I already told you about my HTPC problems : TVXB nuked my Windows install, so I had to start a Windows repair session. After the Windows repair, I still experienced lots of problems : not only was my C: drive completely full, but MediaPortal 0.2.3 kept crashing as if it was a test car in one of the Top Gear episodes. I upgraded MediaPortal to 1.0.0 RC3 (version 0.2.3 was nowhere to find), but it complained heavily that it needed Windows XP SP3.
I decided to bite the bullet, and reinstall everything from scratch : I increased the C: drive to 40GB, reinstalled Windows with SP3, and reinstalled MediaPortal including TVServer. So, now that the dust has settled, you might ask if MP 1.0 was worth all the trouble. I must say I have mixed feelings :
- the stability of MediaPortal 1.0 RC3 is not up to the point of 0.2.3. Even RC versions of 0.2.3 were more stable. It's not that its very crash prone, but once in an evening, the TV image goes black. Could be related to the Hauppauge MPEG2 demuxer that I'm using now. Will need to investigate with other MPEG2 codecs.
- the MediaPortal team has decided that timeshifting is a allways-on feature. This means a hard disk which is continuously working. Lots of users complained about this feature, but the MP team refuses to revert this. Only option left is to remove TV Server, and use the internal TVserver in MediaPortal. But that means less hardware support...
- As MediaPortal needs to wait for TV Server to start, it takes longer for MP to start up also.
- MediaPortal doesn't play xvid content anymore (only audio)
- MediaPortal 1.0 is a major upgrade, but without any user feature enhancements. From the view of the end user, this is a major problem, and also explains the remaining popularity of 0.2.3.
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