Download Media Portal 0.1.3.0 Prerelease

A new version of Media Portal has appeared on SourceForge. It is a prerelease of the soon to be released version 0.1.3.0. With this program a Windows XP machine can be turned into a real HTPC. This makes it easy to listen to radio and music or watch videos and DVDs. Furthermore, TV programs can also be recorded and the appearance of the program can be adjusted. The fact that there are still a few folds to iron out is apparent from the fact that there is already a hot fix has appeared to fix some issues with DVB. Below is a list of the major changes in this release:

So what’s new? here’s the short list:

• A faster MediaPortal start-up time – MediaPortal will now start-up at roughly 1/3 of the previous start-up time.
• My TV: ATSC support. – (Note: This is for cards with BDA drivers only)
• My TV: Recording Priorities – When scheduling a recording you will be able to set a priority of that recording so other scheduled programs don’t take precedence
• Recording Qualities – Also when scheduling a recording you’ll be able to set a recording quality type for that scheduled recording – This will work only with Hauppauge based PVR cards.
• My TV: Recording conflict management – Now when recording shows and a scheduled or manual recording is present MediaPortal will now prompt you for which one to keep.
• My TV: Episode retention policy – This allows you to specify in configuration the maximum number of episodes to keep
• My TV: Automatic background EPG & MHW grabbing – MediaPortal will now grab the EPG data for the current transponder/multiplexers channels and automatically populate the TV Guide.
• My TV: Video statistics – Press ! to receive video statistics while playing a movie or watching TV and it will show the average frame rate, av/sync, frames drawn, frames dropped and jitter
• My Programs: Direct MAME Support – MyPrograms will query the internal MAME database to gather information about the ROMS that are installed on your system. With this info, MyPrograms will fill in the Manfucaturer, Year, Overview information and – find the correct official title of your ROM files.
• My Programs: Improved Screens – MyPrograms List-View will display a screenshot / slideshow of the currently selected item on the left.
• My TV: MP’s own MPEG-2 sections & tables parser – Agree has done a fantastic job of making a MPEG-2 sections & tables parser.
• My TV: Twinhan DVB CI support – The CI of twinhan cards is now supported
• My TV: Notify me – Mediaportal can now give you a visual notification when a program is about to start
• My TV: Compress – Compress your DVR-MS files to mpg, xvid or WMV
• My Music: speedup – Browsing/playing mp3’s has become a lot faster
• My Music: All songs – New view showing all your songs
• My Music: Itunes – Use iTunes as external media player
• My Music: Reorganize – Completely reworked music re-organisation
• My Videos – specify the default language for movie subtles
• My Videos – New view : unwatched movies. MP now keeps track which movies you have watched already
• My Videos: IMDB actor info – When lookin up IMDB information the actor biography is now also available
• General: Remote – added native support for FireDTV and Hauppauge remote controls
• General: Screensaver – blanks the screen (optional) after 1 minute
• Caller ID: ISDN – Caller id plugin now works with ISDN also

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