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[Matt]

We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features.  Still, it's fun to dream. 

So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.

Here's some of my requests:

• Integrated EPG for TV
• Tighter integration with external data sources -- i.e. viewing an artist wiki, artist images, etc.
• Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
• Ability to use my images and videos as my screen-saver
• Ability to have my wallpaper automatically rotate using my image library
• MiniDV video camera import
• Full-off MP3 store
• 3D file browsing
• Optional way to keep filenames in step with tag values
• Way to type in the Options dialog to search all available options
• iPhone 3G suppport despite Apple's new evil attempts to lock us out
• More hours in a day

[jgreen]

It all sounds great, Matt.  Reading your caveat, "no promises on new features", I am reminded of JimH saying the same thing at the start of version 12--and look at all the great features!  So, to "no promises on new features", all I can say is:  HA!

HA! HA!

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[zxsix]

We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features.  Still, it's fun to dream. 

So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.

• Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
• 3D file browsing
• iPhone 3G suppport despite Apple's new evil attempts to lock us out

All of these are high on my list.
The ipod touch support must include 2-way sync of ratings.

Plus:

• Write access via Library Server.  Want to be able to update rating tags from work client primarily.  Would be ok if it was limited to only updating the same fields as syncing portables (ratings, playstats).  Ideally full tag editing would be allowed.  Perhaps a new option checkbox in the Library server options to allow/disallow edits.
• folder.jpg enhancement.  Running Auto-import will import folder.jpg files.  Using shell integration and importing files from windows explorer ignores folder.jpg files.  Needs to import them either way.
• Data and image file enhancement.  More elegantly way to keep folder.jpg, .cue, .log, .m3u files together by album.  Each of these is tagged properly with genre, artist, and album fields.  Rename files from tags puts songs into f:\genre\artist\album file folder structure.  Currently a viewscheme must be created that shows all file types and each file must be highlighted and then moved.  Would like this to work in audio viewschemes.  If entire album is selected to be moved, prompt whether user would like these 'support files' moved also.
• Theater view tagging.  Currently, you can modify a few tags via theater view.  One that is sorely missing is the rating field.
• Blu-ray support from disc and from hard drive.  I haven't made this plunge yet, but may do so later this year.

[raym]

Ok, here's mine..

• Improved television feature set. Basically the stuff you see in most other TV playback software and while EPG integration is one thing, I'm talking about much more basic things:- direct channel access (for remote users), Picture-in-Picture, improved seeking capabilities eg, slow-mo etc, Improved system performance while timeshifting (still an issue I'm afraid)...
• Ability to use all in-built and custom tags in Theater View skins. For example, I'd like to be able to show today's date on the main page
• Also related: A "View in Detail" page for Theater View (as discussed previously) allowing us to provide things like synopsis data for movies and other custom tag details for all media types. IMDB integration etc could come later. Just let us display stuff we populate ourselves for now
• BlueRay support
• Auto tagging for auto import
• An option to prevent the Enter key in Theater View from popping-up the menu ALL THE TIME!!! - youknow, how it used to be - just at the filelist level with the VK_APPS there if I need it at any level. Is this really such a big ask?
• The ability to browse and play removable media (on flash drives etc) in Theater View
• OSD improvements, eg, show current time / time remaining during TV timeshifting and regular video seeks - like DVD seeking - and leave it on screen until I press play again! Some transparency would be nice too!
• Rip and Burn from Theater View
  
• YouTube for Theater View
  
• Anything else Theater View!  PS - I really love how you've implemented the OSK for basic tagging etc. Very Nice!

Thanks

[John Gateley]

HA!
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HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

1, 2, 4, 8, .... 30??? Sorry, that does not compute.

j

[darichman]

I'll be the first to put in a vote for some more photo features...

And from your list, Matt, I like:

Here's some of my requests:

• Tighter integration with external data sources -- i.e. viewing an artist wiki, artist images, etc.
• Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
• 3D file browsing

I would also like to see a custom "information view"... it seems to me that currently, MC is superb when it comes to finding and organising (panes, searches etc) but there's no ideal way to view the metadata. There's track info, but this only works if the file is playing and is no good for videos, naturally. The Tag AW is okay, but it's too many clicks to view extended fields like notes and lyrics etc.

So say I'm browsing a video collection... it would be nice to pull up a template with basic director, actors, synopsis info or whatever custom fields we decide on.

[jmone]

My 2cents - To me MC12 still feels at times very Desktop PC focused with an empahsis on large Audio Library managment.  No probs with that....but my main interest and use of MC is from an HTPC perspective where I want one front end that will give access to my Library, it's associated MetaData, and Play it All....Audio & Video regardless on how it is delivered --> Media Files (HDD), CD, DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming, DTV, FM etc etc.  From that point of view I'm always keen on any improvement to TheaterView, Video Mgt, PVR etc etc:
1) Blu-ray: While not my figures it looks like according to Nielsen, Blu-ray has up to 12% market share in the US compared to DVD (http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?s=&showtopic=50965&view=findpost&p=1117455)...I don't profess to argue what the tipping point for Blu-ray support in MC should be - I just want it (i've got more Blu-ray / HD-DVD disks that DVD!)
2) UPnP / DLNA: MC as a streamer for all media types --> http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46766.0
3) Finish implementing the higher end PVR Stuff including EPG
4) Better Meta Data support & display for other media types (eg Movies)
5) More flexibility in TheaterViews Layout / Customisation (lots of threads on this)

Thanks
Nathan

[glynor]

Matt... That's a rocking list.  Honestly, if we got all that over the next while with one other major thing, I'd be a happy guy.  Especially that more hours in a day thing.   

My other big thing:

• Auto-tagging on import.  Define file/foldername rules (like fill properties from filename) that are applied on a per-folder basis automatically on import.  This would save me countless hours all on it's own.

There are a few other smaller things I'd really like to see though...

• Better podcasting support, including something that can run in the tray or as a service or something that'll do the downloading for us without having the full MC running.  Something easy to schedule and make "just always work".
• Nested "folders" support for podcasts.  Nothing too fancy, just dumb nested folders to make managing a large list of podcasts easier.
• Better prioritization features for podcast downloads, more like what FeedDemon provides...
• Podcasting and general HTPC focused RSS feed reader in Theater view.  Basically, something along the lines of FeedDemon, but with a HTPC friendly 10-foot UI.
• And I'll second a few of the thoughts from the others above... BluRay (it's time), View in Detail page for Theater View, and better/easier/more slick Tag Data "display" methods.
• Dramatically improved web-UI (all AJAXy and awesomelike), with a special "skin" for iPhone/Touch.
• Cough...OSX...Cough (oh, did I say smaller?)
• Bake me cookies when I'm hungry, and provide friendship when I'm lonely (like a Companion Cube only with media and a spatula).

Again though... You covered the vast majority of what I would consider "must have" for the next version or so (EPG, external data sources, movie data sources, iPhone, etc).  Nice to see what's being considered, if nothing else!

[rpalmer68]

I'm another big theater view user, so a lot of my wishes are in that area (and there are several threads on this alone already).

So here's my (partial) wish list (some of these are from above, but I want to throw my vote in too!)

• Auto-tagging on import.  Define file/foldername rules (like fill properties from filename) that are applied on a per-folder basis automatically on import.
• More flexibility in TheaterViews Layout / Customisation
• Blu-ray support.
• EPG Integration, with support for multiple tuners.
• General enhancements to TV viewing and PVR functionality like RayM & Jmone mention, especially the performance degradation when timeshifting has been running for a while (yes I still get it too)... things REALLY do slow down!  Also cleaner channel changing, there is quite a stutter when I change channels.

• Ability to password protect the delete option in Theater View (now that there is an on screen keyboard )
• Add the Locate Album function to Theater View... often I might be playing a random selection and something comes up and I think it would be nice to play the whole album... so a quick easy way to do this from the current playing track woud be great!
• A multi-user database (with access controls) would be great, but a big ask I know!
• Share tuners amongst MC machines, so I can watch TV on a PC that does't have a tuner installed.

Cheers
Richard

[hit_ny]

- Better reporting in grouped views

For now you can only group the top view by two columns.

(a) make a viewscheme say Genre/Album and it tells you how many albums are present /genre using the [track #] to count

(b) make a second viewscheme Genre/Album Score, and it will tell you how many albums within that genre were above a certain album score (say).assume for now album score is a custom field and its value has been calculated manually

What i want is to be able to combine those (two or more viewschemes) into one grouped viewscheme

Genre/Album/Album Score

So 3 columns, genre, followed by number in that genre, and finally the amt in that genre that were above a given score.

For this MC needs to be able to work on the result from viewcheme 1 and then apply the criteria of viewscheme 2 to it, chain the results somehow internally and present them.

This way you can get more meaninful reports in just one viewscheme

With the above method currently, there is a way to get totals & averages, but no way to get percentages of the total.

simple example is
Genre / Album / Share
genre, number of albums in that genre, what percentage does this genre make of the total.


- ability to do mathematical operations in expressions.
this has been requested for a long time, hopefully it makes an appearance.

[Mr ChriZ]

I'd like new lungs.
Oh and some skinning engine polishing. 

[dcwebman]

• Way to type in the Options dialog to search all available options

This would come in handy since there are getting to be so many options.

My list which is mostly improving what's already there to make it better:

• Might this be the MC version that finally has song aliases so I don't have to keep multiple versions of the same song to fill out albums? Yeah, drive space is cheap but removing duplicates would give me more space for more songs!
• YADB now has a decent cover art feature. Time to do the same with lyrics and incorporate Doof's Lyrics Editor into MC.
• When submitting images to Pix01, a playlist is put in to the Pix01 Galleries group. Retrieve the URL after and enter that into the Notes.
• Don't require a Pix01 gallery to be completely uploaded again if only one image or caption changes.
• Whatever else I can't think of right now.  ;)

[Magic_Randy]

Another vote for Blu-ray support.

[Mr ChriZ]

Major Pix01 updates with clever AJAX stuff, make it like Facebook, only nice full res pictures like it is at the moment.

Also one good idea I heard doing the round's was having individual thumbnail sizes as you drill through a view.
This way you could have small thumbs at an artist level and then like great big thumbs at album level.

[Griff]

Theater View \ Images \ Select \ SEND TO 3D VISUAL. PLAYLIST.

Thanks

[skeeterfood]

My List in no particular order (Mostly TheaterView):
* Sidecar files to hold tags of untaggable file types
* A non-TrackInfo based Customizable Playing Now for TheaterView with progress meter and rotated cover art with drop-shadow
* Auto-hiding left-side controls in TheaterView
* More control over TheaterView front-page contents
* Built-in slideshow screensaver for TheaterView based on smartlists
* TheaterView browsing mode with more meta-data per item
* Links to Artist, Album, Genre, .... (customizable?) on TheaterView context menu
* Config option to only show TheaterView context menu at single item level, or when VK_APPS is pressed.  I've got a Menu button on my remote and I know how to use it
* EPG with season pass and recording conflict resolution
* Automatic commercial removal and background recompression to H264
* Basically replace my ReplayTVs so I can stop paying $6.95/month for the EPG and sell my units before no one wants them anymore
* Blue-ray

-John

[leezer3]

Mostly at the moment would be the ability to link an external file (Or web address for that matter) to any other file in the library. Performer MC's current artist info pane would be a perfect place to display this, all it needs is a little user customisation

-Leezer-

[park]

My ideas are moe votes for other people's ideas I think, but here goes:

1. Totally revamp theater view (especially the "views" menu. put all the viewshcemes on the front page and let us choose from there)

2. Sidecar files or a cache for non-taggable files. Mixed with "Auto re-link files", this would be insurance for those of us silly enough to move our files around externally of MC.

3. Totally solve the browsing problem (every new MC starts off with a brilliant new browsing method, like tiles, but doesnt see it through to completion). Lets have an idiot proof way to change sorting, and browse albums (with instant access to songs) visually so that we only ever need to turn to panes for tagging mode.

4. Don't forget about stacks. For photos this is the must have feature, and it still needs a hundred things doing to it.

5. Auto Organise files. Rule based so that media types can be organized in different ways and in different locations.

6. Auto tagging. This would be great. I hate doing a "move/copy fields" ([name] to [album]) for every video file I import into MC. If I could set what the album value should be for all videos on import, that would be half my tagging done for me. Would be great for photos too.

5.  Movie cover art for all movie files, not just ripped DVDs. I'd kill for this feature (what a strange expression).

Most of these requests are for existing features to be polished or extended. My hope for MC13 would be for you guys to aim small and stengthen the core, before branching out in revolutionary ways again in MC14.

Oh and like glynor   I'm soooooo waiting for a mac port, or web client. The good thing about the mac it seems, is that everything connects to quicktime, so anything you can play on your computer should play ok in MC without the need for any configuration. Although I havent figured out how to get the mac to look in a central location for subtitle files.

[ThoBar]

Right now I've nothing new to add, but want to voice my support of almost every requested feature here, especially

• The muli-client write access to the library. - This is extremely important for me as, for example, it would enable my wife and I to manage our own media without having to access the server or gain write-rights over the library. To me this is one of the biggest improvements you could offer in terms of really hammering home a networked media library solution.
• Theater View - Plugins - you never got that doco out... also slickness, general increase in functionality (Shutdown/restart PC, locally installed games menu, etc), customisable RSS feeds would be an awesome start
• Auto-tagging
• Has darichman mentioned a relational DB yet?
• EPG Functionality

[Marty3d]

Play stats!!!
For several years now, I've been wanting stats, like 'Top 10 each week/month/year' or info about 'What did we play at the last party (getting songs played on the date x)', 'Top 5 favorite decades'.

As the current system only stores 'last played' instead of having an own "table" for that kind of information, you can never see this. And the 'What did we play at the last party' only applies if you didn't play any of those songs after the party.

You know, a little bit like last.fm...and the various discussions about relational database stuff

More stats
It would be so cool if you could see stuff like 'Which genres are used the most', 'Which decades have the most songs' etc. On a sidenote, one could build a custom view with a tag cloud for instance (even if tagclouds are soo 2006:)). Perhaps it's just enough being able to show a file count next to the items in the top pane and being able to sort by filecount.

[cncb]

• The muli-client write access to the library. - This is extremely important for me as, for example, it would enable my wife and I to manage our own media without having to access the server or gain write-rights over the library. To me this is one of the biggest improvements you could offer in terms of really hammering home a networked media library solution.

Yes!

I also would like to see photo management improvements like a visual camera image acquisition interface and an improved image view where it is easy to apply keywords, change captions, edit, etc.

[glynor]

Jim -

Sorry to hijack this thread.  Could you split the MPL/XMP discussion off into a new thread to preserve the "wishlist" nature of this thread?

[JimH]

Sorry to hijack this thread.  Could you split the MPL/XMP discussion off into a new thread to preserve the "wishlist" nature of this thread?

It's here.  If anyone finds a stray feature request in it, please copy and paste here.

[leezer3]

This was really a feature request, but the post it was quoting got moved 

The background recompression should be configurable, but with iPod compatible (crappy profile h264 MP4s) presets.  You'll want configurability though for those High-Def recordings.  I'll wanna keep my 720p/1080p stuff in the full resolution.  Some people would rather them be "ready to go" though.

Expanding on the background recompression a little, how about a feature to skip a portion of any file, both in tags/ a right-click dialog? (Probably without recompression, I'd be worried about resolution loss)
Would be useful for little things like skipping credits sequences

-Leezer-

[LonWar]

Good Evening All!

My only request would be to have the ability to see the size of image you have for your cover art. And maybe the ability to filter it, so it would show all art that was no a certain size. 

[glynor]

Going along with the Integrated EPG and TiVo/SageTV/BeyondTV replacement, I thought of some additional things...

• Built-in ability to edit video recordings and export trimmed versions which "auto-update" the existing entry in the library (so you don't have to re-assign tags and all that).  This would be for removing commercials and trimming off extra "gunk" at the beginning and end of the files.  Nothing fancy.  Just an easy way to mark multiple beginning and end points throughout a video, the intervening clips will then be removed when you "apply" the edit.
• Preferably the above would be a lossless edit on MPEG-2 video that doesn't require recompression.
• It'd probably be sweet if this was integrated into the existing media editor.  Getting to it (for audio files too) should be easier though.  A right-click --> Send To --> Media Editor command would be idea.
  
• Support for a Comskip like feature.  Support for actually using the "real" Comskip might be the most ideal method.  These markings should, of course, auto-load into the above-referenced editor (but not be auto-applied because the Comskip isn't perfect).
  
• And getting pretty pie-in-the-sky here but a full featured auto-recompressor feature that supports x264 (including Apple compatible profiles and Hardware Acceleration compatible profiles), XviD/DivX, and WMV codecs, as well as MP4, MKV, WMV, and AVI file containers.  It would be best to include "presets" for things like AppleTV, Xbox, iPod/iPhone, PSP, Windows Media Players, and other similar devices.  However, we should be able to tweak the settings ourselves and create our own profiles (so I could have a general purpose 720p x264 profile with a HQ bitrate setting that'll work pretty well for most HD media, but so Marko can have his own settings for his own situation).
• Ideally, we could set specific recordings (either before or after the recording occurs) to auto-compress on a schedule (so it could run in the middle of the night or something similar), and not require that MC be open all the time to have this work (some sort of "worker" utility that could be scheduled).  So, I could set my daily recordings of "The Daily Show" to automatically compress to take up less space with certain presets (I don't care much about the quality of that show) and then set my upcoming recordings of Dexter to auto-compress to much higher-quality settings (because I do care about that one).  BeyondTV calls this "set" of features ShowSqueeze, but I'm sure if done well, you guys could do SO much better.

[gappie]

my 'wish list'
*better chapter support for for instance mkv files. in my dreams this goes so far that mc reads the chapters before playing (just like it makes thumbnails ) and imports them into the database, which could give the option to start from a choosen chapter. but some basic features would be nice also. 
*a way to get rid of this MOIO feature that messes up the order of lists. for movies, acteurs are listed in how important their role is in a movie, not with what letter there name starts, in images i want the people in the l to r order they are on the image.
*an easy way to get back the data ive putted into mc starting from the file. who are playing on the song, who are the acteurs, etc. in Theater View.
*more sorting options in Theater View

 
gab

[IlPadrino]

Improvements to the 10-foot experience...  theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.

Better management of series information - I record stuff (DVR) but don't have a good way to manage episode information.

[JimH]

Improvements to the 10-foot experience...  theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.

You know, you've said that a couple of times now.

Could you start a new thread with a few details?

[raym]

Could you start a new thread with a few details?

While I cannot speak for IlPadrino, it's fairly obvious that there are loads of great "details" in this thread already and I think the fact that there's so much support for continual Theater View development reflects both how good it is currently but also, with some on-going focus, how it could easily become a "best in class" interface.

[JimH]

Just pointing out that, without any details, a comment like this:

Improvements to the 10-foot experience...  theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.

is not a feature request.

If anyone has old requests pending, use the threads to discuss them, arrive at a very short list of specifics that everyone agrees on, and we'll consider them.

[hit_ny]

Favourites needs to be improved. Mving stuff in there is slow going.

It's remained stubbornly so for four years 

[jgreen]

IMO, the "beadcrumb pane" sort of implies a vertical split view, likely with tabs.  This can make for a fairly intricate GUI.  Any thought to that wild idea of a "floating" Playing Now?

[skeeterfood]

This was really a feature request, but the post it was quoting got moved 
Expanding on the background recompression a little, how about a feature to skip a portion of any file, both in tags/ a right-click dialog? (Probably without recompression, I'd be worried about resolution loss)
Would be useful for little things like skipping credits sequences

-Leezer-

This is the way the ReplayTV devices do it.  They store tags in the file marking where they think the commercials are (usually pretty accurate), then on playback it automatically (if you have the "right" version of the software) skips the commercials if you have commercial advance turned on.  If it gets it wrong it's easy enough to skip backwards, or if it really messed up, turn off the automatic advance and go back to where you were.

-John

[leezer3]

This is hopefully a very minor request, but one which would IMHO have a lot of extremely useful possibilities:
From the right-click menu, could we have the option to add a visual marker to a file?
This would work by appending a small icon (Preferably with the ability to select from a dialog and add custom icons) into the corner of a files thumbnail. Obviously not as useful with text based viewschemes, but could be used for little things like visually indicating where I've got to in a TV series. This can be done to an extent with playlists, but if I'm browsing the library I may not necessarily be watching things in order.
Other uses would be things like marking which files still require tagging after a major import; Basically, the sky's the limit.

Cheers

-Leezer-

[skeeterfood]

I don't think I've seen these:
* Move the horizontal Audio, Images, Video view schemes back to the vertical list where they belong
* Let me rename/get rid of any of them without them auto-returning (add some way to get them back if I get stupid)
* Let me add my own custom top-level view schemes to Theater View
* Let me add a custom icon to each top-level view scheme
* Let me reorder all the top-level tree items (add an option to sort by name)
* "Smart" Date support:
** For example I want to set up a view scheme for Theater View that shows me all photos I've taken this year.  Currently there's no way to do that unless I want to edit the view scheme at the start of each year.  I can do [Date]=<1y, but that just gives me all files within the last 365 days...
** [Date]=<#sw - sw = Smart Week: Within the last # Sunday-Saturday Week(s), not within the last #*7 days
** [Date]=<#sm - sm = Smart Month: Within the last # Month(s)
** [Date]=<#sy - sy = Smart Year: Within the last # Year(s), not the last 365 days

[gappie]

** For example I want to set up a view scheme for Theater View that shows me all photos I've taken this year.  Currently there's no way to do that unless I want to edit the view scheme at the start of each year.  I can do [Date]=<1y, but that just gives me all files within the last 365 days...

i also would like better sorting options for thv. to get this though, make a view scheme with sorting z-a year, and then limit advanced 1,-1,[year]

 
gab

[darichman]

I don't think I've seen these:
* Move the horizontal Audio, Images, Video view schemes back to the vertical list where they belong
* Let me rename/get rid of any of them without them auto-returning (add some way to get them back if I get stupid)
* Let me add my own custom top-level view schemes to Theater View
* Let me add a custom icon to each top-level view scheme
* Let me reorder all the top-level tree items (add an option to sort by name)

I'll add my support for these.

[hit_ny]

From the right-click menu, could we have the option to add a visual marker to a file?

Some time back i'd asked for graphical tags. Instead of txt in the tags, be able to add a custom image. It would show up like those tiny cover art icons but in its own column per line entry.

You could then use this for all sorts of visual or organisational cues.

[skeeterfood]

i also would like better sorting options for Theater View. to get this though, make a view scheme with sorting z-a year, and then limit advanced 1,-1,[year]

Cool!  Thanks for the hack.

So, adding month z-a as a second sort and a second limit advanced 1,-1,[Month] should get the current month.  I'll have to try both of those.

Even easier: Sort Date z-a then limit advanced 1,-1,[Year],[Month] for all files from the most recent Month.   Not necessarily this Month, or even this Year if you don't have any files from then, so it's still not exactly what I'd like...

-John

[jmone]

Just pointing out that, without any details, a comment like this:is not a feature request.

If anyone has old requests pending, use the threads to discuss them, arrive at a very short list of specifics that everyone agrees on, and we'll consider them.

OK - I'd done some TheaterView comparison theads a while ago and since then both MC and competitors have moved on.  There are a couple of good comparison products that can be used to check what features are available in the industry including the open source Team Meda Portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/features.html) from which I've extracted the following features and added my own comments / comparisons with MC for what it is worth!  I'm not saying that these are features I want (I've already listed my wish list above) but these are the sort of things currently being offered:

General
Create your own skins, or choose one of the available skins! - Limited
MediaPortal can easily be extended with extra plugins - No
You decide which keys you want to use for which actions - No
Internal support for several remote control (streamzap, MCE, redeye, winlirc, hauppauge, FireDTV) - Yes
Windowed and fullscreen support - Yes
 
My TV
Supports analog TV, DVB-C, DVB-T, DVB-S and ATSC - TV, DVB-T, ATSC but no DCB-C or DVB-S
HDTV and AC3 support - Yes
Support for multiple tuners - Yes
Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV - Yes but not in native DVR-MS format for DVB
Advanced recording scheduler:- No (can do some limited stuff from StdView)
- Record once
- Record now
- Daily o Weekly
- Weekdays (Mon-Fri)
- Every time a program appears on this TV channel
Timeshifting,Watch, Pause, Rewind, FF, RW Live TV - Yes
Advanced recording management: - No
- Handle conflicts
- Set recording priorities
- Quality settings / recording
- Transcode to WMD, XVID or MPG
- Diskmanagement auto deletes old and/or watched recordings
TVGuide: - No
- Grab DVB-EPG & MHW-EPG directly for DVB
- Supports XMLTV
- Colors for genres
TV Guide search - No
TV Channel grouping - No
Supports over > 10000 channels - Yes / Who Cares!
Auto channel tuning - Yes
Normal OSD (On Screen Display during movies/tv) - Yes
Special ZAP OSD (Shows description of what is playing currently on TV) - No
Support for Teletext - No?
Standby control to put your HTPC sleeping. It will awake when there a recording needs to start - No
 
My Video / MyDVD
Play any movie your PC has a codec for (divx, mpeg, matroska,...) - Yes A++++
All your movies will be stored in MediaPortal's video database - Yes A+++++
View your movies by actors, genres, year, title - Sort Of (you can set up custom view schemes but you have to set them up and manually populate the data)
Sort your movies by actors, genres, year, rating - Sort Of (you can set up custom view schemes but you have to set them up and manually populate the data)
Automatically retrieves video art & info from IMDB - No
Stacking/unstacking if your movie consists of multiple files - No
Internal DVD player with menu's (you can also use an external DVD player) - Yes
On Screen Display (OSD) for: Pause, Rewind, FastForward, Stop, Mute, Bookmarks, Switching Audio Streams/Subtitle languages... - Yes
Resume from playback on next play - Yes
 
My Pictures  - Not really used MC T'Veiw to much for these...
Watch your pictures/photos - Yes
Slideshow support with nice transitions - Yes
Zoom in/out, rotate pictures (rotation is remembered next time) - ?
Pause, previous/next picture - Yes
Delete picture(s) - ?
Background music, either songs from my music, or radio from my radio - Yes
Auto thumbnail generation - Yes
Sort in Name, Date, Size - Yes
View in List, Icon or Big Icon display - Yes
Ken Burns effect slideshow - ?
Filmstrip view - ?
 
My Music
View your music by artists, albums, genres, top100 or plain songs - Yes A+++ (setup via StdView
Sort your music in many ways like tracks, genre, filesize, artists, album,... - Yes A+++ (setup via StdView)
Use visualisations from Windows ?Media Player 10 - ? but has own Viz
Load, create & save playlists (.m3u, .pls, .b4u) - Yes
Automaticlly gets album art & info for all your albums - Yes
Automaticlly gets artist art & info for all your artists - Yes
View by list, icons, and big icons - Yes
Shuffle, repeat, FF, RW, pause,... - Yes
Music ratings - Yes
Favorites - Yes
Party shuffle mode - Yes
Search music for specific songs - Yes
Display all your favorite songs in one screen - Yes
Utilize Winamp, Foobar or iTunes plugins for music playback - ? not sure why you would want to
 
My Radio - No
Listen to your favorite radio stations (FM, DVB or internet stream)
Auto tuning (FM)
Logo's for each radio station (manual process)
Supply a friendly name for each radio station
Internet radio station streaming (ASX or Shoutcast)
Support for external radio tuner applications
Auto start listening to your selected radio station when MediaPortal starts
 
 
My weather
Show the latest weather information - Yes
Support for multiple cities - Not really - but you can change it
Current temperature, 3 Day Forecast - Yes
Temperature (in degrees C/F) - Yes
UV Index, Humity (%), Wind (mph/kph), etc - Yes
Support for live images from internet, like: - No
- Satellite images
- Temperature images
- UV Index images
- Winds images
- Humidity images
- Precipitation images
 
More features!
Launching external programs like: - Can Add Button
- Games
- Emulators
- Email application
- Internet Browser
- IRC client
Burner let's you burn all type of files and folders directly to CD-DVD from within the MediaPortal interface - No
Showing RSS news feeds - Yes
Read and send mail within MediaPortal - No
Monitor computer hardware: - No
- CPU temperature
- Motherboard Temperature
- Hard disk Temperature
- Used Memory
- Used Virtual Memory
Allow the PC automatically go to standby/hibernation and wakes it when there is a scheduled recording! Just like a real VCR! - No
Has different alarm features - No
You can even play included games like Tetris or Sudoku! - No
This only a small list of plugins & features that MediaPortal offers. - No Plugins

I've not really played with MS MediaCenter but one thing I see is that Blu-ray / HD-DVD Support is being provided via a plug-in from the likes of ArcSoft's Total Media Theater.
Thanks
Nathan

[glynor]

Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV - Yes but not in native DVR-MS format for DVB

I'd really prefer that they be stored in MPG file containers for MPEG-2 recordings, or some other format other than the stupid broken DVR-MS container (which is really just a fancy and somewhat broken to support DRM MPG container).

Just noting that there is nothing "native" or "standard" about the DVR-MS format.  It's just the stupid format Microsoft invented for Windows MCE.

[ThoBar]

A couple of things I didnt notice as previously mentioned...

• Improved OSD - more menu/heirachical based - semi transparent
• Better support for multiple tuners (PIP, Side by side)
• Streaming of TV (or anything else) to/from other computers - with remote channel change and timeshifting capabilities
• The ability to be locked to Theater View - Wife/Kid/Drunk proof
• Smart support for multiple monitors - eg, where -- see below a HTPC case has a touch screen and also a TV attached

"a HTPC case has a touch screen and also a TV attached "....
1. Disable the HTPC screen when playing a movie etc
2. Automatically set the 'primary' screen for Theater View to the TV when the TV is on, and the remote is being used
3. Automatically set the 'primary' screen for Theater View to the HTPC when the TV is off (enables music selection etc without having to turn on the TV)
4. Other smart uses of this ides that I cant remember or havent thought of

[ThoBar]

I know the Audio/Images/Video presentation and custom top-level view schemes have been mentioned, but I'd also like to see the Tree in general cleaned up and re-organised a bit. Having to dig into drives and devices to get to TV seems a bit odd, when it's a primary function of a media centre (yes Theater View is the better way to get to it in most cases, I admit). Ultimately, a fully customisable tree would be the aim - let ME define what I want quick access to, and what can be buried 2 levels deep.

Also, direct access to drives and devices in Theater View! I hate having to bomb out of Theater View on the HTPC because I want to view some photos on an camera or SD card.

[JimH]

jmone,
I split your post to a new thread here.

[gappie]

one feature i would really like is the possebility to make smartlists based on the current playing track. it could be an easy way to get to other songs from the same artist, or songs with the same name, or just the whole album where the current track comes from.

two other small things for theaterview:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45280.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45827.0

 
gab

[rpalmer68]

I was using my friends DVD/HDD recorder the other day and realised how easy it was to transfer recorded TV shows to DVD, so....

I'd like to see MC13 given the ability to be able to burn recorded video files to a DVD (with menus) AND from Theater View.

Richard

[raym]

I was using my friends DVD/HDD recorder the other day and realised how easy it was to transfer recorded TV shows to DVD, so....

I'd like to see MC13 given the ability to be able to burn recorded video files to a DVD (with menus) AND from Theater View.

Richard

+1

This one's on my list too. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47572.msg326111#msg326111

It's one of those things I get asked about all the time. The last time I suggested this feature (over a year and a half ago now) there was a lot of support for it: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38191.msg259709#msg259709

And now with basic tagging available from Theater View, some of the problems highlighted in that thread go away :-)

[ThoBar]

• More complete support for .mka files (chapters, tagging, internal images, attachments)
• OSD based quick TV channel selection - I may be missing something here, but at the moment trying to move 10 channels is a slow, tedious and frustrating business)

[bspachman]

- AAC tagging... m4a, m4b, m4p, etc. etc.... Please let us dump iTunes!

brad