Many reviews praise the MediaPortal forums and the level of support provided. Have you ever wondered how they work, who manages them, and what makes them so great? Are you using them correctly and to their full potential? Do you want to know who is using our forums?
Find out the Inside Scoop from one of our ‘Super’ Moderators: Rekenaar.
For details on using our forums, use the FAQ button on the Forum Main Menu. Even after years of using the forums, I still managed to learn something new!
Did you know there is a Team Forum? Well there is, with lots of sub forums to discuss all the various aspects of running a huge Project like MediaPortal. And you know what? It is a lot like the User Forums! There are tons of discussions going on all the time, with many different points of view, all exchanged freely and openly, but with a lot of support and respect, just like the User Forums!
On top of that, there are several IRC Channels, and you should see the traffic! There are multiple chats running 24x7: testers comparing notes, developers checking fixes or posting the latest fix to SVN, admins solving website issues and working on the new website. Talk about communication, our Team members are frequently in the midst of several chats at once, plus working on MP, plus answering user questions in the forums, plus responding to the many issues that arise daily and are posted for feedback by our indefatigable Project Coordinator. Sounds like a huge corporation? Well it’s only about 40 really hard working, brilliant, dedicated guys who, in the midst of it all, have a really great time.
Whether you are a C# or C++ expert, a writer, web designer, graphics designer, PR professional, convention organizer or web developer, you have something to offer. If you like dynamic, creative team spirit and want to help create the best media center software ever, take on Microsoft and rule the world, read on!
After my last Blog, several users posted comments (thank you all) asking about our Repository or Downloads page and how it could be improved. As many of you know, we have tried for almost two years to find a web developer to improve it. Although several offered, they all left us, with nothing usable. So, about a year ago Infinityloop posted in the user Forums asking for feedback:The future of MPI - we need your opinion! The idea was to develop an alternate, consistent method to install and update skins and plugins.
It was a very hot topic! The result was, that now, one of our genius developers, Dukus, has written a whole new Extensions Installer from scratch, incorporating the feedback which users and community developers provided. Dukus is already well known for his many excellent plugins like Youtube.fm, Radiotime, MTV MusicVideos and Yahoo MusicVideos (he likes music ). A lot of testing has already been done, as you can see in this forum post Extension Installer V2.
If you want to find out the new, easy way to install and auto update plugins and skins, read on! Yes, you heard me, I said 'auto update'. You can even choose only the plugins and skins that support your version of MediaPortal. Impressed? You should be!
Here is The Inside Scoop Vol 1.2 with Duka aka Dukus:
Make sure you catch all Blogs and News posts. Sign up for RSS Feeds on the Home Page Menu under Syndicate. You can also
keep track of all new downloads, both skins and plugins.
As one of the newest members of the MediaPortal (Docs) Team, I was astounded to see all the work that goes on behind the scenes and to share in the amazing team spirit that fuels the success of MediaPortal.
So I decided to do a regular Blog about the fascinating stuff going on. This will be mostly a series of interviews with various team members to answer some questions and share information about the development of MediaPortal with you all.
Here is my first interview with our Project Coordinator: Christian aka Infinityloop
This is my first blog entry. In the future, I want to provide some information about the current MP-II development progress from time to time.
MP-II global architecture
MP-II will be implemented as a client/server system. The server will manage all attached MP-II clients, their local resources (shares), some global preferences and so on. Basically, the server will contain the MediaLibrary and the recording engine for TV and other broadcasts (like radio, web-TV etc.). The server can automatically start because of upcoming recordings and shut down after it, or simply run 24/7. The client automatically connects to its homeserver on startup. It provides the user interface, as known from MP1. The client application can be closed after usage. In a singleseat setup, server and client run on the same machine and typically will start and shutdown together.
MP-II current state
MP-II did make a good progress the last year. The client infrastructure
(core part) is far advanced. But almost all specific UI components like the
Media and TV parts, the players etc. still need to be developed.
Developers can take a look at the current MP-II state: just check out
the MP-II project folder from our SVN trunk. MP-II only runs on Vista
and above.
Currently, we're working on the MP-II server part.
We'll still need much time until MP-II can replace MP1, but it will become a great, stable, maintainable system which will provide many improvements compared to MP1.
Last weekend the first MediaPortal team meeting outside the virtual world of IRC channels and forums was held near Frankfurt, Germany. 14 team members from Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany made their way to Glashütten to see the faces behind the nicknames. It was a nice opportunity to meet each other face to face and enjoying some nice food and of course also some beers at the hotel bar .
Next to the fun part we spent the whole Saturday in the conference room to discuss and plan the future of MediaPortal. While the first part of the day was all reserved for MediaPortal 1 and its upcoming release, all afternoon activities were dedicated to MediaPortal 2: Albert had prepared a workshop to introduce the other developers, skinners and testers to the MediaPortal 2 architecture and general concepts.
Thanks to chemelli, misterd and catavolt for organizing this great meeting and to everybody who joined!
I'm one of the latest faces in the MP dev group. As I yet have to make my first line of code in an official MP release, I don't consider myself a real MP dev and I think you have to work for such an honour which I haven't done so yet.
I'm a 31 year old, Danish engineer in computer science with a special interest in software design and the .NET framework. I work for a large (in Danish scale) software company where I'm currently hired in the security department. I work mainly with ASP.NET applications but have also worked with webservices and on larger Winform apps.
In my years at the university I got more and more interested in music. Especially local and British indie bands had my attention and I always had to check out the latest alternative bands. I ripped my whole music collection down on the harddrive, downloaded (legal) bootlegs and invested in a pair of good speakers so i could get the music and lyrics just right. However, I hadn't always luck to get the lyrics right the first time when I was listening, and that annoyed me quite a bit.
In the mean time I downloaded this .NET based open-source project 'MediaPortal' which I found quite interesting. I had discovered that you could write your own plugins. As I just had enterred a company where I had to achieve .NET skills (worked with various PL's before, but never the one from M$) I found it would be a good way to enhance my .NET skills. Accordingly, I started to implement a MP plugin to manage lyrics inside MediaPortal. I believe it was in spring 2006 and I've been "around" MediaPortal every since.
We now have a dedicated HTPC in our living room where MP is THE application we use. My girlfriend loves to see her series and I like just everything about it. Except the architecture of MP-I which has been become outdated as the app has evolved. I have never been motiviated to deep into the stomach of MP-I as I knew it would take a lot of time to get familiar with all corners. I really like the design of MP-II and finds in the perspective the motivation to contribute the best I can, develope a plugin or two, and in generel work with MP-II architecture. Let's see how things turns out. Viva MediaPortal!
I'm Albert, the main developer of MediaPortal-II, the second version of our great product.
My name in real life is Daniel Hoeh (with a german "Umlaut" in my lastname), I'm 31 years old and I live in Koblenz, Germany.
I had my first computer when I was 12 years old. It was a C64 with 64kb RAM which could do calculations with 1MHz! What a cool computer. I wrote my first programs in C64-BASIC and later in assembler.
In the meantime, I had many PCs which I was programming in many programming languages. Turbo Pascal, Delphi, Java, Python, C++, C#, ....
I've been studying computer science at the university of Kaiserslautern and currently, I'm working in a big german insurance company.
In 2007, I was searching for a MediaCenter software which I could use for my new MediaCenter PC. I evaluated many products which were called "MediaCenter software", but only few of them were usable and none of them was really stable. At the end, I chose MediaPortal to be the best available product.
But as I am perfectionist, I couldn't cope with some problems in the software. So I decided to fix those problems which annoyed me. At that time, at the beginning of 2008, the team was short of devs and so I was invited as a developer. To that time, frodo, the former lead developer, was quite advanced with the development of MediaPortal-II. I started to learn much about the project, and as frodo was just leaving the team at that time, I took over his work in the MediaPortal-II project.
Now, I am the developer who has the "big vision" of MediaPortal-II and I'm working hard to achieve it. I have a big goal setting for a stable, reliable, maintainable system which is easy to use and easy to extend.
My real name is Flavius Georgescu and i'm from Romania but since 1999 i
live in Rome,Italy...I used Pretoriano like nick since the day i've
start playing the "BattleField" videogame and i was affascinated by the
Roman Empire history since i was a kid.
I've found MediaPortal 4 years ago on a magazine while i was searching
for a software to make my Twinhan card work decently... but had no luck
cause my card wasn't supported yet.Joined the MP community forum 2
years ago and this year i was invited to be part of the Team as a
tester and i have to say that i'm very proud to make part of it.After
joining the Team i've realized the amount of work done by devs and
testers is far beyond my expectation...sometimes feels like MP is a
full time job,so thank you all guys.
MediaPortal community amazed me too,and is great to see how people try
to help each other... so most of the time i try to do the same for all
those users that need a hand.
Big Thanks to the community and keep up the good work guys
User perspective:
How I got here? Well, like always it started from curiosity - a free
HTPC software! What it can offer and can it match against other
open-source projects?
So I started first lurking around and downloading all kind of versions
whilst trying to get all working nicely together. As you might already
guess it was everything than easy at those days; year must be something
like 2005-2006 (can't remember anymore). After some experiment time I
totally got rid of the idea of having a HTPC in living room as main
source for media. MP was not ready yet for that task and Meedio failed
to meet my expectations as well. Year 2007 however changed everything
when urgent need of total media experience forced me back to MP arena.
Like you can see from nick status it was May 2007 when joined to forum
to get some help and enable some user submitted downloads.
And yes, in
the meanwhile, MP evolved quite nicely
Ever since this has been a love - hate relationship... oops. Seriously,
nowadays using MP is a pure pleasure and I can recommend it to everyone
from my heart.
Other view - being a developer:
It is time to reveal some backgrounds about one developer behind the
curtains. Why to spend your valuable free time for a project like
MediaPortal you may ask.
Well, I have spent so many enjoyable hours with MP watching movies and
listening music that it was time to pay something pack. There is no
free lunch if you ask me. Actually my first touch with c# was with some
corrections I made for a plugin. And there it started. Doing some
plugins that were missing and patches for things that annoyed me
finally brought me into the team. And I'm amazed about the dedication
and passion of the team members!
From coding skills point of view, if there exists such a thing, it goes
back to 80's when I got my first computer; Sinclair Spectrum 48 with
rubbish... I mean rubber keyboard. What a machine!
Today best use of
that is door stopper
Some basic and micro code stuff saw daylight even it took ages to
nik-nak (= type) it. After that some other hobbies took my time and I
passed Amiga era totally. First PC was Pentium 60 and then also some
interest to coding raised again but in a form of study exercises. Some
PC's later I'm here as a team member trying to make your media center
experience a bit better.
Thanks for reading and try to bear with us developers
I first joined the forum in December 2005, and got the privilege to
join the team two years later – something I’m still excited about! I’m
still amazed about the amount of effort the “productive part” of the
team is doing to give us users so much joy in front of the telly – for
free!
Secondly, I’d like to say that being a (super) moderator here is rather
painless. If you see how many active members the forum has (currently
about 19 000!), there is very little for us to point our fingers at. I
sincerely thank the forum users for this, and hope it will continue, as
it makes it possible for us moderators to do what we like best; help
and guide.
I hope MP will give you as much joy as it has given me – and my family.
If you get stuck, please use the forum to find your answer or start a
support thread (with system specs and logs, of course )
– there are many very skilful AND helpful forum members that are sure
to give you good guidance towards a solution. And if you think you
stumbled upon a bug, a proper bug report makes the whole team very
happy.
I'm "Morpheus", this is my nickname since I studied informatics, and obviously I got inspired by "The Matrix" Why there's Morpheus_xx? Don't know, other aliases were already in use nearly everywhere, so I took this one...
I started my computer experience when I was about 13-14 years, playing
C64, starting coding in BASIC and Assembler (what there was possible
with 64k of memory, amazing...). Well, now we have a a lot more of
memory, I'm 30 years old and live in Saxony, Germany....
After I used MP for a long time, in the last year I got sometimes
annoyed by tv cards that didn't work so well. I modified some parts
here and there, and finally I joined the developer team in January 2009.
My current focus is on the TV(-server) part, caring about "misbehaving"
tv cards, implementing DVB Conditional Access related stuff and so on.
But with MP1 going slowly "final" there is a new star on horizon to
focus: MP II
And nobody knows how deep the rabbit hole really is.........
Some basic and micro code stuff saw daylight even it took ages to
nik-nak (= type) it. After that some other hobbies took my time and I
passed Amiga era totally. First PC was Pentium 60 and then also some
interest to coding raised again but in a form of study exercises. Some
PC's later I'm here as a team member trying to make your media center
experience a bit better. 
Blogs 