HOWTO: Gbox with Mediaportal RC1

After my tutorial for Gbox in combination with DVBViewer Pro, I also stated I would make a tutorial for Gbox in combination Mediaportal. However, during the proces of testing Mediaportal I came through a lot of instability issues with MDAPI related plugins and put it on hold.

When Mediaportal RC1 was released, I thought I would give it a try again. After several SVN-releases I finaly got a working Mediaportal setup which allows me to watch several DVB-S providers in standard SD and in HDTV output without to much trouble :)

Before starting, you need the following items :

- [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register];
- [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register];
- [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register];

And offcourse a working local Gbox server configuration and the Gboxplugin. They are both available from the package which I uploaded for the HOWTO: Gbox with DVBViewer tutorial in this sub-forum.

Start with installing Mediaportal RC1 and then upgrade with the SVN package. Then configure your Mediaportal configuration and the TV Server configuration using the neccesary programs. After this, setup your DVB-card(s) for your sat-configuration and then scan them.

The Mediaportal setup will download all selected programs during the install. You may choose which SQL program you want to use. Personally I use the MySQL database server since this seems working faster then MS SQL 2005.

WARNING! I know there are newer SVN releases of Mediaportal RC1. However, the proposed versions of the software are tested by me and it's working without problems with my configuration!

Step 1: Setting up Gbox on your PC

Ok, so you now got a working Mediaportal installation and want to use the sharing option from your Gbox server on your PC. Before you can use the plugins, you need to have a working Gbox server running on the SAME system which has Mediaportal installed. Just extract the gbox_win32.zip to the root of your C-drive.

Edit the cwshare.cfg according to your situation. I advice you use the several other Gbox tutorials on this site for that. I've added examples in the cwshare.cfg (gbox config), cs2gbox.cfg (cs2gbox config) and newcs.xml (newcs config) which will hopefully make some items understandable. And, be sure that Gbox works on your PC before going to Step 2 and/or Step 3!

The cs2gbox and/or newcs config isn't needed for simple inhouse sharing with your current gbox server.

I've added several Gbox versions as well as the GboxControl suite. I would advice the GboxControl suite when running Gbox/CS2Gbox/NewCS, if everything is configured correctly. It uses gboxx86.exe (in this case it's Gbox 2.1b) as default when you start up the application.

Step 2: Add MDAPI functionality to Mediaportal

MDAPI is the standard which most Progdvb, Altdvb, Mytheatre, etc plugins use. Gbox Plugin is a MDAPI based plugin but Mediaportal doesn't have this functionality standard enabled.

If you haven't configured your DVB-configuration, do it now. Setup your DVB-card(s) and do a scan!

To enable MDAPI functionality, extract the content from the MDAPIFilter Setup version 2.0.10b download to a temporary folder (example C:\TEMP). Go to the folder you extracted it to and go in the MDAPISetup folder. Then start the InstallFilter.cmd. Just sit back and wait, it could take a while :)

Startup Mediaportal and go to My TV. Then select a FTA channel (For instance BBC1, ZDF, ARD, BVN, etc) and this will create a MDAPICards.xml in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\MDPlugins (default installation of Mediaportal). You may want to edit MDAPICards.xml and edit the Name and EnableMdapi setting (example: Name="FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" EnableMdapi="1") to your liking if you have two of the same DVB-cards or for readability.

If you change the Name. Be sure to create the directory with that name in the MDPlugins folder. Or simply rename the created folders :)

After this

Step 3: Install Gbox Plugin 1.0

Now that we've got the MDAPI functionality installed, we can now install the Gbox plugin. extract the file gbox_plugin_10_dvbviewer.zip (or the Gbox Plugin 1.1 beta) into the DVB-Card Name folder which resides in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\MDPlugins.

Stop the TVServer service in your services console and select properties. Make sure you tick "Allow service to interact with Desktop" in the Log On tab. Then start TVServer.

Step 4: Final checks

This should be it! To make sure that everything is allright, startup Mediaportal and select a encrypted channel. If everything is installed allright, you should see a MDAPI icon in the same area where your time is shown. If something goes wrong, check the mdapifilter.log for more information. Perhaps the folders are incorrect.

If it still doesn't work, first check that FTA channels are working. Then check your gbox config, check the mdapifilter.log or you may want to try the mode184=true setting in the MDAPIFilter.ini (restart TVService after this change).

Happy sharing!

//Shalafi

EDIT: ENtwarnung. Kag daran, dass ich keine .NET installiert habe.


Thanks for the Tut.

But I get an Error "Application Failed to initialize..." if I try to start the Mediaportal Setup.

Extracting it from The WInrar Archive went fine.

Seems the Installer is broken right?