Download MediaPortal 1.1 alpha

With MediaPortal, a Windows machine can be used as the central point of the multimedia hardware in the living room. This makes it easy to listen to radio and music, watch videos and DVDs and record TV programs. By means of plugins and extensions, the functionality can be expanded and the ‘look & feel’ of the program can be adjusted. The developers have released the first alpha version of MediaPortal 1.1 with the following announcement:

MediaPortal 1.1 ALPHA – Released

A lot has happened since MediaPortal 1.0.2 had been released. The team has agreed that MediaPortal 1.1 will be the last major release of MediaPortal and will then focus on MediaPortal 2. As this will be the last major release we want it to be the best ever. Therefore we need your help again!

Major changes in this ALPHA:

• old, unsupported TV-Engine (TVE2) was removed (together with all related plugins – WepEPG is currently ported to TV-Server, which will be available in 1.1.0 RC1)
• first steps to support Windows 7 and Vista+TV-Pack
• UAC Compatibility Enhancements:
  following folders are now also located in %ProgramData%\TeamMediaPortal\MediaPortal
  • Tuning details
  • Languages
  • skins
• IP-TV support has been added to TV-Server
• access CI-menu from inside MyTV and TV-Server configuration
• integration of MPC-HC subtitles engine (no need for any 3rd party filters any more to get subtitles to work)
• updated installer to use MySQL 5.1 64bit on 64bit OS’es
• MySQL 5.1 is now the default SQL-Server on a fresh installation. (you can still use your already present SQL-Server as these effects only systems where no SQL-Server is present)
  Benefits compared to MS SQL Server:
  • works nicely on Windows 7 RC1 32 and 64 bit
  • uses less system resources than MS SQL Server
  • much easier to deploy (automatic download/install of MS SQL 2008 is not possible on Windows 7)

  Note: If you want to use MS SQL 2008 Express SP1, then you have to install it manually.

• Skin changes:
  • brand new OSD for MyTV, MyVideos and DVD (still work in progress (Zap OSD still missing) and only available for Blue3wide at the moment) You can show the osd by using “i” button on your remote or “y” button on your keyboard.
  • VU-Meter in MyMusic (off by default, has to be enabled in MP Configuration – only available in Blue3wide at the moment)
  • List of all skinchanges since 1.0.1 (Skin Designers should subscribe that page!)

Complete list of changes:

There were a lot of smaller changes done as well.

• Changelog: MediaPortal
• Changelog: TV Server
• Changelog: Installer – DeployTool

Installation notes:

• a present MediaPortal 1.0.x installation can not be upgraded
• a present MediaPortal 1.0.x installation will be uninstalled
  (No data will be lost, you will find MediaPortal_backup and TV-Server_backup folders which contain the plugins,skins and userfiles of the 1.0.x installations)
• a present TV-Server database will be upgraded and can be reused
• do not reuse any skins, plugins, databases or configuration files from MediaPortal 1.0.x with this alpha!

The road to 1.1 final

As soon as we can be sure that all major changes are working nicely, we will release MediaPortal 1.1 RC1. Depending on how well the development goes, there might be more release candidates. Our release target for 1.1 final is December 2009. But depending on the amount of help from the community, an earlier release might be possible as well.

The time after MediaPortal 1.1

The team will focus on MediaPortal 2 from now on. But this does not mean that MediaPortal 1 is dead. There will be at least one 1.1.x release. But we want to outsource the major part of it’s development to the community.

A short notice before installing: Please do not use this ALPHA on a productive system. It is pretty stable but might still contain some glitches that may lower the WAF 😉