Is Argus worth considering ? - currently using Mediaportal

[elsmandino]

Hi there,

I am a long time user of Mediaportal (I have a server running a standalone installation and a number of client's running of this).

I have noticed lots of people are swapping over to Argus from Mediaportal Server for various reasons and I was wondering what the main reasons were.

I have read the Wiki but am not really clear what the differences/pros/cons are between Argus and MP Server. Could anyone provide a quick summary please?

One thing that I did experiment with was using the latest version of XBMC (with PRV support) with MP Server and although I had no problem watching Live and recordings, it had the main problem of not actually connecting to the server database, meaning the following would happen:

1. If I watched half a recorded programme using XBMC and then tried to resume using another PC using Mediaportal Client, I had to restart the programme (in fact it showed that the programme had never been watched).

2. If I scheduled a recording via XBMC, it would not show up as schedule in the EPG whilst using Mediaportal Client.

If I were to use XBMC with Argus, would this get round the problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Kay Diefenthal]

my reasons are

- better rule based schedule creation
- stability of the service (no crashing of dvb epg grabber wasor is a big problem of MediaPortal TvServer)
- signed Assembly support for Third Party Client Deployment

[chriszero]

I'm using it because of the absolutely brilliant rule based scheduler!
e.g. Only record season 3 of a series.

[PD]

I have noticed lots of people are swapping over to Argus from Mediaportal Server for various reasons and I was wondering what the main reasons were.

If you have TVServer running without any issues, then you should keep that, if you are getting crashes and only using a DVB source, then you might want to consider the ARGUS Tuner.

The Management part was a no brainer regarding flexibility of recording options, for me that was a must have feature.

Mediaportal as a client still knocks the socks off xbmc, which I find slow and very clunky in operation, still a long way to go imo.

Hope some of these comments help.

[Infidelus]

As with others, the scheduler was my main reason for starting to use FTR/Argus.

Once the tuner was introduced, I found it more stable than MediaPortal's TV Server. I've never looked back.

Can't say much about XBMC. I've installed it and looked at it, but it really doesn't light my fire. I find MP far better as a client personally.

[Sjakko]

Note that you can control MP's TVServer with ARGUS TV (info). You could try that first and see if you like the ARGUS TV scheduling part. Then later you could fully switch to ARGUS TV by replacing MP TVServer with ARGUS TV Recorder.

[Benoire]

I'm in the same boat, long term MP user but switched to Argus for the rule based scheduler (when it was FTR). Far far better than the scheduling in MP TVE3. The choice of TV engine, however, is down to you. For example I use TVE3 with mods from DJBlu for Sky EPG grabbing, this then loads in to Argus scheduler and then in to what ever client.

I think at present TVE3 or Argus recorder are much the same, just depends on stability and whether you want analogue or legacy support. The newer versions of TVE are going to contain some very exciting features (so I've been told by musicman) and the mods by people like DJBlu make it far more flexible (in fact I'm writing my own vb plugin to access the full SkyNZ EPG, detect channel changes automatically and then update the channels on the fly along with groupings etc).

But yes, Argus scheduler is awesome and adds so much more to MP

[elsmandino]

That's great.

Thanks so much to everyone for all that - it does seem that I have really been missing out with not having used this before.

I think that in the circumstances, I shall perhaps give the scheduler a go first and then wait until I am comfortable with that before experimenting further.

I have looked at this

http://www.argus-tv.com/wiki/index.php? ... ediaPortal

and am still not really clear as to what I need to do. Is it just the case of downloading the Scheduler Plug-in for Mediaportal and enabling it or is there a little more to it than this?

I also found this and am a little bit worried that I might end up wiping my current set up -

http://www.argus-tv.com/wiki/index.php? ... tion_Guide

Any help in this respect would be much appreciated.

Thanks again.

[PD]

As with any change in installation I create a system image as a backup, if you have Win7, you can do this from control panel\backup and restore, needs windows installation disc to restore or you can create one there.

[Sjakko]

I have looked at this

http://www.argus-tv.com/wiki/index.php? ... ediaPortal

and am still not really clear as to what I need to do. Is it just the case of downloading the Scheduler Plug-in for Mediaportal and enabling it or is there a little more to it than this?

If you have TVServer all set up it's simply a matter of installing ARGUS TV and the rest is in the Wiki article above.

I also found this and am a little bit worried that I might end up wiping my current set up

No worries. You should be able to uninstall ARGUS TV any time and return to your previous setup.

I can understand the Wiki isn't always that clear to newcomers. It's quite new and maintained by just a few people. It should get better with time.