Topic: Looking Forward to MC10 (Read 3949 times)

sraymond · « **on:** April 13, 2003, 11:34:32 am »

Guys,

I understand the need to focus on the short-term in order to get MC9 out the door, but I thought I'd give you all an idea where MC 9.1 could head.

Take a look at http://www.myhtpc.net/ for a program that offers a very "sexy" interface for HTPCs. I'd think a lot of the functionality offered there might be implemented in MC by way of plugins and an opening of the Haristyle hierarchy.

Thoughts?

It would seem in the software world that by the time you release a version, you already need to have a good start on the next version.

Scott-

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #1 on:** April 13, 2003, 02:16:07 pm »

That prog really rocks. If Hairstyle could end up being like that with MCs database behind it...Wow!!

Adam

dragyn · « **Reply #2 on:** April 13, 2003, 03:16:34 pm »

I've used it too. It looks pretty good. And I agree, MC should at least be able to do that and more.

Griff · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2003, 06:12:25 pm »

Scott

COOL move

Why?

If I wanted the link here, I would have done it myself, instead of telling you to email me in another thread for a new toy.

This is not a video/HT place.

You aught to know by now, in this area, things fall on deaf ears.

Good luck

But:

Adam:

If you look at it carefully, you could probably take MC or MJ into it. (for the database)

Dragyn:

Ya, its slick. Any prog. you want can be run in it. You can even delete their basic progs. for slides, video and audio and run your progs. for audio and ect.

JimH

You got one hell of an audio/slideshow prog. unfortunatelly on the video end it lacks.

But I can understand why after being here almost a year.

Hopefully in the future, once everyone is happy with the audio side, some time can be spent on the video side.

Have a great night.
Griff

sraymond · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2003, 06:50:23 pm »

If MC wants to be pars excellance (or is it excellence?), it *must* fill the video niche. Windows XP MCE isn't sexy 'cause you can play audio...

I really hope JRiver fills out this area that's lacking - and sooner than MC 10! Not to say that they haven't made progress, but that the bar is still above the head.

What I really like about myHTPC is that it's essentially an "open" architecture. If there's something you don't like, change it. The interface is also near perfect. Oh yeah, and it's also nice to have the "weather channel" pulled from the internet and available as a pseudo-channel.

JRiver: Might you provide a short summary of your plans with MC and video (including a timeline)? I'd like to know if I should hang on a little longer and change focus now. I can't wait another six months.

Scott-

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** April 14, 2003, 04:26:49 am »

Scott,
Can you be explicit about what you need? As opposed to what you might like?

We do expect to make a few changes in HS before it's shipped.

I assume you're aware it's made of xml so you can change it.

Jim

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** April 14, 2003, 04:29:04 am »

Quote

This is not a video/HT place.

You aught to know by now, in this area, things fall on deaf ears.

? Do you think we don't care about video/HT?

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #7 on:** April 14, 2003, 05:34:10 am »

Griff, I think that statement was a bit harsh. Video playback has come on a long way in the time of the MC9 development cycle. Remember that the prog has only been in production for about 6 months whearas most of the big video apps have had a much longer devlopment cycle. Sure there are a few things which need to be ironed out with video playback but mostly it works just fine...

Adam

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #8 on:** April 14, 2003, 05:36:13 am »

Jim what I did like about myHTPC is the ability to navigate the thumbnails. I know this is unlikely to be in this release but this would be great for a future MC release. Being able to go into an artist navigate their albums by cover and then click on a cover and diaplay text based on MCs database would just be so sweet. myHTPC will never be able to do this quite as well as you could taking into account the fact we can design our own db fields. The limits are positively endless...

Adam

Jaguu · « **Reply #9 on:** April 14, 2003, 07:13:45 am »

1) Had a look at the link mentioned above and noticed that their menus have a "Go Back" Button. That would be useful on every menu. Right now you cannot use Hairstyle with a wireless mouse only, as you always need the keyboard to go up/back. The mouse supports only the left click, there are no functionality on the right click, the wheel and those with trackball explorer on button 4 and 5. That would be really useful!

2) Also there was once a startup option to start MC9 directly into Hairstyle. It is no longer around!

3) The size and position of the pip window should be customizable through setup!

4) When I click play on a image folder, the slide show should go either right away full screen or replace the thumbnail view by a large pip window displaying the slide show!

5) Maybe also zone support!

Eiffel · « **Reply #10 on:** April 14, 2003, 08:10:51 am »

I'm also a big fan of myHTPC, and wish for integration between myHTPC and MC9.0.

Hairstyle, at the moment, is mostly a proof of concept. It is fairly rigid (mainly, it is not possible to customise the menus to remove, add or reorganize the options), closed (can't be used to launch other programs), and doesn't let you use the pictures for anything. Even the 'XML' tags to tweak the look are fairly limited (I tried to make it look like myHTPC but couldn't get very close...)

I'm sure you'll be able to improve HS and make it a great feature. I also understand that it's not your top priority (frankly, though, I would be very happier with tight integration with myHTPC, as this product is shaping up very nicely, with advanced features such as an EPG, which I haven't seen yet on the MC side)

In the short term, I would like you to reinstate the 'Start in hairstyle' option. Currently, if you start in full screen, in TV mode, you get a black screen, which is less than ideal... having hairstyle show up instead would be nice.

ddwakeham · « **Reply #11 on:** April 14, 2003, 11:10:18 am »

My $.02.

I too have been hanging in here with MC9 in hopes that Hairstyle fully developed to the point of other media front ends. During this process I found myHTPC and like most have found it to be a very capable front end for a multi-purpose media PC. I still like MC9 for it's MP3 capabilities especially the media database and reorganization features as well as the multizone capabilities for a whole house audio setup. The hairstlye feature, however, still needs work in order for this to be an acceptable media appliance (not PC).

Like many others I too am looking to find a way to marry MC9 and myHTPC in some workable way. This might actually end up being Glissando with it's new skinning system.

Jim and Matt.....why not develop a complimentary WIN32 application for MC9 which uses the media server in the same way the TIVO HMO does. This application could access the MC9 core functions and database in the same way TIVO does and provide a lightweight client to browse and play media on. This application could expose itself in a plug-in type fashion to great front-ends like myHTPC or Pocket PC's.

Also, why not license the this client player only software as a separate inexepensive application? I'd certainly be willing to pay a small license fee for each device I access MC9 on.

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** April 14, 2003, 11:30:01 am »

We'll give this a very hard look this week. Mouse navigation will be added. Please be explicit about what you think it needs.

bennyd · « **Reply #13 on:** April 14, 2003, 11:51:11 am »

I'm using hairstyle now for a few weeks for my audio/images/video & tv tuner.
I'm very pleased about it (I modified the default hairstyle/images to have bigger buttons that are easy readable on my TV)

What I would like to see as extras are:

- When stopping video/audio/images, it switches to hairstyle again (like it used to be)
- One button recording for TV (push once, starts recording, push twice, 30 min rec, push three times, 60 min rec etc.)
- Easy TV channel selection without having to navigate between several menus
- When playing audio/images/video/tv the option to switch automatic to fullscreen
- To have the option to choose a different track info then in Mega me for Audio
- My biggest request : To have the option to select the just recorded video from a tv program from within hairstyle. (now this is not possible because this tv program is not imported into the dbase)

All for now :-)

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #14 on:** April 14, 2003, 01:07:53 pm »

Jim,

check out how myHTPC navigates in its audio section. It is very sweet. I remember a while back I posted quite a few ideas for HS which got lost in the ether. I will see if I can resurrect them. I am guessing most are now 10.0 features but it may be worth a look. In terms of navigation I think myHTPC has it right tho. Click on music you see thumbnails for all the available artists. Click an Artist you see folders for their albums, clcik an album and you see a large cover art and a list of tracks. This is all in the thumbnail area. The menu on the left changes interactively as you click the thumbs. Very easy to use and very versatile...

Adam

Doof · « **Reply #15 on:** April 14, 2003, 01:45:37 pm »

I'd be very happy if MC would mimic TiVo's fast forward & rewind method when you're using a remote.

Hit FF once, and it fast forwards at 2x, twice at 4x, three times at 8x, etc.

Then just hit play again to start it playing normal. The quick jump back that TiVo does after a ff would be a nice bonus as well.

Trying to fast forward video 5 seconds at a time is just really really really tedious. Really.

Hairstyle itself isn't too bad as long as you spend all that extra time to navigate to the player control buttons. At least there, you can just hold it down and it keeps fast forwarding. But who want's to have to first jump to Hairstyle, then navigate to the player controls, then navigate to the fast forward button, then hold it down, then quit hairstyle? By that time the video will have reached the spot you wanted all on its own.

Ingo · « **Reply #16 on:** April 14, 2003, 02:13:04 pm »

Some more stutt I'd like to see in Hairstyle:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1048424166;start=4#4

Ingo

p.s.: I'll bump it once you're in feature-add-mode again (that's probably after you release 9.0) ;-)

sraymond · « **Reply #17 on:** April 15, 2003, 04:44:46 am »

Quote

Scott,
Can you be explicit about what you need? As opposed to what you might like?

We do expect to make a few changes in HS before it's shipped.

I assume you're aware it's made of xml so you can change it.

Jim

Jim,

Yes, I know that the Hairstyle presentation can be customized via the main.xml. I'd consider the "customization" to be limited to skinnable presentation preferences - which while nice (and perhaps necessary if you want to please some people), it doesn't let the user add any additional content. This ability to add content is what I think makes myHTCP the best in its class. It might seem silly, but I really like myWeather - it's as much multimedia as anything else. And, of course, there is no limit to the content you can add to myHTPC.

As I mentioned before, the interface is near perfect (according to my tastes and needs). Anything MC could do to be similar would be steps in the right directions (IMHO).

My point about waiting for MC to develop or changing focus is mostly a statement that if MC stopped changing today, I'd convert to myHTPC. But I know MC won't stop developing today... and so the question is: what does the timeline look like? When I first came to MJ (Nov02) it was because of the interface potential on top of an already solid database for managing multimedia content.

Thanks for listening...

Scott-

Doof · « **Reply #18 on:** April 15, 2003, 05:25:44 am »

So I was doing some reading on this myHTPC thing. Pretty nice.

I found my way to a site about XMLTV. Does MC9 support this file format? If not, it could be a way to get tv guide listings... there's a windows utility that's kind of a pain to configure, but once you do, downloads tv listings for a bunch of different countries.

Has this all been talked about before? I admit I haven't really been paying attention to the TV stuff around here.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #19 on:** April 15, 2003, 06:12:30 am »

Does it include the UK Doof? If so that would be fantastic. I have looked at a number of online TV guide systems before but they were either a pain or way more expensive than was needed. If it is XML based presumably MC couldhook into it to allow scheduled recording etc??

Adam

Doof · « **Reply #20 on:** April 15, 2003, 08:17:39 am »

I meant to post the URL, but forgot.

http://membled.com/work/apps/xmltv/

From their site :

Quote

At present there are backends grabbing TV listings for Canada, the USA, the UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Basically, the backend grabs the data and saves it as an XML file. Then the frontend (MC) would use that file to present the data to the user, and allow for recordings or whatever. The backend is configured for your country and tv provider, then it asks you which channels you get. Then you can set it up to download a configurable number of days worth of guide data. I'm not sure how far out it goes or how often it's updated. Or even where they get the info from.

I was just playing around with it in myHTPC. It's pretty slick. myHTPC allows for season passes and stuff that TiVo does. It doesn't appear to allow for wishlists and the like, though. If MC could use XMLTV to grab the data, and then allow for season passes (along with the season pass manager), wishlists, etc, that TiVo allows, then I'd set up an HTPC using this and drop TiVo in a heartbeat. I'd love to save $12.95 a month.

XMLTV is free as far as I can tell.

Griff · « **Reply #21 on:** April 30, 2003, 07:14:46 pm »

Hello

JimH said:

Quote

? Do you think we don't care about video/HT?

To me.

Sraymond said in a recent post:

Quote

I remember a post a while back by Grinch maintaining that MC isn't focused on video...

JimH said:

Quote

I promise we will devote at least a week

?

Griff

Ps JimH you got a great product, give the video end a little more than a week.

Griff

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Author Topic: Looking Forward to MC10 (Read 3949 times)

sraymond

dragyn

sraymond

sraymond