Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JimH]

Matt slipped it into tonight's build (68) like this:

1. NEW: Theater View built on top of Direct3D 9. (experimental)

It deserves more attention.  This is a big breakthrough for Theater View.  The background moves, buttons slide in, etc.

The current images are temporary and will change.  Any ideas you have would be welcome.

You can get there by hitting F11 twice.  The first time I did it, MC crashed, but after that, it worked fine.

Thanks, Matt.

[raym]

I love where this is headed! Very nice work Matt!! Can't wait to see this develop further. My only suggestion at this point is that I can imagine people are going to want to control what is animated in the background. Might be nice to be able to select from a few different ones.

1 bug too (apart from the ocasional crash) - the context menu flashes like crazy.

I loaded up my own skin and it looks fantastic. Noire will be good too when slicker graphics/images are put in place.

[lalittle]

I got a crash the SECOND time I opened it.

I also like where this is heading -- particularly the moving buttons.  The animated background is much too "busy" at the moment, but I understand that it's just temporary.  Also, the speed at which the main buttons settle to the upper left is a bit slow and needs to be dialed in to "feel right."

One thing I noticed is that the text (default) looks a little chunky to me (i.e. a bit rough around the edges), which detracts from the screen's "slickness."  I don't understand why this would be the case, but I can say that it's NOT an issue with 11.1's Theater View screen, where the text looks much smoother and more "professional" in a direct comparison to MC12.

I agree that this deserves more attention.

Larry

[bennyd]

- Sometimes the Track info is not displayed, exiting Theater View and coming back in fixes this.
- When  in Playing now, if it moves to the next song, the previous song still has the green arrow next to it.

- Maybe a good idea to Theater View have it's own Track Info display loose from the one that's selected in normal view ?

- In the Noire skin, when going in "Controls", the menu items still have the old skin

[zxsix]

No crashes here, but it really bogs my system down.

[Deivit]

No crashes here neither, but it doesn't look good... am I missing something? Video card problem? DirectX version? There is a small text in the upper left corner which says: xxxx fps (the xxx is a number that constantly changes).



Any ideas?

[marko]

No crashes here, but it really bogs my system down.

The background used looks a lot like the 'particle creation' 3D vizualisation. How do those run for you? They brought my system to a grind, but mysteriously, all ran smooth as ice after I reinstalled windows, and I've no idea why.

[lalittle]

No crashes here, but it really bogs my system down.

This is something that should really be considered.  If it bogs down slower systems, perhaps it needs to be something that can be disabled.  I don't know how complicated this would be to implement, but I know that this could prevent certain people from running Theater View.

Larry

[JimH]

As Matt said, it's experimental at this point.  We'll tune it up for speed and stability.

[glynor]

The background used looks a lot like the 'particle creation' 3D vizualisation. How do those run for you? They brought my system to a grind, but mysteriously, all ran smooth as ice after I reinstalled windows, and I've no idea why.

I really like the "button" animation.  It does need tweaked a bit though of course, but I like it.

The "particle" visualization that's running in the background is cheesy though.  I don't like basically any of the 3D visualizers and would prefer that it either not be there at all (option on/off) or something different.  A subtle "cloud" formation drifting and moving in the background would be cool (especially if the colors gradually shifted over time like a "plasma" effect), as long as it was subtle.  Either way, you should be able to disable all of this for people who a) hate it and b) don't have a system that can "hack" it.

I've had no real slowdown, and no crashes.  I have a beefy system though, especially at 3D stuff (ATI X1900XT, Athlon64, 2GB DDR 400 RAM)... Intel Integrated Graphics might see a huge difference.

[Alex B]

It seems to work on my PCs. However, it is somewhat unstable. For example, just now I "alt+tabbed" from Theater View to this post, but I couldn't type anything in. The text cursor was somehow stalled and I had to exit from the Theater View to make it work again. After a couple of tries MC crashed.

In general, I have not used Theater View a lot. I have always wondered how people with large libraries can easily navigate with it. Do they use mostly playlists or what is the preferred way? I can use it for my library of 400 video files without too much trouble, though I can't access all view schemes or understand how it chooses what views are displayed. Finding something from 40000 audio files is really awkward.

[rpalmer68]

MC crashes almost ever time I edit a view scheme and then go back to Theater View.

Richard

[glynor]

In general, I have not used Theater View a lot. I have always wondered how people with large libraries can easily navigate with it. Do they use mostly playlists or what is the preferred way? I can use it for my library of 400 video files without too much trouble, though I can't access all view schemes or understand how it chooses what views are displayed. Finding something from 40000 audio files is really awkward.

I do use it mostly for watching video, though I have one or two more files than 400. 

As far as which view schemes are shown... Edit View Scheme --> Step 3 --> Show in Theater View.  I like the fact that you can turn them on and off in Theater View.  Quite a few of my View Schemes are used for "tagging work" and other similar persuits, and wouldn't be particularly useful in Theater View, so it's nice to be able to hide them.

I, personally, would like Theater View to work exactly like Tiles Mode in Standard View (with the option to switch to details/text mode), but with the current interface system (meaning the 10-foot buttons and whatnot).  You're right, finding a specific song in Theater View is somewhat awkward (unless you want to just play that song/album).  I use it mostly to start my special "Smartlist View Schemes" playing with it set to Random.  By the way, can we get some love and get a easy way to tell if it's set to Shuffle Mode or not from every screen in Theater View?  I'm constantly flipping back to Standard View just to check the Shuffle Mode status before I start a video file (or start playing a "Smartlist").

[lalittle]

I have always wondered how people with large libraries can easily navigate with it.

I guess I don't really have a "large" library by some people's standards (I have about 8500 songs) but I've always just navigated to songs in Theater View using Genre, then Artist, then Album, etc.  I set it to use the left and right arrows for navigation, which makes it faster, and I use an X10 remote to control it.

Larry

[Alex B]

I had forgotten the "Show in Theater View" view scheme option. Since I have not used Theater View I have not cared about the tick box status. I'll try to define a couple of view schemes specifically for Theater View.

Genre is not very useful starting point for me because I seem to have 365 genres. I have used the field quite freely, a bit like a keywords field that lists also subgenres.

Perhaps I try to start with alphabet grouping of Album Artist (Auto). That would make groups that include from one album artist (letter: 6) to 233 album artists (letter: T, this group has all "The ..." bands).

[lalittle]

Genre is not very useful starting point for me because I seem to have 365 genres.

When we noticed we were getting a lot of genres, we reorganized so that we only had a couple dozen.  I also should note that I use the "page up" and "page down" scrolling when in Theater View, which actually goes through the list pretty quickly, so it's not that hard to browse through long lists.

If you just have a TON of songs, I agree that making custom view screens can make the job easier (i.e. using the "partial alphabet" approach, such as A-G, H-N, etc.)

Larry

[glynor]

Back to the new animation.... I thought I'd post that with the new build I am still not seeing any crashes.  I am, however, seeing occasional "pausing" (whole UI locks up for a few seconds).  Especially when first entering Theater View (and exiting from it as well), when switching "into" View Schemes for the first time (going "back" and then back into the View Scheme doesn't typically experience the "pause"), and when paging up and down through a list of "child" items in a View Scheme (especially when showing thumbs rather than titles).

Still think the 3D Visualizer in the back is cheesy.     I'm consistently hovering around 49/51 FPS (it seems to be hard-limited to 51.2 FPS max, perhaps due to my refresh rate?) except for the pauses noted above.  Performance does not seem to be a serious issue once the screen is drawn (and animating the buttons seems smooth).

And one, tiny little consistency thing...

From MC's Standard View... "Restore" your window (so it isn't maximized).  Hit F11 to enter Display View (which still isn't maximized), and then again to enter Theater View.  If you hit F11 once more, it returns you to Standard View, again not maximized (and again back to Display not maximized).  Now, next time instead of hitting F11 to cycle out of Theater View, hit ESC instead (which is often the "Exit/Back" key on remotes)... It kicks you to a maximized Display View.  Why didn't it remember it's size when I use ESC to jump back?  It remembers it "going forward" using F11, but ESC forgets!

[lalittle]

Now that we're talking about the Theater View in more detail, it seems like a good time to bring up some things about this mode that have always been problematic to me.

The main parts of the Theater View that seem to need attention are the "Display" sections -- both the lower left corner in the navigation window, and the Theater View "Playing Now" screen.  The "Track Info" does not work in the lower left corner since it does not fit -- I am only able to see a small portion of it, and if it was small enough to fit, it would be MUCH too small to be readable anyway.  It makes sense to have this lower left corner contain the album art, but at the moment the art does not scale, resulting in album covers that are too small or too large art for this area.  Given that there is no "standard" for the size of album art, it seems like the only solution would be to have MC scale the art to fit in this location.

Another problem is that in order to show album art in lower left "navigation" corner, you need to have "Album Art" selected as your "Playing Now" selection.  This of course means that when the "Playing Now" screen comes up, it will ALSO only show album art and NOT the "Track Info" (or Visualization) which I much prefer.  It would make a lot more sense to have the navigation screen ALWAYS show the album art and NOT the "Track Info," and only offer the Track Info (or Visualization) on the Theater View "Playing Now" screen.  This way, you'd see album art when navigating, and the extra info from the "Track Info" or the Visualization on the Playing Now screen.

On top of this, when displaying the Theater View output on a  standard NTSC monitor, most of the Track Info screens do not fit in the space provided since they're designed to fit on the computer monitor, which is much higher res.  It seems like 1) the Track info should be scaled to fit on the Theater View "Playing Now" screen, and 2) that seperate "Track Info" screens be created for the Theater View mode.

On this same subject, it would also make a LOT of sense if we could choose DIFFERENT Track Info screens for the Theater View "Playing Now" and the Standard View "Playing Now" modes.  These two enviroments have different needs, such as the fact that the Theater View is typically a lot lower res, and needs to be read from a greater distance.  For the same reason that the Theater View screen looks a lot different from the Standard View screen, the "Playing Now" screens in these two modes should ALSO look different.  At the moment, we can only select ONE "Playing Now" screen, and it applies to both modes.  This means that the choice will only work for one or the other mode, requiring constant changing if you switch back and forth between modes.

Thanks,

Larry

[glynor]

I just thought I'd report that using Theater View on my HTPC is extremely sluggish with 12.0.70 and Girder 4.0.  It is almost to the point of being unusable.  MC 11.1 was very snappy with the same setup.  Every button push requires almost a full second to respond (including "arrowing" up and down through lists of assets).  This is obviously not really acceptable...

That machine is a bit less powerful than the desktop machine I was testing on before, but is certainly no real slouch:

Athlon XP @ 2.13 GHz
2.0 GB DDR400 RAM
ATI AIW X800XT

Girder Version: 4.07 (running via GRUNT runtime which has a reduced overhead).

Code: [Select]

Media Center Registered 12.0.70 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 2109 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2096 MB, Free - 1362 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive V:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive D: _NEC     DVD_RW ND-3520A    Addr: 0:1:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /
I strongly suspect that this is due to the new animations.  We really need two options under Tools --> Options --> Theater View:

1) Disable (or configure) background visualization
2) Disable button animation

I think these options would help not only those people with systems not "up to par" but would help us to diagnose if the "animations" themselves are causing performance hits, or if the problem lies elsewhere.

[Matt]

Are you using VNC or something?  2 seconds per button press seems hard to believe with an X800.

[glynor]

Nope.  I do have a VNC server running (and the Beyond TV background task is running, but idle -- NOT recording), but i'm not using it and no clients are connected.  I'm sitting on the couch.

Right now.

My wife is drinking a beer, and I'm getting a glass of wine in a second.

Just to be clear, I would not say 2 seconds.  It is about 1 full second per button press though (which is still terrible). Also, I just tested by rolling back to 12.0.67 (just pre-fancypants-animation) and it was snappy as 11.1 was, without restarting or touching Girder in any way.

[Matt]

What's the frame-rate?

Also, does list vs thumbnail mode matter?  Is it slow at the root too?  Finally, is that a 256MB x800 card, or does it have less?

Thanks, and enjoy the wine.

[rpalmer68]

I just thought I'd report that using Theater View on my HTPC is extremely sluggish with 12.0.70 and Girder 4.0.  It is almost to the point of being unusable.  MC 11.1 was very snappy with the same setup.  Every button push requires almost a full second to respond (including "arrowing" up and down through lists of assets).  This is obviously not really acceptable...

I'm experiencing the same thing, press a button, then end up pressing it again because you think it hasn't been recognised, then the cursor jumps down two lines instead of one.

It's really annoying.

My PC is an Intel P4 3.2GHZ 1GB RAM and I have a NVIDIA GeForce 6200 video card.

Richard

[glynor]

What's the frame-rate?

Also, does list vs thumbnail mode matter?  Is it slow at the root too?  Finally, is that a 256MB x800 card, or does it have less?

Thanks, and enjoy the wine.

Just so you have it all... A dump of the System "Information Center" stuff in my Catalyst Control Center panel:

Code: [Select]

Graphics Card Manufacturer Built by ATI
Graphics Chipset ALL-IN-WONDER X800 Series
Device ID 4A4B
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 4422
Subsystem Vendor ID 1002

Bus Type AGP
Current Bus Setting AGP 8X

BIOS Version 009.004.001.030
BIOS Part Number 113-A38301-100
BIOS Date 2004/09/21

Memory Size 256 MB
Memory Type DDR3

Core Clock in MHz 500 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 500 MHz

Primary Display Yes


Driver Packaging Version 8.241-060321a1-031959C-ATI
CATALYST® Version 06.4
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 6.14.10.6606
2D Driver File Path System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{92188935-4143-4772-9B77-4FD09E3422AB}\0000
Direct3D Version 6.14.10.0392
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.5757
CATALYST® Control Center Version 1.2.2271.39125
REMOTE WONDER / Plus Driver Version 2.0.0.36
AV Stream (T200) Driver Version 6.14.10.1062
AV Stream (T550 Pro) Driver Version 6.14.10.134
I haven't been able to see the framerate really well, but let me go check...  (Oh, and I did enjoy the wine.)

[glynor]

It is REALLY hard to read the FPS on the screen, as it's a TV not a monitor, but they appear to be in the 60s and 70s (I don't have that machine set to sync vertical refresh like I do my desktop).

Unfortunately, since I don't currenly have a remote attached or configured on my desktop machine I don't have an easy way to test it to see if it's graphics card power related.

I suspect it might be more of a CPU time thing though.  If the 3D is "pushing" the CPU at all, which it appears to be, then it could be blocking (if only temporarily) the Girder process from doing it's thing quite as quickly.

Sitting idle with Theater View open now (on the HTPC) I'm seeing constant CPU % Usage by Media Center 12.exe of no less than 10%, ranging from 10% to 20-25% (spiking occasionally to as much as 35% when the visualization is moving a lot).  By comparison, with MC11.1 and with the older version of MC12 my CPU usage for MC's process sits at between 4-8% (with occasional spikes to 15% or so).  When actually moving around in the menu system of Theater View, I'm seeing near constant CPU time of 35-55% (and occasional spikes to 60-65%) with the new versions. 

This remains somewhat constant no matter if I'm viewing in "Thumbs" mode or in "Details" mode, at least when it comes to Idle CPU time.  I'd say CPU usage is a small bit heavier while I'm navigating around when I have it in Thumbs mode, hanging closer to 50% rather than 40-45%, but the two states are comparitively similar.  Not very signifigant anyway.  I perceive no performance difference as far as the"arrowing" lag in either mode.  Navigating at the root menu is still basically just as slow, though it might be a very, very tiny bit better (though that could be wishful thinking).  It's mostly the same.

CPU time results on my desktop machine (Athlon64 3200+, ATI X1900XT 512MB, 2 GB RAM) are similar but a bit "lower" (by about a 3-6% margin when idle and a 10-12% margin when active).  MC11.1 and 12.0.67 use little or no CPU time when idle on the desktop machine (0-3% idle) and vastly less when active (6-12% with very occasional spikes to 25-30%).

I just discovered this, but...

One other side effect I just noted with the new animation system is that I am no longer able to use Theater View with VNC, as it reports: "Error starting Direct3D engine (success)".  Not sure what the success is, but that's what it says.  No buttons are visible at all.  However, I don't really care about this as it doesn't seem to crash MC12 itself, and I can't think of why I'd want to use VNC and Theater View at the same time really.  I use VNC to get at the Standard View of MC remotely, not Theater View!

All in all I'd say using MC through Theater View with Girder now is a bit less snappy than using BeyondTV and Girder (which isn't good as BeyondTV isn't a champ at all).  MC11.1 and older MC12 builds used to be way more snappy than BTV.

[lalittle]

I'll give MC12 a try with Girder when I get a chance to test this behavior on my system.  It's been a while since I messed with Girder, so if you could remind me:  How do I change the command structure in Girder to work with MC12 instead of MC11?

Thanks,

Larry

[glynor]

If you use Girder 4 I've already done it.  I'll try to post updated GML files to my Girder4 thread later this evening.

If you use a Girder 3.x line, then I don't know.

[Doof]

I got 3.x covered.

[raym]

I'm not really experiencing any slowdowns on my system except that wherever thumbnails are used rather than lists, animation of thumbs play a bit jerky when first entering a view. Lists appear to play a lot smoother.

Also, all text looks jaggered.

Finally (for now) I think the background viz is a neat idea but I'm over it already and would like to turn it off. I think all the other animation is still great though. Perhaps a way of configuring this stuff in the xml would make a lot of sence.

Thanks.

[zxsix]

More info on this.
When I use ctrl-4 to switch to theater view, MC minimizes.
I rightclick it on the task bar and choose Restore.
Theater View then appears in a window, occupying about 25% of my screen size.
At this point, it bogs my system down and the fps is jumping erratically between 25-90.
Next, I clicked on the "full screen" button at the bottom of theater view, and then ctrl-4 again.
Now, theater view appears full screen, the lag is gone, and the fps is hovering between 64-70.

Next, used ctrl-1 to get back to normal view.
Try again using ctrl-4 to get to theater view and get the windowed one.
It doesn't remember it's previous size/position.

I am on a dual-monitor setup with an ATI card if that matters.

[lalittle]

How do I change the command structure in Girder to work with MC12 instead of MC11?

Could somebody remind me how to do this in Girder 3?  I can't seem to find the place in Girder where you can define the path to the MC executable.

Thanks,

Larry

[Doof]

I just open the GML file in notepad and do a search and replace. It's much easier than manually doing it through the girder interface.

[glynor]

I thought I'd mention... The "lag" I'm seeing with Girder and Theater View seems a little better in the new build (12.0.72), but it's still not "good enough" yet (still enough of a pause to think "What?" and hit the button twice before the selection moves).  However, I must say "got to admit it's getting better"...

Also...

I'm not really experiencing any slowdowns on my system except that wherever thumbnails are used rather than lists, animation of thumbs play a bit jerky when first entering a view. Lists appear to play a lot smoother.

Just to be absolutely clear.  I too do not see any slowdown when using a keyboard directly to control Theater View.  This works as it should (though I do see the occasional jerkiness you mentioned).  My particular complaint is specific to using Girder and a remote control.

For example: when I hit "down" on the remote control, I can usually count "one - and" before it actually moves the selection down a notch.  With 12.0.67 (pre-fancypants-animation) this is not the case and the selection moves instantly, as it does with a regular keyboard (or pretty darn close to instantly anyway).

I agree on the raym's second point as well.  I like the button animation, but the visualization in the background is just cheesy and tiresome.  That, plus my Girder-performance issue, makes me just want to turn it off (which I strongly suspect would solve my problem).  I would guess that they plan to add a "turn it off" option once the feature is settled (they did list it as "experimental" in the original build thread -- so it might not even stick around anyway).  If so though, I think a lot of us would like separate "turn off background visualization" and "turn off button animation" options (rather than just one "not-cool Theater View style" option).  I do think editing it in the XML would be too much trouble for most people, however, and an option in Options --> Theater View would be a better choice.

I also suspect that upgrading my HTPC to a dual-core machine would solve the problem, and I'm getting there, but not everyone will be able to go that route.    

[rpalmer68]

Along with the slow response problems with Girder and MC12  the background animation adds additional load to the CPU and graphics CPU that I'd rather not have.

This additional load in turn creates heat which means my CPU/PC fans have to work harder and this means more noise from the PC.

I normally can't hear my HTPC in the cabinet, but with the new versions of MC it just whirrs away all the time trying to keep things cool and then the wife asks, why is that thing so noisy?

I'm sure an options will be provided down the track to disable animations, but unless there is a reduction to the load on the CPUs I won't be able to use it.

Cheers
Richard

[lalittle]

I just open the GML file in notepad and do a search and replace. It's much easier than manually doing it through the girder interface.

I'm not sure what the full string is that I need to search for, and exactly what I need to replace it with.

Thanks for any clarficaiton on this,

Larry

[rpalmer68]

I'm not sure what the full string is that I need to search for, and exactly what I need to replace it with.

Thanks for any clarficaiton on this,

Larry

You will need to replace MC11.EXE with MC12.EXE.

If you have target windows set in any of the Girder commands they will have to change from "MEDIA CENTER.EXE" to  "MEDIA CENTER 12.EXE"

Hope this helps.

Richard

[lalittle]

You will need to replace MC11.EXE with MC12.EXE.

If you have target windows set in any of the Girder commands they will have to change from "MEDIA CENTER.EXE" to  "MEDIA CENTER 12.EXE"

Hope this helps.

Richard

So the paths to the EXE files are all the same?

Thanks,

Larry

[rpalmer68]

So the paths to the EXE files are all the same?

Thanks,

Larry

Sort of.

MC12.EXE should be in your search path so shouldn't need the full path specified, if it's not then you will need the full path.

For the target window it doesn't use a path it's just looking for the .EXE name.
R

[rpalmer68]

Can I request an option to turn OFF the background animation please?

I know this is still experimental, but it's making MC12 almost unusable on my HTPC as it's driving my CPU load up and generating lots of heat and noise from the fans, which is annoying the wifw... and we all know that's something we don't want!.

If I could turn it off then I could just enable it when testing until such time as the cpu load is sorted.

Thanks
Richard

[JimH]

Tonight's build has animation removed (temporarily).  More later.

[rpalmer68]

Tonight's build has animation removed (temporarily).  More later.

Thanks.

I do look forward to it coming back in some form.

R

[jojo1967]

htpc. 

If you use Girder 4 I've already done it.  I'll try to post updated GML files to my Girder4 thread later this evening.

If you use a Girder 3.x line, then I don't know.

G'morning   I know this was a while ago, and likewise I've done some re-working with my Girder4 Gml, which I think I started with yours this last time.  Have you updated it recently?  if so, can you post a link,  Mine is mostely working well, with a few exceptions I've not been able to find yet. 

On the same note.... has there been an update on the messages available to us?  I had it somewhere, but lost it in the move a couple of months back.
jojo

[glynor]

I have done quite a bit of work on it.  Actually, I was just tweaking it this weekend, and managed to really, really improve the performance of it!  I should be able to finish it this week and I'll make sure to post it as soon as I can.

Tonight's trick-or-treat night stateside so I'm busy dealing with all the little kids though!

[jojo1967]

Cool, thanks,  Funny how that works, I've been working with Ron over at Promixis (Girder) trying to locate some issues and crashes on my HTPC.  I know he has done some really nice things with the X10 plug-in system, and was going to have a look at that, see if I can re-do the timers I have set up.  I'd also like to be able to use a differnt module I just got, but it doesn't seem to be as nice to transmit through my house as my standart RF transiever works and the CM17 I use.  I'd be willing to share when I get that done