MP TV series

One of my favorite features in mediaportal is the tv-series support. Enjoying the tv-series you like, all you want, when you want, is absolutely great. But MediaPortal just adds a little user's joy to the excercise. The developers found out that somewhere on the internet, there's a community of tv enthusiasts collecting heaps of banners, episode guides and what not for every imaginable tv series. The community can be found at http://www.thetvdb.com/ and there is some beautiful stuff from dedicated fans out there. All of which is now neatly displayed through the MediaPortal TV Series plugin. The banners, episode guides and screenshots make picking the right episode a breeze. And MediaPortal remembers what episode you watched. It even hides episode guides of unwatched episode to prevent "spoilers".


Now, under MediaPortal 0.2.3 RC 3 there were some issues with the database and I never took the time to fix that, so I reinstalled the plugin when I had the final 0.2.3 release installed.

I downloaded the plugin v1.2.9 build 34660. It comes as a RAR and requires unzipping in the MediaPortal program folder. In the MediaPortal configuration tool an icon appears under plugins. After enabling the plugin, you can enter its configuration.

First you enter the location of the tv-series files. But then comes the tricky part. The filenames have to be parsed into the data base according to parsing rules. These rules extract properties like series and episode number from the filenames on the hard disk. This requires some level of organization in the tv series on your hard disk. The pre-programmed parsing rules work on most naming conventions, but not all on my harddisk. So, the choice was to do a lot of renaming, or edit the parsing rules.

The parsing rules come in two shapes: simple and regular expression. The simple expression proved too simple for my chaoticly named series collection. I basically had to make a rule for each series and each season and there were too many expressions to uniquely parse the filenames. So, I had to get familiar with regular expressions.

The overview and the tester on regexlib.com proved very helpful here, as well as wikipedia and this page. Eventually I found out that this parsing rule works best for me:

Apart from the parsing rule I also used string replacements, so that the characters _, [ and ] are removed from the filenames. When the parsing test shows your files are parsed correctly, it's time to hit "Start Import". The actual downloads may take a while. In the details tab you can check the data that's currently in the database. After closing the configuration and starting MediaPortal, the same data will be displayed through the My TV Series screen.

One more screenshot below to prove my point: The MP TV Series plugin looks neat!

Installing MediaPortal

Since the final, stable MediaPortal 0.2.3 release is out, I decided to do a fresh install and blog a couple of tips and tricks.

Installing or updating is pretty straightforward. I always check the instructions on the wiki, I noticed these change every now and then. I renamed the mediaportal folder and uninstalled MediaPortal with Control Panel -> Add/remove Programs.
Running the Setup exe-file, the installer first requires agreement to the GNU license under which MediaPortal is distributed. Then it asks to install the bundled MPEG-2 decoder filters, DScaler and Gabest MPA/MPV. I do, even though I installed these on previous installs as well. The next screens are to identify the installation folder and the start menu folder. Once that's complete, the actual install takes well under a minute. Finally, the closing screen has a checkbox for entering the Configuration tool. I unchecked this, because I first want to copy the old database files to the new installation.

Per the wiki instructions, I copied the following files to the new installation:
- The thumbs-folder. Although I deleted the folder with tv-series banners.
- The input-device mappings folder. Because I made some tweaks in how MediaPortal responds to the remote.
- The database-folder. Here I also deleted the TVSeries database.
- All XML-files in the main folder, except for a couple that I thought were used only with older plugins.

Skipping any configuration, I started MediaPortal. Somehow the configuration of the tv-card was lost, so in the configuration I re-added it and assigned all tv channels to it again. Yes, I still use the built-in tv stuff, I haven't tried the separate tv server yet. I also had to run the WebEPG grabber configuration again, as described in the previous post.

That's it, ready to rock and roll!

MediaPortal 2.3.0 RC3

A couple of weeks behind schedule, I've installed release candidate 3 of MediaPortal 0.2.3.0. The changes with respect to 0.2.2.0, build 13411, that I was using before, the changes are not that apparent. But there are some!

A long time annoyance with MediaPortal was how to best browse through my music. My music collection is arranged by album. So when looking for some tunes to play, I want to first pick an artist, then one of that artist's albums. Now in that list of artists, I only want to see the artists that actually have albums in my collection, not the artists that only appear in compilations. I found that in this version you can actually build a "view" that does this. See screenshot below for how it's done. Now, next on my wishlist is to have the albums sorted by year of release...

Another change is in the TV series plugin. It's supposed to look real nice, but I'm having some issues because the database is not compatible with the previous version.

I had to re-configure the Web EPG tv guide grabber. If you use digital tv, the tvguide information comes with the signal. If you uses analogue cable tv, like myself, the tvguide has to come from the internet. This grabber pulls the tv guide information from a website, like http://www.tvgids.nl/ for dutch users. It creates a personalized xml file with tv guide data that MediaPortal uses. Since version 0.2.2.0, the grabber that comes with the standard MediaPortal package is excellent. Previously, separate grabbers had to be downloaded to give satisfactory results. Most annoyingly, the station names in the grabber had to exactly match the station names in MediaPortal.

Now, all you have to do is run the Web EPG configuration tool. With the push of a button it gets all your channel names from the MediaPortal channel configuration. Each channel can easily be assigned to a channel in the program guide that the grabber downloads. You can even use different grabbers for each channel.

Once configured, all that's needed is to set the plugin configuration. The plugin is called WebEPG Grabber and in the configuration you can set the days that you want the grabber to run, as well as the time. The Web EPG configuration that's included in the actual MP configuration remains untouched.

The problem with the web based guide, is that the information is only as good as the information on the website.

Of course, by the time I'm done installing release candidate 3, the final 2.3.0 version was released.

Links

Here's two completely unrelated but nevertheless interesting links:

Missing remote has a helpful guide on building a Media Center PC for a little over 1000 dollars. All important aspects are covered, check it out if you're building a yourself a new set.

The other link is to All out Assault, a forum site where Audiogon users display their monstrous audio setups. The absurdness is funny to the point where you almost feel pity for the audiophiles, basically feeding their addiction by throwing tons of money (literally) into their hunt for the ultimate listening experience.

Internet

Using information from internet is what distinguishes a Media Center PC from a harddisk recorder, a Tivo, etcetera.

MediaPortal is constantly finding information from the internet about the media it shows or plays. It gathers tv guide information for watching tv, artist information, related music and cd covers while listening to music, actors with your movies, episode guides with the tv series. And then there's the stuff that you can only get from the internet: Webradio, rss news feeds, movie trailers.

Now, this also means that using a Media Center isn't half the fun when you loose connection to the internet. Dutch readers: By all means - avoid Tele2 as an internet provider. It took the Swedish maffia 10 weeks to move my phone and internet connection.

In my new house I also made some improvements in connectivity. Instead of wireless, my desktop pc and Media Center PC are now hard wired to my ADSL router. That means I got rid of USB WiFi devices not starting up properly. And that I have 100Mbit connectivity between my PC's, or more if I upgrade the router. So I'm set up for some serious nerdmanship...

Keyboard

I bought myself a nice keyboard. Generally speaking, you don't really need a keyboard and mouse for operating the mediacenter, but sometimes... There's a couple of things I like about this keyboard. For one, it has built-in mouse functionality. So you can operate it from the couch on your lap, without having to locate a mouse and a suitable surface first. The 10 meter range is a must for this as well, I found my desktop keyboard and mouse did not cover the less than four meters between couch and mediacenter. There's no numeric keypad, keeping the keyboard small and easy to store in the living room. Finally, the price is acceptable: 60 US dollars. The unit is MCE certified and has 16 multimedia hotkeys along the top. Let's see how that works with MediaPortal!

Remotes

A Media Center PC is operated from the couch and therefore you need a remote. Remotes come in all shapes and sizes. Most remotes only send a one-way signal to your home theatre equipment, but Windows Vista is inspiring the introduction of several interesting two-way remotes. The Ricavision Sideshow Remote is an example. The 2.5" color screen is what catches the eye, but what's really new is that the display shows information from the Media Center PC. So this will enable you to select music from the harddrive without switching your tv on! This device was announced in December and is supposed to cost about US$ 200, but I haven't seen it actually for sale yet.

The functionality is based on the Sideshow feature of Windows Vista. The remote will show and control any gadget that you prefer to include in the Sideshow bar. The question is of course how this functionality will transfer to other HTPC front-end software packages than Vista MCE. And how this will integrate into multi functional remotes like the Logitech Harmony.

My personal preference would still be two separate devices. One "simple" remote with buttons that you can feel and operate blindfolded. And a more sophisticated, touch screen operated, PDA type remote that shows the Media Center user interface. Finally the keyboard and mouse will serve as a backup only.

Now, the simple remote should be as simple as possible. I think there should be a minimum set of buttons and that the software user interface should be designed such that it's fully operable with this minimum set of commands.
The minimum set of buttons is:
- On and off buttons that will not only operate the mediacenter pc but also the receiver, tv set, etc.
- The standard buttons for play, pause, stop, fast forward, rewind, previous and next. I don't think the "record" button is particularly useful anymore. You'll often see that commands like "forward" and "next", or "play" and "pause" are combined in a single buttons. I think that should be outlawed
- Channel + and -
- Volume + and -
- Arrow buttons that will shift the focus on screen from one item to the next
- An "OK" button that will select the highlighted item
- A "menu" button that will show all options for the highlighted item
- A "back" button that will get you back to the previous screen without selecting anything
- The 0-9 buttons are optional. These clutter up the remote and I don't see a real need. Selecting channels with numbers is out-dated. And while the number buttons can be used for text message style editing of text, I don't see that as particularly user friendly either.
- Nice-to-have is a "home" button that will get you back to the start screen from wherever you are in the user interface.
- Another nice-to-have is a couple of multifunctional buttons, that are specific to your hardware setup or your preferences as a user. These buttons should be next to a display that shows what the actual functionality of these buttons is.

Under the hood

HTPC components:
- Greenpower HTPC case GL-1c with VFD display
- ASUS P4S533MX micro ATX mother board,
533MHz FSB, AGP4x, 3x PCI, Ultra DMA133
- 2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 CPU, 533MHz FSB
- Zalman CNPS5700D Cu CPU cooler (without the air duct)
- 512MB memory, PC2700
- 250GB Samsung Spinpoint SP2514 hard drive , 7200rpm
- Coolermaster PSU 400W
- Lite-on DVD ROM drive
- XP Home Edition SP2 operating system
- Hauppauge PVR350 analog TV card
- ASUS V9520 Magik T videocard, chipset NVidia GeForce FX5200 (128 MB)
- Creative SB Audigy Platinum sound card
- Logitech Harmony 655 remote
- MCE USB infrared receiver
- BTC 9029URF III keyboard

Evolution

The first mediacenter that entered my living room - October 2003 - was merely intended as an MP3 player. I had heard of this new invention called "time shifting" so I bought a Hauppauge TV card as well. The PVR-350 came with hardware encoding and a remote. Another use that I could think of was digitizing my LPs, so that's why I got a Soundblaster Audigy Platinum.

All of this was mounted in a Lian-Li desktop case. It fitted full size PCI cards and two 5.25" front slots. It was a full size desktop model, not a sleek small little gadget. I never really understood why people care so much for ultra small barebone cases for their media centers. Small means less options for heat dissipation, more heat means more noise. My advice if you're on a budget: buy a big ugly case and put it away in a cabinet. You only look at the case when you put a DVD in anyway.

For watching tv, the PVR-350 was delivered with the WinTV2000 application. It was pretty decent and, as advertised, it could pause and resume live tv! Not before long I discovered that the remote could be tweaked by editing a remote.ini text file. I spent hours mapping shortcut keys of many applications to keys on the remote.

I also developed a couple of HTML pages that could launch these applications, again using shortcut keys. The Hauppauge remote itself was very basic, so I exchanged that for a universal remote by Sony. So far, I'd been using three separate remotes for tv, receiver an mediacenter. Obviously that makes watching TV quite an operation. But the Sony remote had a nice option to direct the volume signals to the receiver, even while the other buttons still operated the mediacenter. So at least I could get by with one remote most of the time.

From the start, I used a Zalman CPU cooler. Over time, I changed the cheap case fans with more state-of-the-art Pabst fans. And, although the power supply was advertised as "low noise" it was rattling disturbingly through my music. So I took the fan out and replaced it as well. And when the harddrive was up for expansion, I switched from a Maxtor Diamond Plus to the Samsung Spinpoint. It does make a difference!

Another nuissance from the early days was that the analog audio out created a big burst of noise at every change of channel. It was so bad I used to swap channels with the receiver on mute. That only stopped when I changed my good old Pioneer stereo receiver to a digital Marantz AV receiver. The Marantz receiver also marked the entry of surround sound in my living room. Now, sound from every corner of the room is nice, and some special effects in dvd's work really well. But what makes 5.1 sound worthwhile is the center speaker. Having the actors or the news reader talk from a place near the tv makes speach much easier to understand. I watch tv in the Circle Surround II mode, but I still prefer my music in plain and simple stereo.

The last major change was the case. I ran into this GreenPower case that would look really nice with the receiver, plus it has a VFD display and would fit a more silent power supply. And voilà, that's the setup at the time I started this weblog.

What else?

So, I'm a MediaPortal user. But what competition is MediaPortal up against?

First and foremost, Microsoft. While Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 was still a separate package, the media center support has been integrated in Windows Vista. You'll have to get the Premium edition though. With the performance requirements that it imposes on your hardware, Vista is not the most cost effective choice for a Media Center PC. In general, MCE only works with certain MCE certified hardware.

Even though MediaPortal is free, Microsoft obviously blows MediaPortal away from a marketing standpoint. I think it's a wise choice for many people as it doesn't require specific installation or tweaking of settings. In fact, it doesn't have a whole lot of settings, you'll just have to put up with the way Microsoft set it up for you.

Meedio is another option. This program was formally known as myHTPC and development was stopped in 2006, after the software was sold to Yahoo! Yahoo! then turned it into Go TV which is only available to the US market. Meedio still has some advantages over MediaPortal, most notably the way you can manipulate how lists from its database are displayed in the user interface. Meedio used to be available for a modest price.

Worth mentioning also is xLobby. According to the website and the reviews it's very customizable and supports all kind of networking features. It's ahead of MediaPortal with features like multizone audio, pocket pc support and multi client support, but less user friendly. xLobby has never been open source, but the website always featured a "Free Forever" claim. However, xLobby went commercial in March 2007. A new paid version is coming out this year.

In the US the market for commercial Media Center packages is really taking off. Options include SageTV Media Center, Snapstream Beyond TV and CyberLink PowerCinema. Some of these packages are really marketed only for the US and Canada. That means that the standard TV guide is not supporting tv channels for potential users outside North America. Optionally, the package includes TV tuner hardware, a remote, etc.

And there's lots more! MythTV is another open source project, but less developed than MediaPortal and running on Linux. The latest version 0.2 dates back to September 2006 and the site doesn't show a lot of activity since.
GB-PVR is a project developed in the UK. Plugins are supported but the core engine code is not publicly available. Some of the screen shots on the site look an awful lot like MediaPortals BlueTwo skin, Would that apply to the source code as well?
France has several projects. Sesam-TV is freeware. Domotix is also a French project, free. Another French project is DomaxCenter. There's a paid and a free version. The focus is on home automation and there's no live TV support. And while we're at it, here's a nice review comparing 6 projects, also in French. Another example of a home automation package is MainLobby. Tvoon is a German project, but the latest release dates back to 2005. Got All Media is another open source project.

For Linux users and next to MythTV, there's Geexbox and Freevo. And for Mac users, Apple has developed Front Row. However, Front Row is so far without support for live TV.

Update: Of course, there's a much more complete list of HTPC frontend software available on internet. See Eirikso's blog.

MediaPortal

The front-end software of choice for my mediacenter pc is MediaPortal. MediaPortal is an open source project hosted at sourceforge.com, meaning that it's absolutely free. But most of all, it's developed by people who do this for fun. And that shows. The MediaPortal community is very active in developing new features, plugins and skins. There's a wiki support site and an active forum with help for if you run into any issues with the software.

The program neatly combines whatever content you have on the harddrive with additional information from the internet. The tv guide is downloaded from internet, so you won't need the newspaper for that anymore. It also takes the hassle out of programming a normal VCR. Cd covers are downloaded with the music you play, as well as additional information on the artist and a review of the album. Similarly, for movies the cover, the actors and further movie infomation is downloaded. One of the things I like best ist that it also supports tv series with episode guides. And then it gives you access to all kinds of internet content: News feeds, weather updates, webradio, movie trailers and more.

The software can be quite picky in the drivers and supporting software it uses, so make sure you update videocard drivers etc. all to the latest rev. MediaPortal has a reputation of being "buggy" compared to its competition.

A short introduction to my hardware

Let me introduce you to my setup. First, there's the media center PC itself. Then, I use a Marantz SR5500 A/V receiver and a Samsung CRT television set. The front and center loudspeakers are home-built kit speakers. And for the vinyl collection, there's a Thorens TD125 turntable.

A more detailed description will follow in a future post, but here's some features of the PC:
- Greenpower HTPC case with VFD display
- 2.4GHz Pentium 4 CPU
- 160 GB Samsung spinpoint hard drive.
- Hauppauge PVR350 analog TV card

The Marantz SR5500 receiver is a 7 channel A/V receiver. I chose it for its wide range of supported standards and the sound quality as reported in the reviews. Also, it has options for multi-room support and control through an RS232c serial port, even though I haven't used those features so far. I'd say the Marantz will serve all my needs for at least a decade.

The Samsung CX-5235W tv set does as fine a job as you can expect from a CRT. It has detachable speakers, which is nice when the sound comes through the receiver anyway. Obviously, it is high on my list for an upgrade. I'm thinking flat, high definition and a quality pc-interface. But before I make up my mind, there's quite a few things to learn about interlacing, progressive scan and pixel mapping.

For surround sound, I use five loudspeakers. The front and center speakers are all built by yours sincerely. The design is Scirocco by Speaker and Co., a small dutch chain of DIY hifi loudspeaker enthusiasts. The front speakers also reach the low ranges, so I don't need a subwoofer.
The rear speakers are near antique, these have been in the family for over thirty years.

Another touch of history is the turntable. I picked up collecting records well after the introduction of CDs, mainly because it's so much fun searching flea markets for eighties stuff. It's a Thorens TD 125 MKII with a SME III arm.

Welcome to my Blog!

When I started building my mediacenter PC in 2003, I would have bet a dear thing that a PC in the living room would be common in many households very soon. Why bother with a separate dvd player, video recorder, a stack of hifi components and a zillion remote controls, when you can combine everything in neat single box? Why invest in a hard disk recorder or a home cinema set, only to find out 6 months later that it's not compatible with a newer media standard?

But these days, DVD players can be bought at prices lower than actual DVDs and they're versatile enough for most people. A mediacenter PC offers tons of features more, but is still a rarity in the living room. And to be honest, as yet I wouldn't recommend one to a less technically oriented friend. Let's face it, a mediacenter owner has to spend some time under the hood every once in a while.

Myself, I enjoy tweaking the setup, adding plugins and shopping around for parts. There's satisfaction in making my home theatre setup behave exactly the way I want, whereas a piece of consumer electronics strictly dictates how to operate it. I intend to keep you posted of my stumblings through mediacenter universe by posting my experiences on this Blog. Enjoy!