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[JimH]

Regarding Leezer's points...
1. Theatre view must be opened up for third party plugins. This is imperative. I agree that it will likely attract customers. Hopefully vendors too... I have a Xonar soundcard that comes with an MCE plugin, I'd love for it to be able to work under MC as well (even via an MCE plugin wrapper)

Theater View supports plug-ins now.  That's how Weather and News work.  It needs documentation.

[raym]

Confishy's argument is bang on.

Release the doco and allow 3rd parties to help extend Theater View. This is the thing that exposes products like Media Portal and XBMC to the wider community. With a base product as good as Theater View, you're all set to take this thing to the next level!

Plugins aside, I hope MC 14 can look at "completing" as well as "extending" Theater View:
- The info panel
- More comprehensive skinning capabilities
- Playing Now - still not what most may consider a "playing now" view

There's more but enough for now.

[JimH]

- The info panel

This will happen early in the MC14 cycle.

- More comprehensive skinning capabilities

Could you explain?

- Playing Now - still not what most may consider a "playing now" view

Any details?  How many soldiers are there in this "most" platoon?

[raym]

Re the skinning thing. Check the boards. There's many topics on this. Try this for starters:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51984.0

Re Playing Now, I say this a lot but look at other HTPC front-ends for inspiration if you don't know what I mean. I'm talking about:
-playback counters (time elapsed/remaining)
-playback indicators (play/pause/etc)
-date and time
-a PIP window that updates on playback automatically
-rather than trying to squash vizualisations etc into the small PIP, perhaps allow coverart to show instead eg, like the "show coverart when small" standard view feature

Cheers.

[skeeterfood]

What raym said plus..

1)  In list mode make the currently playing song always in the same place, preferably the middle of the screen, and MUCH LARGER than the rest.  The point of playing now is to see what's playing now and it's just not very good for this at the moment.

2) It also needs support for re-ordering the list.  I constantly end up dropping out of Theater View to tweak things with my wireless keyboard and mouse.

-John

[park]

I hear that youtube has a "Theater view" function (or api?). It'd be cool if someone could bring that to MC's theater view as a plugin. Would also show off the potential of MC's extensibility.

[bennyd]

Re the skinning thing. Check the boards. There's many topics on this. Try this for starters:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51984.0

Re Playing Now, I say this a lot but look at other HTPC front-ends for inspiration if you don't know what I mean. I'm talking about:
-playback counters (time elapsed/remaining)
-playback indicators (play/pause/etc)
-date and time
-a PIP window that updates on playback automatically
-rather than trying to squash vizualisations etc into the small PIP, perhaps allow coverart to show instead eg, like the "show coverart when small" standard view feature

Cheers.

+1

[raym]

2) It also needs support for re-ordering the list.  I constantly end up dropping out of Theater View to tweak things with my wireless keyboard and mouse.

-John

Oh, great point! This is a pet hate of mine too. Little up/down arrows on the (left?) side of each list item could work for this ala MS Media Center.

[Daydream]

I'd like to pick up on this topic and push it in a practical direction. There's a lot of "I wish/I want/shouldn't that be there" ideas, but I'd like to focus on the down and dirty details. My question to JRiver is what would be most useful at this point:

1) Start with what we have and take Obsidian apart and point what elements should change (entirely, their position, their logic, etc), with screenshots and markers; these ideas should point towards changes that are helpful in any situation, for skinning/adding elements (plugins,etc) to the Theater View

or

2) Diagrams & mock-ups of various attempts to completely redesign the interface (I imagine if somebody doesn't have something in store already, this will take longer)

At any rate I'd like to know what's with the current 3D approach. Is this running on D3D software?

[Matt]

I'd like to pick up on this topic and push it in a practical direction. There's a lot of "I wish/I want/shouldn't that be there" ideas, but I'd like to focus on the down and dirty details. My question to JRiver is what would be most useful at this point:

1) Start with what we have and take Obsidian apart and point what elements should change (entirely, their position, their logic, etc), with screenshots and markers; these ideas should point towards changes that are helpful in any situation, for skinning/adding elements (plugins,etc) to the Theater View

or

2) Diagrams & mock-ups of various attempts to completely redesign the interface (I imagine if somebody doesn't have something in store already, this will take longer)

At any rate I'd like to know what's with the current 3D approach. Is this running on D3D software?

A lot of work has gone into the current Theater View.  It works fairly well with a mouse, remote, touchscreen, and keyboard.  The rendering technology (3D engine) behind it is solid.  It does pretty well in new user tests.

There is still lots of room for improvement, but for all the reasons listed above changes will be evolutionary not revolutionary.

Specific ideas or skin improvements that build on what is already there are the most helpful and most likely to get implemented.

Two things that personally interest me from the visuals side are an increased usage of 3D perspectives (like the easter-egg Showroom feature) and the addition of slicker animated backgrounds.  I also liked the playing of movies in the background feature we played with.

[Daydream]

Matt, I definitely see your point. I wouldn't want any of the core logic to be changed. Where I'm coming from is pretty much skinning with a central attention on anything video. If certain things can be accommodated, good, if not... I foresee some interesting discussions ahead and a long list of "how about this" and will see how it works. I appreciate that you guys opened up the MC14 discussion about Theater View (and other subjects) so early.

My question about 3D was a kind of a second topic in my head. I couldn't see any GPU use while running Showroom or the likes, so I assumed everything is CPU. Therefore no pixel shaders and... a stop to a series of crazy ideas. I don't have an opinion on this whole 3D thing, I just remember that I didn't like all my strategy and city-building games to suddenly become 3D.

[Daydream]

Could you explain?

Everything that follows is aimed mainly at Theater View while watching movies, Obsidian skin. For Series, all other types of contents, and xml structure I have other comments.

- every section - [Audio], [Images], [Video], [Television], etc - should have its own individual settings (from background to all the other things on every page; keep everything together to actually look like a skin is the designer job)
- fonts should be custom choices, for every element that a font pertains to (so different fonts can be set for rollers, for titles, for displaying metadata)
- top rollers should have settings regarding position and height and - maybe - a zone that defines the spaces that they...well, roll in, in order to keep the corners free, so maybe we can put there other details (clock?)
- navigating thumbnails (where do I start?):
   - the number of rows and columns should be a custom setting (with the current behavior as the automatic choice if no custom specified)
   - consistency - there are some settings that are not really well documented, which provide a nice effect, but are not really known (I guess); and not working right. Select a movie (normal thumbnail view). You have the thumbnail, the title text, the rectangle selection and a slight difference in transparency that highlights the selection. You can also have a special "background" under the thumbnail and text, for the selected element. But when you move, that thing jumps while the selection rectangle moves smoothly across. It should fade.
   - per the second suggestion above, we should be able to choose the font used for titles.
   - very dear to me - transparent thumbnails, that is PNG thumbnails. You already use PNG for certain elements of a skin. It has to be largely allowed if we are to go anywhere with a nice skin. I know some implications of this request but not all.
   - distance between thumbnails (coupled with the idea of customizing the no. of rows and columns) should be a custom setting
   - certain other kinds of distances should be more detailed, not just bundled together as skin overscan and zoom (is there the space between the scroller bar at the right and the right margin same as the selection rectangle on my left most thumbnail and the left margin? Thank kinda thing, don't judge my example I know it's extremely picky)

Regarding the... whatever-it-is-called-page that appears when you select a movie. Small thumb at the left corner, big cover on the right, the rest is empty. Unless there is a secret purpose for this, it should go. It makes more sense to me that when one selects a movie the next screen shows all the data about that movie (just arranged differently than now), with the active selection on the "play" button. No 2/3 of the screen empty, no repeated clicks to display details. Now it's [select movie] - [click to display details] - [click to start play]. Too many steps, not much info presented.

Regarding the details (metadata) displayed for a movie. Displaying those fields should allow for:
   - custom field choices
   - in custom positions (if I have to scroll the keywords to get to description, no good, I'll ditch keywords entirely. Just an example).
   - and they should have settings in order to determine the fonts, the background... and a couple of other things that it'll come to me if I draw a mock-up for this
   - since for this screen the second roller from atop has been put in the right middle part of the screen, I can't help but ask to be able to place it anywhere, everywhere.

If the movie plays and I stop it, I returned to a screen that's not the one above (at least the perceived view) and it's not "Playing now". For the cover of the movie I have a screenshot of the last played frame. Instead of three different screens (the one described above, the let's say "Pause" screen, and the "Playing now"), can we have only one and less headaches? If we don't then my points described above would apply to each of them.

I'm just getting warmed up. I'll write more specifics as I have time. Let me know if screenshots for anything I described are required.
   

[darichman]

Everything that follows...

I like the sound of pretty much everything Daydream has said...
Even if not all of this can be done from the program interface itself, open it up to skin-makers and we should be able to have everything we want.
(I look forward to your mock-ups, Daydream )

I am also interested in how to best deal with series here... I'm having trouble visualising anything that can't cope with multiple-level thumbnails though (Series, Season, Episode)...

[Daydream]

I am also interested in how to best deal with series here... I'm having trouble visualising anything that can't cope with multiple-level thumbnails though (Series, Season, Episode)...

Don't start me cause it's almost 2AM here and I may be making crazy connections, and crazy requests... Modify stack behavior, assign separate metadata to stacks, be able to stack stacks... Want more?

Keeping it real, the problems are at least 2: navigating and displaying metadata. Series have descriptions, episodes have descriptions, and I'm not ready to say that I haven't seen seasons with descriptions. We'll see...

[Messiahs]

great news !!!
Will it possible to include a plugin in a screen (like playing now) ?

[MrHaugen]

Just wanted to add this here as well (sorry if it's a bit misplaced):

Finishing the development of Theater View for Movies and Series should be a priority. MC have been Audio centric for many years. Something have to be done to attract the video and series wathcers as well.
There should be a possibility of different views for Music and Video/Series. Video and Series view should contain reviews/plot, year, genre, actors, rating, seasons, episodes, how many watched.

Filters for Watched/not watched should be in place, filter on year and genre as well and athe possibility of a combination of this.

All of this could be possible today, with some good skin design I believe. Only thing that have to be added is the possibility of changing the stack of thumbnails for a Series/Show and replace it with one single Series/Show artwork. The same can then be applied for music so you get Artist art for each artist. This would be amazing, and it's something that have been asked for year after year. That way it would be possible with all those gorgeous backgrounds whn selecting a series or an artist in Theater View.

With a possibility of getting a kick in the groin by Jim, I have to point out Mediastream skin as a skin the developers should be aiming at. Not copying, but borrowing a few ideas. It's simple, clean and drop dead gorgeous.

3. To make all the Video/Series info look good, you also have to have a database for this. Build out you're YADB to support Videos AND Series, and things will pop in fast from for instance the My Movie (was it the correct name?) import that is used today. Or alternatively find an open database with good quality and let MC users use that.

Series/movies update:
TV Series could be updated with info from the database if the directory and filenames added had certain criterias like: directory(series name)\Season\a.name.s1e10.xxxxx. The database could easily filter away the dot's and thereby get the name, the series name and season from the directory. Control the season with the filenames and finally write the episode number from the filename. This would simplify alot of the work done today. Similar things with dot removal etc. could be done with movies as well.

[Daydream]

The one thing I disliked about the "alternatives" is their navigational model. I like the 2 level rollers style in MC better. It exposes more fields, hierarchy and general navigation better. Plus it's very easy to configure what it's showing. I would keep it central to any kind of skin in MC.

My main desire is to create a skin that will belong to MC alone and it would be better than what you see in the 10-foot interface field right now. MC should  look different and if at all possible betterrrr . Sure those guys over there have a slight advantage, they've been developing skins - and skins alone - for 2 years to get where they are now. If I'd be to comment on MediaStream and the likes, I'll say forget the graphics, keep an eye on their XML. Shiny graphics we can produce at will. But there's 1MB of XML files for each skin. We're talking about a different level of customization and granularity.

[MrHaugen]

The one thing I disliked about the "alternatives" is their navigational model. I like the 2 level rollers style in MC better. It exposes more fields, hierarchy and general navigation better. Plus it's very easy to configure what it's showing. I would keep it central to any kind of skin in MC.

My main desire is to create a skin that will belong to MC alone and it would be better than what you see in the 10-foot interface field right now. MC should  look different and if at all possible betterrrr . Sure those guys over there have a slight advantage, they've been developing skins - and skins alone - for 2 years to get where they are now. If I'd be to comment on MediaStream and the likes, I'll say forget the graphics, keep an eye on their XML. Shiny graphics we can produce at will. But there's 1MB of XML files for each skin. We're talking about a different level of customization and granularity.

I totally agree. The important thing is to get the basics working and showing the correct and relevant information. The example was just for that as well. But you can't forget about the visual aspect either. A LOT of people are turned on by stunning graphics. Me included. Some actually prefer beauty over functionality.

[JONCAT]

What happened to auto-scrolling? This was awesome when using my Gyration in-air remote. That felt veru intuitive.

DC

[flac.rules]

I totally agree. The important thing is to get the basics working and showing the correct and relevant information. The example was just for that as well. But you can't forget about the visual aspect either. A LOT of people are turned on by stunning graphics. Me included. Some actually prefer beauty over functionality.

Yeah, I guess i shouldn't be saying this, but eye-candy really is something that makes this kind of software a lot better, even if it adds no functionality. I love those slick nice skins.

[gappie]

i have some wishes for Theater View, but most of them are, i think, just polishing.

Theater View supports plug-ins now.  That's how Weather and News work.  It needs documentation.

i understood from matt that it is a lot of work to add items to news, news stations for all the other nations outside the usa and england.  
would it not be an idea that news get a form in which it would be easy to add and remove news stations. so that the people who want to, me for instance, can try to add a station (nu.nl in my case, dutch, and nu.de, german). i understood that the news plugin is written in C++. so maybe a example like how the bbc 'station' is programmed could get some of us on the way. the end result could be a bit like the language files. different stations for the people who want it, and the users can actively add..

 
gab

[MrHaugen]

We have seen, and are promised new improvements and new functions like remote control and multiple server tag writes, and those things are good. Don't get me wrong. I really hope the Theater View enhancements and polishing is not forgotten though. There are a few things here that have to be done to be able to compete with other products.

What I'm thinking about is:
- Finishing the info pane view. Customization of what's shown (or just a GOOD standard) and preferably making details show on every thumbnail switching
- Possibly a own series and movies full screen view, with a small line of movie/series thumbnails
- Database for Movie and Series support with most common tags for easy updates/tagging
- Series/Artist Cover art for great Theater View browsing and looks

I believe this things would attract new costumers as well as making more and more of today's users use MC for video as well as music.