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[maxxsid]

Since the introduction of Theater View, MC progresses towards being all-in-one HTPC front end.
I would say it's pretty close with all the improvements made in MC12 but not quite...
I have a lot of complants about how Theater View is organized. I red the relevant discussions an this forum and saw people complaining about same issues and making requests/suggestions. Those requests for some reason were largely unanswered/ignored.
My main questions are - what is JR's plan for the Theater View? is there a roadmap? What to expect by the time MC12 is released?
I mean, right now it IS usable but far from being perfect. I am not talking about it's ability to do some extra thing like to rip CD/DVD from Theater View. I am talking about basic functionality - to be able to select, play different media with a remote control being 10 feet away from the PC. Lisen to some music. The go and select another album. Then select and watch a movie.
Right now I basically need to have all the control devices - remote, keyboard and the mouse to navigate and select.
navigation logic in MC12 is.. hm.. not logical.. at least to me.
Playback controls in Display View are too small to use. (well, if one uses a remote to control - it doesn't really matter - but I want to be able to see the progress bar, timeplay/timeleft, title, play/pause status, etc. Rigth now I cannot see those unless the monitor is not 10 feet but 10 inches away)
MC goes to Standard View from Display View - should go back to Theater View.
I don't want to see the standard view at all when MC is in "HTPC" mode.
etc etc etc. Again, this all was discussed/asked before and not just once.

Take for example an open source frontend - MediaPortal. In terms of the useability it's PERFECT.
I would use it any day over MC if it was integrated with NetRemote.

I hope my post would generate some discussion around this topic and maybe get us some answers from MC team.

Thanks for reading.

[glynor]

What to expect by the time MC12 is released?

I believe MC12 is released.

You can download and install it.  You can buy it.  It is no longer marked as Beta.  Wouldn't that be the definition of released?

MC is a work in progress always.  That's just the way it is.

[maxxsid]

Ok-ok.. it's released. But I am still not happy with Theater View. MC12.1 is my only hope.

I believe MC12 is released.

You can download and install it.  You can buy it.  It is no longer marked as Beta.  Wouldn't that be the definition of released?

MC is a work in progress always.  That's just the way it is.

[Marquis]

About MC12 as HTPC frontend in general:
I am using MC12 on a PC in my living room. It's my only program to handle Musik, Videos, DVD and Internetradio... I am not yet using it for TV, but this should be implemented by this year when I made a decision for a HDTV tunercard. I am using Girder and Netremote to control MC12 and it's working very well, because I can control everything even without Theaterview (TV off for music only).

So far my wishes for improvements are:
- Build my own menustructure (show/hide/arrange) buttons and lists on my own.
- Include more buttons for own functions (e.g. starting external application or firing a windows event that can be seen from girder)
- Make an own design for the background animations (wich are cool anyway)

Otherwise I am quite happy and haven't found any other program that allows such smooth control over Girder/Netremote (And I am still beginner!).

BR,
  Marc

[maxxsid]

Hi Marc,
I have the same setup (well, I am trying to set it up).
MC12+Girder 4+NetRemote 2
It all works in general just needs those last 20%...
can you please share your ccf and gml?

About MC12 as HTPC frontend in general:
I am using MC12 on a PC in my living room. It's my only program to handle Musik, Videos, DVD and Internetradio... I am not yet using it for TV, but this should be implemented by this year when I made a decision for a HDTV tunercard. I am using Girder and Netremote to control MC12 and it's working very well, because I can control everything even without Theaterview (TV off for music only).

So far my wishes for improvements are:
- Build my own menustructure (show/hide/arrange) buttons and lists on my own.
- Include more buttons for own functions (e.g. starting external application or firing a windows event that can be seen from girder)
- Make an own design for the background animations (wich are cool anyway)

Otherwise I am quite happy and haven't found any other program that allows such smooth control over Girder/Netremote (And I am still beginner!).

BR,
  Marc

[LanceD]

Ok, here goes...

What I like:

-- The MCC (windows message) commands. These make it easy to program a remote to talk directly to the window and not just send keyboard emulations to whatever window is active!!

-- Skinning is EASY!

-- Audio -- MC kicks any other apps butt when it comes to playing and organizing audio (including theater view access).

-- Pictures -- again, organization and playing of slideshows is awesome.

What needs improvement:

-- Skinning -- yep, it's easy, but it's not very flexible.

-- Plugins -- there's no way to develop a plugin for theater view (sure, I've seen some hacks, but I mean a REAL plugin). Look at... well, ANY other HTPC app for examples.

-- DVD -- DVD play sometimes locks up when changing modes (play / menu, etc...)...

-- DVD Menu -- When I send the DVD menu message, MC (instead of just going to the DVD menu) pops up an OSD. I have a widescreen projector, so I'm in "letterbox" mode when I watch movies. This cuts off the top of the OSD and makes it impossible to simply navigate to the DVD menu (I've created a routine in EventGhost to do this, but it shouldn't be necessary).

-- EPG!!!! Without an EPG, MC can't be taken seriously as an HTPC app. Nuff said.

[Twit]

I posted my feeling here:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38061.0

Is there anyway to run "standard view" on one screen and "theater view" on another screen AT THE SAME TIME!

[jmmttu77]

I really like JRiver, but I also agree this is a worth while discussion to have....especially if your software is named "Media Center".  My two requests for Theater View (which have been posted before) are as follows:

#1:  From the Artist/Album view (While in Theater Mode, make sure you see "Home > Audio > Artist/Album" at the top of the screen to be where I am referencing).  From here I pick the artist I want and hit play on my remote.  It then jumps to the Playing Now page (as I enabled that in the Theater options), begins playing the music and shows all the songs from the Artist I selected....as it should.  Everything is perfect up to this point. 

From this point, we should simply be able to press the "Back" button to return to the Artist/Album page....if it were truely a "Back" button....instead, it transports you all the way back to the theater "Home" page and you are forced to once again drill down by selecting "Audio" and then "Artist/Album".  Three button presses, which should have only taken only one...  Therefore, the request is to have the Back button truely be a BACK button....not a hybrid Home button.

#2: In Theater Mode, I love that you can see your Artists displayed by LARGE album art thumbnails and when you select an Album it automatically changes to the SMALL album art so you can see the files more efficiently.  However, when you have an Artist that has more than one Album, and select the "ALL" button, the album art thumbnails stay LARGE and you cannot see the song files efficiently.  It would make sense for the album art to automatically change to SMALL thumbnails here. 

Other requests would be a wider compatability with tv tuners and an EPG.  I have a usb tuner that came with my dell and while it will work with MCE it will not work with JRiver.

[zirum]

A couple of days ago, i went out and bought this keyboard for my livingroom pc, since it had an integrated mousepad:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/upp/details/US/EN,crid=2676,contentid=12339

But now i noticed it does not have the windows menu button. There has been numerous discussions about this menu in Theater View, but it still seems like the result is not to be able to make the menu default upon click/enter.

I would really like this menu to be default now. At least have the option to change which button to pop this...

[Osho]

I have been using MC12 as HTPC front end for a while now. I use MC12 for Audio, Images and Video but not for TV. After using MC12 extensively with a Harmony 890 remote control (via USBUIRT MC12 plugin and no Girder), here are my 2 cents:

• Display View OSD needs to be majorly enhanced for a couch distance. If I press pause with my remote, I would like to see a bar similar to what's shown at
  http://www.theatertek.com/Products/Original%20Features/OnScreen.html. Ditto for Fast Forward, Rewind, Chapter seek actions etc.
• Subtitles/Aspect ratio selection should be possible using remote control. Now-a-days any time a DVD's aspect ratio is not correct, I have to get up from the couch and use the mouse and right click to fix this - very irritating. Very spouse unfriendly . And, this should have better OSD as well.
• I would like support for custom aspect ratios - and ability to remember the last used aspect ratio for each DVD.
• Error handling: Error handling in Theater View and Display View needs to be better. I get this realy tiny text error messages which I can't read from my couch whenever some error occurs in one of these two modes. I can not even dismiss the message with remote's Select (center button inside the four up, down, left, right arrows) button. I have to get up from the couch to use the mouse to make it go away. Very very irritating.

Despite these quirks, both I and my wife continue to use MC12 as the HTPC front-end of choice . It does many things wonderfully well - I have almost no complaints for Theater View . It is just that at least 3-4 times a week, we have to get up from couch and fiddle with mouse to get something working which should have been possible to do with remote - that's wat we hate the most.

Osho

[skeeterfood]

My wishes:
1) Some way to show a progress bar of elapsed time/total time in Display view, or a more useful Playing Now screen in Theater View.  At 1840x1030 (underscanned 1920x1080) on a 55" Sony SXRD TV the current pop-up controls are way too small and require a mouse to activate and use them.
2) A way to re-organize tracks in Playing Now other than making the song next-to-play.
3) An EPG.
4) More skinning control (for those with talent, not me)

What I'd like to see while music is playing in Theater View's Playing Now/Display View:
(+ indicates items I can't figure out how to show today)
* Current Track Info:
** Cover Art
** Artist
** Disc
** Disc Year
** Track #
** Track Name
** Rating (as graphical stars that update as I adjust the rating from my remote)+
** Elapsed Time/Total Time (as graphical progress meter)+
** Track # of Total Tracks in Playing Now
* Previous Track Info: (available in Theater View's Playing Now)
** Artist+
** Disc+
** Track Name+
* Next Track Info: (available in Theater View's Playing Now)
** Artist+
** Disc+
** Track Name+

Not just for Theater View:
1) An enhanced shuffle mode say "Add to Playing Now (Shuffle remaining)" that shuffles the selected tracks into the unplayed tracks in Playing Now.  I'd love to be able to pick this as the default method for the current Shuffle Mode, so all I'd have to do is select the tracks and pick "Add to Playing Now" to get this functionality in both Theater View and Normal View.

[Osho]

What I'd like to see while music is playing in Theater View's Playing Now/Display View:
(+ indicates items I can't figure out how to show today)
* Current Track Info:
** Cover Art
** Artist
** Disc
** Disc Year
** Track #
** Track Name
** Rating (as graphical stars that update as I adjust the rating from my remote)+
** Elapsed Time/Total Time (as graphical progress meter)+
** Track # of Total Tracks in Playing Now
* Previous Track Info: (available in Theater View's Playing Now)
** Artist+
** Disc+
** Track Name+
* Next Track Info: (available in Theater View's Playing Now)
** Artist+
** Disc+
** Track Name+

I think something like this (almost - it doesn't display previous/next) is already possible. I created a visualization to display this. Look at the screenshot in this thread

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38150.msg261609

Osho