as a PVR client, it would be 80% of what Sage is. Extend 4TR's capabilities and add hardware extenders and it would be 100%. As it stands, the XBMC PVR author is attempting to force a variety of back-end recording and scheduling apps to use one standard (but extremely limited) GUI. While consistency is good and I applaud their efforts toward that goal, they need to see what real powerful PVR apps look like and extend their GUI to match. And development is slower than slow on the PVR. So I think it's MP for a while.

We got spoiled by full time developers in a commercial setting who listened and understood what was needed. Now it appears WE are the PVR "Sage's" to the open source guys. I guess it's up to us to gradually nudge them along in the right direction.

[TBacker]

Originally Posted by valnar

Does it have non-PC (Sigma, Realtek) extenders? IMO, nothing is an alternative without that.

Well, your choices then are:

1. Run Sage as long as you can with what you've got.
2. Run WMC and buy a bunch of XBox 360's (if you don't mind not being able to view ripped BD's or high bitrate HD).
2. Run nPVR with one of the 3rd party extender options.
3. And/Or wait for Google to announce what they're doing with the SageTV IP (is it getting cold in Hell yet?)

That's about all you can do if you are avoiding PC clients. The line between PC clients and powerful extenders is really beginning to blur with the video chipsets and codecs now used. Heck, the HDx00's are pretty much embedded computers with a sigma video chip running a subset of Linux.

[CadErik]

Originally Posted by TBacker

As close as 4TR is, it still doesn't have the intelligence of the Sage scheduler. For one, it's missing the option to only record new episodes. The data contains flags for premiere and repeat, yet if neither flag is set, 4TR treats it like a new episode. They don't even provide a "Premieres Only" checkbox. Plus I don't believe it tracks what was watched which is a big plus Sage had. And only about 2/3 of the 4TR functionality is exposed in the MediaPortal client, so it's off to the desktop machine to do any real series scheduling.

I heard that 4TR provides the "watched" show feature but I'm considering contributing to MP and adding that feature to the TV server (and possibly migrate my sagetv "watched" history).