Overview

A step by step guide to installing MediaPortal using the Installer (Deploy Tool)

Introduction

The primary function of MP is to provide a whole-house media solution, which includes sharing TV Tuner(s) resources to multiple systems (clients) on a home network. Thus, the software is split into two parts:

• Server software - TV-Server (often called the “server-side”), which connects to the TV tuners and grabs EPG data 
• Client software - MediaPortal (often called the “client-side”), which allows you to interact with MediaPortal on your PC, and play your media (Live and recorded TV or Radio, Movies, Music, Online Videos, Photos, etc)m and hosts TV and Radio channel logos. .

Note: If your TV Card provides Radio Channels you must install TV to listen to them. Just like TV, they can be streamed to any client PC on your network. 

Warning: Always run the installer from your local hard disk, not from a network share. The Installer is a .net application which can not be started if is located on a network share. 

Install Options

The design of MP is flexible. You can install and configure it to suit your hardware configuration. 

Thus, through a series of questions and answers, the Installer supports a variety of different installations based on your configuration:

Without TV

You can use MediaPortal as a media center without Live TV:

Use MediaPortal to Watch TV?

• No
  • Choose One Click Installation to install only MediaPortal (client) not the TV-Server or TV Client plugin

With TV

Use MediaPortal to Watch TV?

• Yes
  • Choose One Click Installation to install both MediaPortal and TV-Server* *on the same system

Server, Client or both

• Choose Advanced Installation to install:
  • Single-seat - both the server-side and the client-side can be installed on the same HTPC (same as One Click Installation but you can select custom options) 
  • Dedicated TV-Server (master) - to install ONLY the TV-Server, not MediaPortal (client). 
  • MediaPortal client - to install ONLY MediaPortal without the TV-Server -  the TV client can connect to another PC which has MediaPortal with either Single-seat or Dedicated TV-Server option installed on it.

The beauty of the Client/Server Installation is that with a single server, you can connect any number of clients to the network which will all share the resources of the server. You can even run the server as a Single-Seat Installation and use it as another client (thus reducing your cost and energy consumption).