Hi all,
I'm sitting here watching a slideshow of Art (not cover-art) on my TV with MC. I've got most of the transition effects enabled, with the Pan option active.
I've got to say, it's not an overly pleasant experience, and I will explain why.
1) The Pan option is not smooth - the image shudders and wobbles - I love the idea, but it's just not 'smooth'
2) The transitions (some) exhibit 'tearing' - this may be my fault wrt my refresh rates etc, but I have set everything I can to 60Hz - including MC
3) The Pan option 'slams' against it's boundaries (most noticeable with large images) ie. during a zoom-out with dual direction pan, if the extent of (eg) the horizontal pan is reached, it kinda 'hits' againt the boundary, rather than the pan decelerating as it approaches
The machine I'm using is not 'high-end' but is quite reasonable (2.2Ghz dual core, 2GB RAM, ATI x1300), so I'd expect some decent performance for image playback from it.
Some suggestions...
1) Use (optionally) 3D hardware - i know from another thread that this is not preferred, as the quality isnt as good, but for the pan-and scan option - or even just general slideshow work - I think smoother slideshow effects outweigh quality
2) The Images always end up in the centre of the screen - which I understand - but it'd be nice to randomise the position to anwhere that they'd fit on the screen
3) options for dual, tri, quad, etc simultaneous image display - different parts of the screen, alterantely incremented would be nice.
4) AppleTV-esque screensaver (I know other do it as well) with multi-image 3D effects - in fact dont limit to a screensaver, let us use it as a image display option
5) Calculate the pan and zoom rates according to the current position of the pan/zoom wrt the desired end-point of the pan/zoom and decelerrate accordingly
Cheers,
C.