Print

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

[MrHaugen]

There have been little improvements to Theater View in the last 100 builds or so. I keep wondering why. Hence this thread.
I would belive that most people who use a media center application on a HTPC want to use with it some sort of Teater View interface,
or at least want to use it if it provides the right functions. Any good reason why it have been quiet on this front? MC13?
Anyway, let's keep those good ideas coming.

I'll start of with some ideas from my wish list:

- Ability to hide/show the left border. Would make navigation much easier.
- Adding Playing Now shortcut (might be here today), and making it work as default MS Now Playing buttons (don't have my remote here now, but I think it exists).
   With the back functionality we already have, the first suggestion would be more user friendly.
- Auto size the Playing Now box according to what is played. Example: Higher when showing music cover art, wide when playing video with in-video-captured picture.
- Ability to remove the bottom half of Playing Now (from View menu or similar). I know this can be done editing the skin, but still...
- A way of setting column width in Theater View. Prefferably some automatic calculations to cut of the longest values and keeping the rest showing, and in perfect columns.
  Reason: When viewing mixed content today, with more that one or two fields, it can be a nightmare to scroll and finding the right things you are looking for.
- Enable star rating in TV (not only the numbers). Should be an option.

[prod]

- Utilise MCE "Info" IR command in both Theatre and Display views
- Navigation with remote with "mobile phone" typing for up to 3 char as opposed to current 1 char
- Ability to show descriptive text and other tag information alongside items
- Ability to easily rate items
- Improve graphically Display View OSD

[JONCAT]

Honestly, I find the tiles view aesthetically pleasing enough and usable on my "TV" from 8 ft away. Everytime I use TheaterView I find it clunky and very alien (not to mention dizzying) when compared to drilling down through tiles. Maybe this speaks to the improvements you mention...

DC

[prod]

Hmm yeah but I for one love Theatre View and so do friends & family when they come round and use it. If you don't like it, that's OK, but I find it a very useful feature, particularly for my mum who is partially sighted.

I do use all of the views for different reasons and at different times... that's one of the beautiful aspects of MC, it caters for so many occasions.

My belief is that it's great as it is, but a few improvements and tweaks here and there would really finish it off nicely.

[MrHaugen]

Honestly, I find the tiles view aesthetically pleasing enough and usable on my "TV" from 8 ft away. Everytime I use TheaterView I find it clunky and very alien (not to mention dizzying) when compared to drilling down through tiles. Maybe this speaks to the improvements you mention...

DC

It does. I'd like a little rework of the main menu as well. Looks really plain compared to apple and MS' Theater View.
Tiles would look nice, but I think it's important to have it in one line as it is to day, to preserve the left and right browsing. That's prefferable imo.

Something like this just vertical maybe:


This could also work:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x                       x
x                       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x     Tile Art                 Tile Text     x
x                       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x                       x                            x                      x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       x
                           x     Tile Text              Tile Art        x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       x
                        x                            x                      x
x                       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x     Tile Art                 Tile Text     x
x                       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x                       x                            x                      x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       x
                           x     Tile Text              Tile Art        x
                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       x
                                                     x                      x
                                                     xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                             

More tiles on less space. Almost as todays menu, just with alternate tiles left and right. Squint if my illustration makes no sence.
The best look would be to have this, or the straight vertical tiles, expanding as you mark the tile. Zoom function if you like.

I'd also very much vote for a few more letters on the SMS search function.

[Neville]

- Progress bar in playing now screen 

[ThoBar]

An earlier thread with suggestions...

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43132.0

[globetrotters1]

First I have to point out that I really like Theater View a lot and it's that function why I bought MC, period 

But I also agree with you that you have to do further development of this to make it smoother and easier to handle for all clients

It might have been mentioned before, but let me point out four wishes out of my list:

1) I'd like to switch off the scroll bar at the right side (which I'm sure is possible already by changing the standard skin)
2) I'd like to have access to ALL database fields of a music track within the display/visualization function, not just a few
3) I'd like also a progress bar in the playing now/display/visualization area - would be cool (see above mentioned by Neville)
4) I suppose this is already possible by skin creation, but I didn't work on that: I'd like to have a small 'frame-like' area around the normal theater view working surface, which should stay always visible (in small letters and small icons I would show there the touchpanel functions) no matter what function I use - right now I use little stickers around the touchpanel to mark the function locations on the touchscreen (hope that this explanation is clear enough, a bit complicated to explain for someone who doesn't speak English as his mother-tongue  )

Those were 2 cents more to this topic
Martin

[jmone]

There has been several of these threads (a few I even started such as http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42258.0) but here would be my latest observations:

Look and Feel: I'd like to be able to specify / customise:
a) Menu Structure & Hierarchy - eg At present my "Music Videos" are under the top Level "Videos" but I'd like the flexibility to place them either at either the top level or under "Music"
b) Selectable Thumbnail Layout For Different Folders - eg Under "Video" my "TV Series" looks best in lineout mode with small thumbs as they are all the same and sorted by Episode but my "Movies" section would be better with big thumbs so I can see the Coverart for each and select the one I want visually, and as others have suggested even drilling down to the next level of details regarding the movie
c) Vista Desktop Is Sometime Visible: There still the issues of sometime seeing the Vista Desktop etc when starting / stoping full screen Video from T’View.

PVR Features: I've personally moved on and purchased a standalone PVR, but for what it is worth I still think that MC12 / T'View is behind the competition in this area and should have the same look, feel, and function of every other "TV/PVR" in the world.

Quick Wins
1) Assignable Coverart for Channels (eg Channel Logos Bitmaps) - This is the only area of MC12 without Coverart and makes the whole thing look second rate
2) Ch # Mapping - allow the allocation of Numbers to your Channels so you can use the remote control for channel changing when in TV View - You know....just like a TV
3) Delete Files - Thanks this has been added!
4) Scheduled Recording: The StdView scheduler is fine but similar functionality needs to be added to Theatre View.  I’d suggest that pressing the Record Button on the remote control would bring this dialogue box up for completion (and a second press of Record when kick off a manual record).
5) Bottom Info Panel When Recording - This stays the entire time during a recording, unlike other messages that disappear after awhile.  I understand that it is good to have a visual indicator to remind us that recoding is happening but this one takes up a good 1/10th of the screen - maybe a small Red Dot in one corner would be better?
6) File Name for recordings - At the moment the format is "CH Name Day Month Year Hour Minute" (eg NINE HD 30_08_2007 8_39) but this is not great for sorting by file name where "Year Month Day Hour Minute CH Name" (eg something like 2007-08-31(Fri) 10-15AM NINE HD) which is better.

Must Do - I know that this will require rework of how TS and Record works but it is going to need to be done.  Having one format for TS and another for REC (on Digital TV) is just counter productive.  For example, at the moment if I press "Pause" while recording a show it STOPS the Recording, and STARTS Timeshifting.  Support for simultaneous Timeshift and Record (eg use the dvr-ms stream for both functions) is going to have to be done at some stage.

Getting Fancy  - the others are already there but the
1) EPG integration including Programmed Recording
2) Wake PC from sleep for Scheduled / Programmed Recordings
3) Support for Multiple Tuners
4) Support for 3rd party Set Top box pass through using IR blasters with selectable channel mapping

==================
Again, please don't get me wrong, MC12 is the best overall app and the foundation it provides to T'View is terrific but further dev in this area is always appreciated.

Thanks
Nathan

[ThoBar]

Is the Theater View plugin system ready to go public? i.e. Is an SDK  or doco around the corner?

I think this may help fill the gap for some people's requests...

[fitbrit]

Is the Theater View plugin system ready to go public? i.e. Is an SDK  or doco around the corner?

I think this may help fill the gap for some people's requests...

Oh man, this is just enough info to get me all excited about things to come. Even though I don't really know what it means.

[Bulkhead]

I have recently revisited my media library and home theater project list. I have MC12 running as a library server, and have connected a meager pc to my home theater where I have MC12 running as a client.

I have MC12 in my startup group, and have specified the Theater View as the startup view for MC. The result is that I see that interface on my 50" plasma which is hung over my fireplace at the end of a 40' room. The image is fantastic and the interface is a GREAT start. I note all of this because I've looked at several other solutions for making my music, images and video files available to the family in this room and have settled on Media Center.

The suggestions noted above are very good and would elevate the Theater View to the top of the class when considering cost and effort to install, configure and administer.

Remember, MC12 is no longer relegated to simple computer displays and dorm rooms. We are using it in our living rooms and encouraging non-technical users to interact with it.  I suggested the application to a friend last night who was impressed with what he saw. Registered users should rise as more folks see content presented through your application on large plasma screens in living rooms everywhere.

Keep up the good work.

[raym]

Nicely put Bulkhead.

[gappie]

Oh man, this is just enough info to get me all excited about things to come. Even though I don't really know what it means.

yes, would be very interesting.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40244.0

[gappie]

here is an other thread with some interesting suggestions: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46198.0

[Robo983]

There has been several of these threads (a few I even started such as http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42258.0) but here would be my latest observations:

Look and Feel: I'd like to be able to specify / customise:
a) Menu Structure & Hierarchy - eg At present my "Music Videos" are under the top Level "Videos" but I'd like the flexibility to place them either at either the top level or under "Music"

Nestable Menu's is my number one. I am still using Meedio probably for this one feature alone to manage all my links to Web TV sites, simpler direct access to folders and network shares as well as launch other apps.

I really like and use MC Theater view for all of my audio and images and some video. I find the view selections a little slow to get to what I want. In Meedio you can just create nested menu item under audio,tv, internet or whatever that is fixed to a specific view (Genre/Artist/Album, Artist/Album, Folder, ABC, NBC, FOX, SciFi, etc.) so you do not have to scroll through views to get to the one you want.

[ThoBar]

FWIW, I kinda like MrHaugen's UI suggestion, potentially pretty, yet functional... would be well suited to Widescreen too

[Matt]

I just wanted to mention the "Getting Fancy" request of:

• Support for Multiple Tuners

This has been supported for some time.  For a different project, we have a machine time-shifting and serving two channels 24-hours a day.  It's been running for months without down-time.

[MrHaugen]

Just thinking about the JR team's responses for this threads. And there was Matt....
You guys have any other comments? Is it likely to see any of this thing in the next 100 builds, or are you saving some improvements for the next big release?

[Matt]

We did some of the straight-forward ones in build 496:

Changed: Theater View list navigation using number keys (1: home; 0: end; 2...9: SMS letters) supports the number pad.
NEW: Theater View SMS-style searching allows searching on any number of characters. (0 to 2 seconds: roll last character; 3 to 5 seconds: add new character; over 5 seconds starts a new search) (press 1 to quickly clear the search)
NEW: Added option to not show scrollbars in Theater View. (Options > Theater View > Advanced)

[Griff]

We did some of the straight-forward ones in build 496:

Changed: Theater View list navigation using number keys (1: home; 0: end; 2...9: SMS letters) supports the number pad.
NEW: Theater View SMS-style searching allows searching on any number of characters. (0 to 2 seconds: roll last character; 3 to 5 seconds: add new character; over 5 seconds starts a new search) (press 1 to quickly clear the search)
NEW: Added option to not show scrollbars in Theater View. (Options > Theater View > Advanced)

Thanks

[MrHaugen]

Great! Looking forward to it.

[prod]

These new improvements work great, thanks!

[gappie]

here is an other thread with some interesting suggestions: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46198.0

from this thread:

We haven't released the SDK yet because we're still revising the interfaces, and each time they change, plugins need a recompile.

We don't want to frustrate developers.

Would it be better to release the docs in spite of the interface tweaks?  If so, we could arrange that.

it would be really nice if there could be some insight in the sdk. or is the implementation to difficult?

thanks
 
gab

[mojave]

c) Vista Desktop Is Sometime Visible: There still the issues of sometime seeing the Vista Desktop etc when starting / stoping full screen Video from T’View.

I use XP and when using Theater View as the main interface, the desktop is also visible when launching external programs such as the MyHD program for my HDTV tuner and Internet Explorer. It would be much smoother if Theater View is active until the new window is completely launched. It worked seamlessly when I tried Meedio.

[fitbrit]

I'd love for there to be a zoom/thumbnail size slider like under standard view for use with thumbnails in Theater View. The DVD cover art that I download is of sufficient resolution to allow reading of the cover text at higher magnification. Being able to zoom in on thumbnails in Theater View could be a stop-gap measure if the ability to acquire IMDB data is being worked on.
It'd also be cool to have x thumbnails across for some playlists and y for others. I hope I'm making sense!

[evilhobo]

I'd love for there to be a zoom/thumbnail size slider like under standard view for use with thumbnails in Theater View. The DVD cover art that I download is of sufficient resolution to allow reading of the cover text at higher magnification. Being able to zoom in on thumbnails in Theater View could be a stop-gap measure if the ability to acquire IMDB data is being worked on.
It'd also be cool to have x thumbnails across for some playlists and y for others. I hope I'm making sense!

+1 for zooming of coverart.

I also use dvd covers for the coverart of dvds i rip to disk, but its way too small to see details. SO my current system is to browse the coverarts as images to choose something to watch then switch over and find the corresponding video.

It would be great if there was a way of zooming on the selected item's coverart in thumbnail view.

[MrHaugen]

I do not belive most people would like a slider to clutter the screen. Should be enough to have zoom step option under View menu or similar, in my opinion.
Do agree that there should be a way of setting the size of thumbnails, indepentently of everything else though.

Ability to get simple info as just the discription of a movie would be enough for me to get ridd of DVD Profiler. But that's a bit out of the scope of this Theater View thread.

[fitbrit]

I do not belive most people would like a slider to clutter the screen.uld be enough to have zoom step option under View menu or similar, in my opinion.
Do agree that there should be a way of setting the size of thumbnails, indepentently of everything else though.

Ability to get simple info as just the discription of a movie would be enough for me to get ridd of DVD Profiler. But that's a bit out of the scope of this Theater View thread.

A visible slider, ctrl-scroll, ctrl-+, anyway at all, would be fine for me. It doesn't have to be visible as a default.

[MrHaugen]

Any bigger improvements on schedule?
I'm really hoping for a rework of the main menu, as well as a way of hiding the left menu (prefferably with a touch of a button on my remote).

[ukahfur]

When in "Playing Now" in theater view, it would be nice to be able to right click on a song and go "More -> Locate -> Artist",  like you can in standard view. I often have shuffled playlists going and often times a song comes on and I think....hmmm...I'd like to listen to "song x" by this artist; it would be a nice feature to be able to quickly jump to that artist's albums.

[MrHaugen]

I'll try once more... You seem to be holding your development plans tight to the chest.
Are there a policy to keep your plans and priorities secret? 

[zirum]

I share the thoughts with MrHaugen here, and am very curious to hear about things on the bench here. I even got to the point that I installed an other media portal here the other day, because MC seems to be halting a bit lately. I got a bit "hungry for new features", if i could call it that...

[JimH]

... MC seems to be halting a bit lately ...

It seems pretty active from our side.  Here's the list of public changes from just the last week.

We're also doing some work that isn't public (yet).

12.0.514 (6/12/2008)

1. Changed: More logging in VMR9 Renderless Mode.
2. Changed: In VMR9 Renderless mode, if we fail to create a fullscreen exclusive rendering device, we retry by creating a windowed device.
3. Optimized: Resizing pieces of the interface using a view splitter updates faster.
4. Changed: Reversed a previous change on how analog TV channels are played with Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600 device.
5. Fixed: Tabbing through Panes On Top (thin) was not possible.
6. Fixed: With bidirectional panes, selecting a middle pane value and then selecting "All" in the same pane would not update all the panes.
7. Fixed: Importing iTunes playlists wasn't parsing dates correctly.
8. Fixed: TV Channels backup and restore did not work on Vista.
9. Changed: TV Channels backup format is changed from Microsoft registry backup to xml.
10. NEW: Added Denon to the list of UPnP devices autodetected.

12.0.513 (6/9/2008)

1. NEW: In DX video playback with "VMR9 Renderlesss Mode", the renderer switches to fullscreen exclusive mode when MC's display window is maximized.
2. Optimized: Panes On Top (thin) views are faster.
3. Changed: Improved keyboard navigation when searching inside Panes On Top (thin). (up / down / enter / escape)
4. Changed: Revised how the alphabet for Panes On Top (thin) works so it only enters a single letter.
5. Changed: The search box with Panes On Top (thin) treats a single letter as a "begins with" search instead of a search anywhere rule.
6. Changed: Panes On Top (thin) searching only searches from the start of words, so "loy" won't return "pink floyd" but will return "lester loyd".
7. Changed: Cross-fade (aggressive) does not fade down the end of a song when mixing with a new song. (but still fades the old song when manually switching tracks before the end)
8. Fixed: From the main search box, picking "Wizard...", then entering a rule, wouldn't leave the search box in wizard mode.
9. Changed: Grouping headers in file lists are less prominent.
10. Fixed: Gridlines were not drawing properly in the panes.
11. Changed: When converting audio for playback on Tivo or UPnP devices, the format will be changed to 44.1 KHz stereo.
12. Fixed: Some Audible files would not play properly on UPnP devices.
13. Optimized: Improved performance of panes with bi-directional filtering enabled.
14. Changed: With bi-directional pane filtering enabled, panes later in the filter order are reset to "All" when changing a pane earlier in the filter order. (use Reset Selection to start over and define a new filter order)
15. Optimized: Significantly shortened the time it takes for "Choose DirectShow Filters" dialog to initialize and appear.
16. Fixed: Sorting presets saved in Customize Current View would not be preserved.
17. NEW: Delete Confirmation dialog offers the option to delete stack files.  (Defaults to checked if all stacks are collapsed.  If checked will delete all stack files even for expanded stacks.)

12.0.512 (6/5/2008)

1. Fixed: Track Info pages that linked to other pages wouldn't work properly.
2. Optimized: Core database file access is faster.

[MrHaugen]

Please, do not take my comments the wrong way. I really appreciate all the hard work you put into all this changes. I'm waiting eagerly for each new build!
In this thread I'm only talking about Theater View, and I belive that was what zirum was thinking of as well.

I just hope there will be some more focus on the Theater View look (in the future). In my opinion it's a little behind other major Media Center applications.
In a media center application I belive this is one of the most important things. Just think about how many users there are of OSX and Windows Media Center etc.
Most of them are probably happy with the application, even though it's very limited.
As well as a limited need for another MC applications because of the small size of the media collection, I think the good looks keep many of those users faithfull.

[zirum]

Yes, what MrHaugen pointed out is what I meant. I did not mean to imply that you are not doing anything, I know you put a lot of effort into this.

I'm just eager on those wow features for my livingroom tv

[JimH]

No problems, thanks.  We'd like to do more on several fronts. 

[JimH]

We've made a lot of changes in MC 13 now.  They are in the Obsidian skin only in MC13.0.93.  Pictures and details here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49709.0