[los93sol]

awesome! glad to see there are people actively working on this. personally, from everything i have read, it appears the best way to go about this is to implement upnp since it will allow the most efficient interface between the two programs. upnp will allow us to improve the interface and include mostly all of the mp functionality eventually. i don't know, i am certainly no dev, but i can help out. i personally think we should start up a donation fund for the development and do the same thing that xbmc is doing with their dvd thing.
los93sol

[Redsand189]

i have been looking into upnp and it definately seems the way to go. in a few years everything is going to be upnp compliant. it also seems that it shouldnt be too hard to develop with using some c++ libraries that already exist (cyberlink c++).

anyway, i am taking this slow, going to try to get a basic communication going between my laptop and my desktop. if that works, i will see about getting it to work on the xbox.

[Frodo]

just for your information:
mircosoft just relead windows media connect
http://www.microsoft.com/windows....lt.aspx

this turns windows xp in a fullblown upnp server
you can tell it which media folders you wanna share to which dmr
this means that mediaportal doesnt have to do anything
just install wmc, configure it and voila its ready to stream any media to any upnp digital media receiver.

so if xbmc is going to support upnp then i think we can close this thread since then you can stream all media from mediaportal->xbmc


frodo

[Frodo]

oh and besides this upnp
mediaportal now has a webcontrol interface so ppl
can control mp using a normal webbrowser
this way they can see the tvguide, channels, recordings
add new recordings, play any file etc etc

for this some web-services where developed
i guess xbmc could use these webservices also to get the tvguide and to control mp

more info:
http://nolanparty.com/mediapo....heduler

frodo

[los93sol]

wow, that's great news. i am a little unsure though, so through the webservices and the windows integrated upnp, we could control everything about mediaportal through xbmc if it was built in of course.

[smokeman]

so if xbmc is going to support upnp then i think we can close this thread since then you can stream all media from mediaportal->xbmc


frodo

not exactly close, but thanks for the info...
i think most of us are looking for more of a control interface for a media portal server(with tv tuner/dvb), that we can browse a program guide with(either gathered from a web guide, or straight off a dvb sattelite), select a program to record, if mediaportal has a budget dvb-s card in it,
possibly schedule 2 recordings for the same card, if the shows are on the same ts stream...

the fact that you can share media now is great,
and the web interface might allow a python plug-in to work really well.
but i don't see how that is any different from simply using windows xp to smb share mediaportal's folders, so that xbmc can browse them?

basically think tivo, only server/client.

[smokeman]

oh and besides this upnp
mediaportal now has a webcontrol interface so ppl
can control mp using a normal webbrowser
this way they can see the tvguide, channels, recordings
add new recordings, play any file etc etc

for this some web-services where developed
i guess xbmc could use these webservices also to get the tvguide and to control mp

more info:
http://nolanparty.com/mediapo....heduler

frodo

i read the last post on the web control of mp link,
and the way he designed the web control, he may have un-intentionally coded the control interface that we can use
inside xbmc to do scheduling.
the webcontrol of mp was coded with a mp plug-in, which talks to a web service, which then talks to php for the pages.

we can use the mp plug-in, and i would bet some of the existing python plug-ins for xbmc,
and make this happen!

[Redsand189]

the windows media connect sounds great, if all we have to do is turn the xbox into a upnp device than we are a lot closer. i do have a couple questions....

1) wmc says you basically share folders that contain audio/video. can you share a live tv folder? we can already stream files, i think our goal here is to stream live tv.

2) even though i think this relies more on the device, but wmc might have compatiblity problems with a lot of media:

media connect supports many formats, including windows media audio (wma), windows media video (wmv), mp3, jpeg, mpeg-1, and more.

another option i was looking into was cybermediagate. which is an implementation of the upnp mediaserver. he claims that this mediaserver already works with mythtv.

furthermore, this cybergate guy created a very useful set of libraries for upnp developers.

[los93sol]

@Frodo, i understand that if mp is going to do anything with this it won't be specific to xbmc and that it would be something universal that could easily be extended to a variety of applications. i also understand your recent post about how this could be done, however, that is not really what we are after here. i agree with smokeman:

not exactly close, but thanks for the info...
i think most of us are looking for more of a control interface for a media portal server(with tv tuner/dvb), that we can browse a program guide with(either gathered from a web guide, or straight off a dvb sattelite), select a program to record, if mediaportal has a budget dvb-s card in it,
possibly schedule 2 recordings for the same card, if the shows are on the same ts stream...

the fact that you can share media now is great,
and the web interface might allow a python plug-in to work really well.
but i don't see how that is any different from simply using windows xp to smb share mediaportal's folders, so that xbmc can browse them?

basically think tivo, only server/client.

now, that in mind, i know that for dvd menu support in xbmc there was a donation fund setup, would it help sway your opinion of possibly developing something sort of xbmc specific in mp if there was a decent donation fund setup for the cause. say it would start out at around $400, would that sway your opinion any? it would be great to see a complete control interface.

[smokeman]

been busy with things in my life,
but i intend on following through with this.
will probably be one of those ongoing projects.

smokeman

[Gamester17]

forza has been looking into upnp which could be used for mediaportal <=> xbmc communication, however i have no idea how far he come

[los93sol]

alright, i am thinking this will be merged with an existing thread, so to the mods, if you feel this belongs somewhere else please move it as you see fit.

i had a thought earlier today. i was thinking about the limits of the xbox hardware and ways to get around them. then i remembered the media center extender and windows media center. this got me thinking about mediaportal and then i had a brainstorm. mediaportal has a nice plug-in engine that could be utilized when a pc app becomes necessary to add a specific feature to xbmc. to me this seems like i nice way to streamline xbmc and any "extended" features that are already or may be added through native code or scripts.

this brings up a few questions though. why in the hell wouldn't you just run the app to connect to xbmc? what if i have no use for mediaportal other than to get the usage of a few specific features in xbmc? the answers to these questions are what i am wanting to find out with this thread and if any developers think this is a good enough idea to pursue?

in my opinion this could be a really great way to streamline xbmc in that it could be managed and run like the xbmc scripts web site (maybe they would even be generous enough to host any plug-ins that may be written?). it is effective to just download and run the apps you need to use specific features in xbmc, but it stops there. even if you don't immediately have a need for mediaportal on your pc for anything other than a few specific "extended" features in xbmc, think of the possibilities. mediaportal is a rapid growing project just like xbmc and the best part is that it is based on xbmc's core (albeit vastly different by now). mediaportal has several features that could be extended to xbmc via plug-ins without having to necessarily write an entire app from scratch to do it on the pc or performing sometimes nasty hacks to add functionality to existing apps. also if this system was adopted as a standard you could just launch mediaportal and any of the plug-ins you have installed will automatically start-up as well so you would no longer have to launch multiple applications to gain each feature in xbmc.

from the developer's standpoint i can't comment on because i am definitely not a developer, but it would be interesting to see how the dev's feel about something like this. would it be worth it? would it be beneficial to have a standard? is this idea even on the right track? would it help xbmc and mediaportal to finally link the two applications most closely together?

i'm also interested to see how the users feel about this idea? would you like being able to go to one location and download your plug ins to simplify setup as much as possible? do you see any issues with this idea?

regards,
los93sol

[HarshReality]

by "plugins" you mean functionality or media capabilities? i ask because areound here the only reference i have heard involving plugins was like flexi-browser.

[Solo0815]

check this plugin: (to control mp with xbmc)
http://home.iprimus.com.au/miarose/

and this thread:
http://nolanparty.com/mediapo....ht=xbmc

[HarshReality]

omfg... it is so on!