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[masterjoe]

MC's zone feature is very nice and I love it. There is one thing that would make zones much more powerful and that would be to configure INDIVIDUAL theater view windows per zone which also play back zone specific videos. With these extra windows / theater views a true multi-user experience for videos / images would be possible where two different users can play two different videos on two different monitors at the same time - navigating there with their own zone specific theater views.

So the config dialog for zones shall allow to setup this behavior:

- define that a zone shall use its OWN theater view / video renderer window
- specifiy the position / size of this window (on which monitor of the PC shall it be placed / individual window options / etc.)

Please also note that almost all MCWS commands must become zone aware to fully support such a functionality!
Otherwise controlling multiple theater views would be practically very hard.


EDIT TO ADD:
Note that the "Theater View" settings tab found in the options must also become zone specific in this case.
This way individual views and other settings can be made for the theater view for each of the zones.

[Hendrik]

You already can have independent detached display views per zone, which results in one video renderer per zone, if you tell each zone to play something.
Zones should remember the position of the detached display view, so you can just position them once.

Theater View is unlikely to change in such a manner, our primary user interfaces all only exist once, and you can switch zones from within, but not get one Theater View, Standard View, etc per zone.

[masterjoe]

Ok, thanks for replying. I have not experimented with the floating display windows so far - will test this.

However regarding zone specific control - the Theater View would be all that is required to really navigate through the library. Therefore I made this request. It is a user interface that multiple users could use at the same time to select a file to be played and to interact with it. The Theater View is pretty usfule for this task!

No other view mode would be required for multi-zone Theater Views. My request is ONLY about a user interaction mode - and the Theater View would be perfect for that.

I still think this request is reasonable - maybe you reconsider implementing it in the future.

[blgentry]

Because we have discussed your remote control/MCWS issue, I'm curious about this.  I think it relates directly to your remote/MCWS ideas.

There is one thing that would make zones much more powerful and that would be to configure INDIVIDUAL theater view windows per zone which also play back zone specific videos. With these extra windows / theater views a true multi-user experience for videos / images would be possible where two different users can play two different videos on two different monitors at the same time - navigating there with their own zone specific theater views.

At first read, this doesn't seem to make sense.  How can you have two people use the same computer, at the same time, for two different videos, with two different displays?  If they were close to each other that would make sense, as 20 or 30 foot monitor cables would reach.  But that's not very useful is it?

So how are you planning to have two people, presumably in two different rooms, using the same computer, with direct attached monitors? Further, how do you expect them to interact with Theater View?  Theater View expects keyboard input or IR remote control commands, or JRemote emulated remote commands.

Wouldn't you be better off with one MC server and several MC client computers?  Each client could run it's own version of Theater View with it's own display, keyboard, mouse, IR receiver, network connection, etc.  So all of the conventional ways of controlling Theater View would work perfectly.  Because they are clients, they would have access to the same library files with the same metadata.

A client computer capable of rendering 1080p video isn't super expensive like they used to be.  As I understand it, a middle of the road Intel NUC can completely handle HD video.

Brian.

[masterjoe]

Because we have discussed your remote control/MCWS issue, I'm curious about this.  I think it relates directly to your remote/MCWS ideas.

At first read, this doesn't seem to make sense.  How can you have two people use the same computer, at the same time, for two different videos, with two different displays?  If they were close to each other that would make sense, as 20 or 30 foot monitor cables would reach.  But that's not very useful is it?

So how are you planning to have two people, presumably in two different rooms, using the same computer, with direct attached monitors? Further, how do you expect them to interact with Theater View?  Theater View expects keyboard input or IR remote control commands, or JRemote emulated remote commands.

Wouldn't you be better off with one MC server and several MC client computers?  Each client could run it's own version of Theater View with it's own display, keyboard, mouse, IR receiver, network connection, etc.  So all of the conventional ways of controlling Theater View would work perfectly.  Because they are clients, they would have access to the same library files with the same metadata.

A client computer capable of rendering 1080p video isn't super expensive like they used to be.  As I understand it, a middle of the road Intel NUC can completely handle HD video.

Brian.

*lol* Sorry but your post made me laugh I can imagine your huge eyes and stuff when reading my posts. But believe it or not - there are indeed possibilities to have such a scenario! It shall be no offense but I think that you should train your imagination a little. Not each and every person in the world has the same use cases! The possibililies are infinite if you allow to expand your imagination!

Ok, regarding my case. I have one i5-NUC (indeed!) which is the central PC for EVERYTHING. It is the ONLY media center / utility computer I use for EVERY room in my house. There are three TV sets attached to this NUC and the cables are about 10-20m long each - so the displays are NOT next to each other but in different rooms using active amplification. Also there are several (6 pairs) USB speakers + microphones attached to this PC and here again the cables are pretty long and lead into most of the rooms. Each and every room has IR receiver ends (long cables, yes) and so I can use my IR in each of the rooms where I want. All of these ends lead to ONE USB IR receiver which is controlled by my automation software.

My automation system handles all this and parses the IR commands coming from the different rooms. Each IR remote is associated to the room that the person is in. This can be reconfigured at any time quite easily (just two button presses on the remote and you changed the room you control) and this way I always know where the commands come from and which devices to control.
Regarding MC - which is only one subsystem of about 10 - I purely use MCWS to communicate with it. Zones help me to separate the rooms / devices from each other.
The core of my system is a 20.000 LOC Python-based customly written, event driven, context aware automation system which allows multiple user interactions at the same time.

So it is indeed a scenario that makes A LOT of sense and allows multi user interactions with only one PC. For music (and many other stuff) this already works pretty well (using multiple zones) but for video it does not work at the moment - only a single user can currently watch a movie through Theater View. This is where my FR comes in because most of what would be required is already there.

I do not need any additional PCs with my current setup - which also centralizes software management and other things. This makes admin jobs pretty easy. All cables are hidden in tubes and the rooms are totally quiet this way - no PC anywhere in sight. I love it when technology is hidden like that but still offers all its potential. I am a system engineer myself + software developer since 30+ years. This system is a beauty and it runs at < 40W in total (excluding TV sets and speakers). So I do not see any reason to change this extremely efficient thing.

I am looking now for software which allows to extend my multi-user experience to video, too. This way my girl friend could watch a different movie using the same comfort that I have when watching something else.

Using MCWS and its zones it becomes easy to direct the commands so that the right zone reacts. My automation system does the interactive handling of these commands. And it works like a charm for what already works. This way I listen to music, do telephone calls, have alarms in the morning, switch my light automatically, amplify my door bell through the whole house and much much more.

So - do you now see where my FR and the other discussion comes into play?

[blgentry]

Hmm.  I guess you've answered the question. 

So what can your current system do with 3 displays?   What I'm trying to say is, if what you want doesn't even exist, then what were you doing with this system before MC that made you spend the time and money to run 3 super long video cables to a single computer?

BTW, I have a funny feeling that an i5 based computer might have serious trouble decoding 1080p video on 2 or more displays simultaneously.  Have you tested it?

Brian.

[masterjoe]

Yes, I have tested it - for TWO videos - and it runs fine This quad-core i5 can even emulate a Nintendo Wii for one player (tested) at HD resolution.
But currently only one display is used for video playback at a time due to the limitations that I was facing so far (MC).

Well with what Matt wants to add to MCWS in the next release (Files/Current) and with extra video windows (which I haven't tested yet) it might almost become possible to do what I want. However only one user at a time can use the Theater View as UI for selecting the movie - which is a pity.

Currenty the monitors show Qt widgets that my automation system creates Menus, temperature and stuff... And yes each monitor can display its own stuff which contextually depends on the user that is currently using the monitor

So I heard that it is possible to run multiple MCs on one machine? Can one be the server and the other the client? Because if that is possible I can have at least two Theater Views...

[wolffe]

I want thee same thing, for a similar setup.


I've hand no performance problems at all with whole house audio, nor with 3 1080p streams playing in different zones on different screens.


Control is the main issue.


What *I'm* interested in is using JRiver as a complete whole house a/v solution. Currently, I have a san feeding media to the JRiver box. I'm using a Motu 896 mk3 hybrid as theater sound output, and a Motu 24i/o as audio out to the rest of the house and the pool 5.1 surround sound system, with a projector in the theater and by the pool, and a secondary display in the den.

note: i don't have a receiver or anything like that, JRiver acts in it's place.


So back to control... I'd like this to improve.