beautiful Media Portal

ukmgranger · #1 08-18-2005, 05:31 AM

I finally had a chance last night to have a play with Media Portal, having installed it a couple of weeks ago.

The reason I am looking at the software is because I use mlbdudes superb SageMC.stv which uses themes from MP.

Let me start by saying that the software does seem to be incredibly flaky! It crashed on me constantly when I tried to get it to go into full screen. I have not had a look on the forums over there, so it really could just be something that I'm doing/not doing.

The point of interest for me is the UI. It is stunning!!

even though SageMC uses the same icon set, the difference really is night and day. The animations are just superb. When you move over an album/DVD cover it kinda’ enlarges slightly for a rollover effect. There is even scrolling text in there that you can set the vertical/horizontal speed for. There are things that I would change of course, but all in all it looks lovely.

As usual in life you can’t have everything. It would be a dream to have the UI (with all of it’s animations and eye-candy) of Media Portal with the robustness of Sage (when I say ‘robust’, I mean that lightly).

I only had a quick look at the PVR functions. These didn’t seem to compare with those of Sage but hopefully the software will develop into something great.

I am certainly keeping an eye on this one.

mlbdude · #2 08-18-2005, 05:55 AM

The UI in Sage will be its weak point for sure. It is a shame that a product with such a strong underlying technology does not get a little more attention to the parts we can see and use.

ukmgranger · #3 08-18-2005, 06:33 AM

I think that as the HTPC PVR market grows (due to the software becoming simpler to configure/use) The look/feel of the product will be MASSIVELY important.

By this point it won't be the tech heads (that think 'wow this is such impressive coding') that Sage will be marketing towards. It will be the average Joe who want's things to look and feel 'quality'.

Obviously The stability of the product is parramount, but I really do think that Sage is missing a trick by having, in my opinnion, a very dull UI.

The other thing that we should not forget is that Media Portal is FREE. Look at what has been accomplished there!

It seems like the progress of other PVR products is progressing while Sage almost stands still.

Kanati · #4 08-18-2005, 01:22 PM

I gave it a try about a month ago and yes it is indeed pretty. But it, as you say, is entirely too flaky and difficult to set up for the "average joe" to deal with. They are working on a setup wizard that hopefully will take care of the lion's share of the naff setup it currently has. But it still has significant stability issues that need ironed out as well.

sleonard · #5 08-18-2005, 01:48 PM

Function before form. SageTV wins!

ukmgranger · #6 08-18-2005, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleonard

Function before form. SageTV wins!

The problem there is that many of the functions seem to be on a par or better than in Sage.

The TV section isn't as good as Sage, yet, but it does almost everything that Sage does.

Oh - and playback doesn't seem to skip (big +) I'd say that Sage is ahead but MP is biting at it's heals.

mlbdude · #7 08-18-2005, 04:03 PM

There are other PVR's out there than MP too. All have a bigger share than Sage. You can bet it is not because of functionality.

SHS · #8 08-18-2005, 04:35 PM

In my book MediaPortal get a BIG FAT THUMBS DOWN becuase it dosen't support Windows 2000 funny thing is it base on NET Framework and guest who else is using that same API, GB-PVR and BeyondTV and they don't have any problem with Win2000.

bclenney · #9 08-18-2005, 08:45 PM

I agree that MediaPortal is beautiful. I wish Sage would put more into their UI. I love Sage.. but it isn't nearly as pretty!

Brian

nielm · #10 08-19-2005, 01:34 AM

Any of you guys complaining about Sage's GUI remember 1.4?

/me prefers stability over bells+whistles, but it is true that if you make something flashy and pretty, it does not matter how well it actually works, people will yell how good it is because it has buttons that change color (apologies to the epileptic!)

I spent 5 years working on a server project for a telco working at getting 5-9's reliability... Customers were not impressed. I spent a month and created a web-ui for it... Customers were falling over themselves saying how good it was (when the web-ui offered much less functionality than the Win32 GUI!)...

See also Usenet vs Web-forums...

1972 · #11 08-19-2005, 03:58 AM

So should we give Sage a month of work to do the trick? ;-)

Mahoney · #12 08-19-2005, 05:15 AM

I couldn't find anything on the Media Portal site to suggest it has a client/server architecture; indeed that seems to be unique to Sage? Or am I totally off base there?

Sage doesn't completely meet my needs (I'd really like out of the box DVB-T and DVB-S support), but I do like the client/server architecture a lot. GB-PVR doesn't seem to do client/server, either.

nielm · #13 08-19-2005, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1972

So should we give Sage a month of work to do the trick? ;-)

If I think about it, my Sage Webserver is also probably about 1-2 months of full time work...
Implementing a new 'flasher' UI layer in Sage would probably take a little longer

ukmgranger · #14 08-19-2005, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mahoney

I couldn't find anything on the Media Portal site to suggest it has a client/server architecture; am I totally off base there?

You are spot on there.

I asked that very question on their forums yesterday. I was told that is was on the cards sometime in the future!?!??

My guess is that it will take a very long time for this to happen, as I'm sure that the work to do such will be massive.

Boooo

Mahoney · #15 08-19-2005, 06:13 AM

Quote:

I asked that very question on their forums yesterday. I was told that is was on the cards sometime in the future!?!??

My guess is that it will take a very long time for this to happen, as I'm sure that the work to do such will be massive.

Sort of thing that's so much easier to achieve if you design it that way from the ground up... oh well.

mlbdude · #16 08-19-2005, 06:58 AM

Knowing MP it will be added quickly like most of its other features. However, it will probably not be too stable, like most of its other features.

bclenney · #17 08-19-2005, 06:19 PM

I'm very happy with Sage's stability, which is why I use it. But I still think it could be stable AND pretty

samgreco · #18 08-19-2005, 07:43 PM

Just remember...

Beauty is only 'skin' deep.

Sorry. I couldn't help it.

blade · #19 08-19-2005, 08:32 PM

I agree with stability over looks, but with a HTPC I want a nice smooth feel to it. I want the user to feel as if they're using a PVR, not that they're simply using a computer that can record TV.

IMO the best looking most user friendly STV is SageMC. I'd love to see Sage move to something like it as the default STV.

White94Cobra · #20 08-19-2005, 11:01 PM

We want beauty AND brains...

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