http post to loxone miniserver

[kgschlosser]

i personally like media portal 1 better. alot of plugins made for it. like EG control and reporting

nice when you want to ramp the lights down when a movie starts playing.

and it's the only one where the PVR functions perfect under a multi TV setting. without getting into a linux driven back end

[kgschlosser]

well how i look at it is get the plugins right first, then move onto marrying the events to different actions, because it's really annoying to have somehting set one way then change a plugin and then have to go back and redo the tree (i know this from experience 6 times over)


like my AVR outputs over 600 different things (that i know of and i am sure there are a lot more) i have over 1000 tree items so its a grewling process to go through it all and even worse when a lot of it is python scripts.

[V_J]

Good arguments for MediaPortal 1...I'll give that one a go later.

well how i look at it is get the plugins right first, then move onto marrying the events to different actions, because it's really annoying to have somehting set one way then change a plugin and then have to go back and redo the tree (i know this from experience 6 times over)

like my AVR outputs over 600 different things (that i know of and i am sure there are a lot more) i have over 1000 tree items so its a grewling process to go through it all and even worse when a lot of it is python scripts.

I know... but now I'm getting fed up with not finishing things. I started more than 2 years ago trying to get multiroom audio (before I sourced the Squeezeboxes), revamped the Marantz Serial plugin for more functionality and got sort of stuck on making a web interface. Parallel, I was suffering even longer understanding the Loxone programming. Now I have all the components that work together, so I would like some working version 1, even if just basic functionality. I resigned from the webinterface and will use the interface offered by Loxone to control things (more limited but much less work). I can add proper multi-room using the Sqeezeboxes and will add basic mediacenter/amplifier (basic functionality for the amplifier is selecting the source, setting volume and surround mode).
I feel confident that a several hours of non-stop work, a couple of times in the next few weeks should suffice to integrate the plugins: xap, marantz rs232, webserver, squeezebox and winlirc... Main problem is that I'm often not at the site of installation, so I cannot test things that often.

[kgschlosser]

well shoot over the marantz (i want to get marantz equipment don't have the room for the processor, and 5 amps) and let me work on it slow like. you don't have to use it will help me get a better understanding of how they work

[kgschlosser]

cameras microphones and remote desktop that's how you do it remotely

it's what i did.

i also got an OTG cable for my android phone and a split cable to allow for me to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse while charging into my phone added a usb hub to it so i could flash the firmware on my micro controllers so if i was ever going to be away from home for a while i had a means to work on it.

kinda sucked from a 5" screen but something is better than nothing. i only have a mac as a laptop and i am not away form home that much

[V_J]

I usually work on the go on a small latptop (mainly for the Loxone interface) but to finally test things, I need physical access (to press a wall switch, to get an ir signal, ...). So far I have not worked on EG using that laptop, but I think now I know enough to add some functionality and add the events later. First to redo the cabling though.

[Sem;colon]

and it's the only one where the PVR functions perfect under a multi TV setting. without getting into a linux driven back end

Hmm, I'm using Kodi with Argus TV; works very good to be honest, it's not that easy to setup Argus TV though. But once it's done, it works very good and offers a lot of recording and scheduling features - and it runs on Windows
I think at the end it's a matter of taste, I like Kodi for it's look and feel and it's available for almost all platforms.

[kgschlosser]

and it's the only one where the PVR functions perfect under a multi TV setting. without getting into a linux driven back end

Hmm, I'm using Kodi with Argus TV; works very good to be honest, it's not that easy to setup Argus TV though. But once it's done, it works very good and offers a lot of recording and scheduling features - and it runs on Windows
I think at the end it's a matter of taste, I like Kodi for it's look and feel and it's available for almost all platforms.

hmmm... interesting...


Argus is Media Portal

hmmm wierd, falls right into my comment about it being the best PVR available.

what i do not care for with Kodi is the need to use other PVR software and have a layer in between to translate. and we all know how Kodi has the best in plugin standards with them working properly and all, and the devs of kodi changing things that constantly break the plugins that are working. sounds just like another company i know MiCasaVerde lighting controllers

however i do like the openelec version of kodi, if you could get anything other than stock to run on it. because it just crashes, to many times i have had that happen trying to use it. or try a plugin just to have it lock up kodi and of course it always has to be something that runs at load time

i did find a nice video game library plugin for it tho, you had to purchase it tho

I haven't checked it out in over a year i have been hoping the devs would tighten up on the plugin quality and compatibility. but no such luck on that front

so i spent some time really customizing media portal and i have to say, it's rock solid.

and i have one location for all the data, it's all shared thumbnails and all

[Sem;colon]

you're right, plugins in kodi are a nightmare.
I used some in the beginning, but most of them broke over time and now I only use the Argus TV plugin, which seems to work fine...
The default is OK for me, but I guess MediaPortal is better for plugins.

[kgschlosser]

don't get me wrong Kodi could be awesome if they managed to get it together and control some of these plugins.

unfortunately there is no one solution that has everything, and plugins are a necessity but without the kodi devs taking the reins and controlling it you get plugins that clash with others, and cause all kinds of nightmares and it turns people away from Kodi. and good developers too but Kodi has gotten that Free Cable TV thing (ahem! which is still illegal in the US), and trust you me with the amount of loot the MPAA is losing. you know they know about it and are up the backsides of washington, and there will be a day. look at what they did to microsoft, that's why we now have this whole activation crap and not the plain ol product key no more. the government got all kinds of hell bent year after year for the tax write off due to piracy.
they put a stop to that and forced software mrgs to come up with stricter security

and trust me i have had my fare share of issues with mediaportal the setup is a pain to get 100% with shared data and running multiseat but it runs flawless after the setup and that's why the TV is good on yours is because of the ARGUS backend (which is mediaportal) last time i tried to use the mediaportal connector with kodi it kept on crashing, and that was the last time.


another plugin

[V_J]

My mine issue with Kodi are its scrapers... I don't really care about metadata, particularly as it often messes up (one of the perks of using a English language OS, with Belgian locale settings on a Polish internet provider). Titles are messed up (e.g. "wolf of wall street" becomes "wolf" - the one with Jack Nicholson), so I'd rather not have it. However Kodi makes it difficult to disable. I also do not like the way it shows PVR stuff.

I loved MediaBrowser, when it was a plugin in Windows Media Center: very small, but did everything I needed. I tried Emby (current MediaBrowser), but it has a number of issues. I've also tried MediaPortal 2, but did not like it, so I kept with NextPVR. Now that I'm getting to integrate things with EventGhost, I want something that integrates better. So I've decided to give MediaPortal 1 (which I have tried in the past) a whirl. I'll uninstall NextPVR, to make sure it does not interfere (e.g. reserve tuners), and will see how it goes. Second reason for making the switch is that I would like to prepare the system to stream movies, to local clients but also as I may be abroad after summer. It is not that important (I could just connect to vpn and copy the recording), but would be nice if it worked.

So far, MediaPortal 1 is installed and it found the TV channels.

This weekend I did not manage to continue with EG or Loxone, but I made order in the cable mess behind my system. Next weekend probably making order in the study and then back to the software...

[kgschlosser]

the moving pictures plugin for media portal does a pretty good job at the scraping.

but what i have done to gain accuracy is i have my movie library organized by a program called mymovies. and that program runs a mssql data base for most things. but this is the thing they are the largest single holder of movie titles and album art in the world

they beat out imdb

i use them to do all the scraping and everything and i have it make the nfo files and put the album art inside of each of the movie folders.

and the moving pictures plugin for mediaportal 1 is able to read the nfo files.

don't get me wrong there are always some problems and it takes a lot of time to work through them. my biggest issue was video and audio syncing it keys on flip flopping on me. i could get it to work nice with the movies and then tv tuner would be off. then it would go vice versa took me months to get it right and it was the dumbest thing in the world.

it was TeamViewer remote desktop causing the problems. apparently event if you aren't connected it uses some kind of virtual monitor then duplicates the display size and all.

so i had 4 monitors connected at a time. so i could see how that might cause playback issues when running 4 1080 p images at the same time all playing movies too

i have a decent video card don't get me wrong. but that's a little much. if you have any questions about it send me a message i can make it much easier for ya

[V_J]

I don't really care about the scraping. Kodi makes it nearly impossible not to have it (or you have to classify the folder as not containing videos, but then some other things behave weirdly). For me, it just takes too much time to nicely set up proper metadata, and I don't feel it is worth it. I just as quickly can look up the movie on my tablet and even get more detail on it. Up to now, I was using NextPVR for the recordings and MPC-HC for playback, but nothing integrated.

I don't want much from the media interface (kodi, mediaportal, ...), and that seems to be the issue: they all want to try and to everything. Now, I will fully test MediaPortal 1, I think I can customize that one enough to suit my purpose.

[kgschlosser]

if you use the titan skin there is a nice editor made to add and remove the buttons from the home screen that should help

[V_J]

I hoped I'd get MediaPortal up and running fast, but it just freezes the entire PC when I use it to watch TV. (preview in TV configuration works) It will take me a bit more time to look into the logs and find the issue. I've already found some threads on that issue but need time to try things on the pc... Hopefully this weekend.