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[rick.ca]

I suspect this was central to a very lengthy debate at the time the "new" Theater View was introduced to MC 13. This is not a feature request or an attempt to reopen that debate. It's more like a question: Am I missing something? In Standard View, I almost exclusively use pane views (i.e., I "view as" "panes and details"). I wonder if this has created a mindset that prevents me from seeing the best way to set up and use views in Theater View.

Theater View navigation is based on a hierarchical model. I can specify as many categories as I want, but I'll then have to navigate through all of them, in order, whenever I make a selection. This seems to work fine using two or three categories, but then becomes very tedious. It's really annoying if I navigate through six categories (making selections, or not), and then decide I want a different setting for the first or second one. It's like having to start all over again. It makes me wonder why it can't behave more like panes in Standard View—perhaps being able to use the roller to navigate directly to any category, make a change in selection, and jump back the results list.

I can see (rather vaguely) how I might get behaviour partly similar to what I want by creating a comprehensive set of nested views. These views would appear on the roller, providing the means to "jump" to a new view which might be a better "starting point" for a the next selection I want to make. But that seems to be a lot of work and added complexity for something that needs to be straightforward and flexible. Nested views are great for providing a different set of views for different media sub-types, I don't think they were intended for this purpose.

So... What am I missing? What are best practises for configuring Theater View?

[Shiraz]

I'm so with you on this...

hoping to hear back from some Theatre View junkies...

[rick.ca]

You mean you didn't hear enough in Theater View Info Panel? 

[JimH]

I can see (rather vaguely) how I might get behaviour partly similar to what I want by creating a comprehensive set of nested views. These views would appear on the roller, providing the means to "jump" to a new view which might be a better "starting point" for a the next selection I want to make.

I think that's your best bet.  The recent customization capabilities in MC14 allow you to have as many or as few top-level choices as you want.

[gappie]

hoping to hear back from some Theatre View junkies...

check out the new categorie feature, categories. this makes things easier when navigating from the root. make for instance a categorie videos, and put under that films, series, documentries, home video, music.
now when you put under films some nests like genre, actors, director, etc

 
gab

[rick.ca]

I think that's your best bet.  The recent customization capabilities in MC14 allow you to have as many or as few top-level choices as you want.

And I appreciate that as an enhancement to hierarchical navigation. But no matter how you dress it up, hierarchical navigation is still hierarchical navigation. It has it's place in a 10-foot interface where simplicity is critical. It's perfectly appropriate for handling a simple (i.e., not too many levels) organizational structure, especially when different media types require different views. Pushed beyond that, it becomes confusing, slow and frustrating.

To use this approach, I would have to first create a set of nested items that would provide a straightforward navigation to the types of selections I'm most likely to need. I'm the obsessive type of person that likes doing that sort of thing—but not in this case. Why? Because I know from experience it will just cause me more pain and frustration. Even if well designed, it still forces me to decide where I want to go and how to get there (or, at least, think about that as I navigate the nested items). That's an annoying distraction if all I'm thinking is I need to select from a particular category—and that category happens to be three levels down. This wouldn't be necessary if categories could be selected randomly instead of sequentially. If I then decide I need to modify my selection, I have to backtrack to the category I want to change, undoing any selections along the way. This wouldn't be necessary if categories could be selected randomly, and selections would "stick."

The hierarchical organization model works well in Standard View for the same reason it works in a good file manager—you can see where you're going and where you've been. If you're not sure where you're going, it provides step-by-step choices for navigating there. If you do, however, you can jump directly there. Once there, you can jump back to any point on the path. And the whole time, the current results are displayed. Theater View, however, provides only a "blind" sequential navigation. It needs more. I think some good ideas came out of the Theater View Info Panel discussion.

[Daydream]

check out the new categorie feature, categories. this makes things easier when navigating from the root. make for instance a categorie videos, and put under that films, series, documentries, home video, music.
now when you put under films some nests like genre, actors, director, etc

Right. And after the 4th level down there'll a blinking message saying "It takes too long to find what you want. Go read a book!"  

[gappie]

Right. And after the 4th level down there'll a blinking message saying "It takes too long to find what you want. Go read a book!"  

if you get that message i guess its time to reorganize your library a bit and learn about the tools at hand (4th level in cats  ? )

[Daydream]

if you get that message i guess its time to reorganize your library a bit and learn about the tools at hand (4th level in cats  ? )

I'm afraid I do know them like the back of my hand

The problem is simple. MC, as opposed to other MC, allows great access to its database, by the means of Panes in Standard view so you can filter by any number of fields, or, for the more experienced users, by the means of expressions and panes and other combined tricks.

Moving to Theater View I can see 2 things:
1) the navigation (via rollers) in MC is much better than other MC apps I tried, definitely more flexible.
2) we're losing the power of database access since pretty much we're force-shaping it into a classic navigational behavior, which, as flexible as it is, will still make everything a maze.

I have to admit that I'm using the keyboard a lot when in Theater view since I'm working on the PC, testing, etc. However for the same testing purposes I switched the last weekend to heavy navigation with a remote (Logitech 890) and with my iTouch transformed into an AirMouse. Luckily I deem these devices together with my TV rather expensive because after 30 minutes of testing I was about to throw them at the TV screen, after an unbelievable no. of clicks, taps,etc to go from here to there.

This is not Tivo to press "Now Playing", pick your show, press Play, go. It gets kind of like 15 times more complex, since, guess what, we have the database, which we are pretty much accustom to work with.

[rick.ca]

if you get that message i guess its time to reorganize your library a bit and learn about the tools at hand...

I get that message all the time. My library couldn't possibly be more organized. And it includes a lot of highly consistent and complete meta data available for selecting movies (or for browsing and studying the information). So what tools am I missing? Like Daydream, I'm already using advanced meditation techniques to avoid turning my remote into a missile.

[imugli]

I think this is one of those questions / debates / discussions that will go on until the end of time - and I think that's a good thing because it means people are sharing the ways in which they use MC.

To answer your question, I don't think you're missing anything.

To me, Theater View SHOULDN'T be as configurable as standard view.

To me, Theater View is what my wife needs to be able to use. It's the "WOW, that's cool!" from the guests when they come over. Standard View is what I use when I'm being, as my wife would say, boring and pedantic (closely followed by the question "How can you sit in front of that thing for so long?").

My wife and guests don't need (or want) the ability to scroll through endless nested list options. They want to press 'Listen to Music' on the remote and be presented with a view of albums. They want to press 'Watch a Movie' and be presented with a view of DVDs, or TV Show episodes, or Home Movies. 

To this end, Theater View performs that function to a tea for me.

MC's BIG advantage over other MC software IMO is the fact that we have the best of both world's - The ability to enter infinite information about each piece of media and sort and organise by that (in Std View) AND the pretty front end that allows everyday, non technical people to use it.

[Daydream]

Very well. Can I have the "not married" version of MC?  

As it happens I'm pouring metadata into MC from 3 combined sources which results in an appreciable number of custom fields and a serious amount of data for some (you could read the Trivia field for 15 min, for some). I can't display it properly, I can't navigate fast enough.

If I build a collection for other people I'll make sure to sell it to them, the whole thing, so they can enjoy it. As it happens this one is for me.

To me, Theater View SHOULDN'T be as configurable as standard view.

I agree, I said something almost identical in Theater View Info Panel but I guess we see it differently when it comes to the middle of the road approach.

[rick.ca]

To answer your question, I don't think you're missing anything.

That's a relief!

To me, Theater View SHOULDN'T be as configurable as standard view.

I agree, but configure-ability and ease-of-use are not mutually exclusive. Pressing a few buttons to get to a list of 700 movies is not very helpful. Watching me navigate through one category at a time to narrow the selection invokes, "WOW, what a geek!" from my guests.

Most people, regardless of their affinity to such technology, are not stupid and readily understand the concept of selecting something from a large collection—based on whatever criteria is important to them. And the less they understand about the technology, the more demanding they can be... "How do I find a highly-rated Humphrey Bogart movie? No, I don't want to select the genre and year first. I might select a genre, but only after I've seen the full list. Why is this so difficult?!" Indeed. The problem is that it's not simple enough.

Very well. Can I have the "not married" version of MC? 

+1. Or at least the option of sounding an alarm and shutting down when a series of illogical key presses are detected.

As it happens I'm pouring metadata into MC from 3 combined sources which results in an appreciable number of custom fields and a serious amount of data for some (you could read the Trivia field for 15 min, for some). I can't display it properly, I can't navigate fast enough.

Ditto. Except for the Trivia field. I think I need that too. What are you putting there?

[Daydream]

Ditto. Except for the Trivia field. I think I need that too. What are you putting there?

IMDB Trivia (using some third-party apps, some paid software, as scrappers). In some cases (movies, not series) it's extensive. I need it because is like something new for a movie you own or seen already. It just adds more fun.

[MrHaugen]

This is almost an identical discussion as the Theater View Info panel discussion. Though we got a bit of topic on that one.

What would solve this problems you guys are having is:

1. Leave the friggin Views and Categories alone. Make a few views that groups you're media in a rough way. That's what they are for, and it have to be there. Allways. No other programs do it any other way as I know of. If you're to grannulat you WILL have problems a lot of levels.
2. When the number of media is to much, like viewing info from 400 movies; then we need an alternative way of narrowing down the amount of media displayed. I call it a filter. A way of breaking down the media into small pieces depening on genre, year, last watched, actor etc.

I really can't see any other way. Not even after reading all of Ricks.ca's 19 000 lines of explanation in the other post.

[rick.ca]

I really can't see any other way. Not even after reading all of Ricks.ca's 19 000 lines of explanation in the other post.

I'm sorry. Once I realized you couldn't see any other way and couldn't read, I got a little carried away.

[MrHaugen]

If you don't like the hierarchical way of navigating then surely you have another suggestion?
I have never ever seen any media applications use anything but this system. It waries a bit. PS3 uses a x and y axis approach, wich is nonsense when you have a lot of media imo. Other media center applications I've used are using mostly categories, and you have to go in and out of the menus to get to where you want. If you have a revolutionary suggestion of how to navigate through thousands and thousands of files without using this standard approach, I'd be most interessted to hear you out. If you don't have anything to bring to the tabel then just let it be. That's all I'm saying.

[rick.ca]

If you don't have anything to bring to the tabel then just let it be. That's all I'm saying.

It is on the table. You just refuse to consider it. You might ask yourself why it is Daydream and I start with apparently divergent views, have a discussion about them, and conclude the conversation having identified some common ground. We might have even benefited from considering each other's views. Don't tell me I'm talk too much and I refuse to put my views on the table. That's all I'm saying.

[MrHaugen]

There was some pane ideas at the beginning, but it was rather vague. How is it supposed to be done withouth overwhelming people with several columns with data? And how is this supposed to work with a non HD TV, far away?

What I'm thinking is: If you want pane navigation and all the data represented in one view, why don't you use normal view? Would it really be that different if you get the same functionality?

[Daydream]

If you don't like the hierarchical way of navigating then surely you have another suggestion?
I have never ever seen any media applications use anything but this system.

This is a valid argument just as much as it is invalid. Just because everybody went for the same idea (which might be very good BTW) doesn't mean it is the only one and we shouldn't explore further.

What I'm thinking is: If you want pane navigation and all the data represented in one view, why don't you use normal view?

Hehe. This will be a neverending topic. The other MC apps don't expose their databases. Creating a custom field and filtering by it would be unheard of. With MC we are inherently conditioned to want it and use the database. It looks like the number of features permutations we can think of related to the database is about to exceed the flexibility of the Theater View interface (which is pretty flexible btw, much more than other MC apps). So I'd be glad if we can bring in only some core functionality without throwing in the whole kitchen sink of Standard view. It may be a combination of present and new features, it may be something totally new and shocking, it may be that JRiver will keep a status quo on the current interface and not implement anything that we are suggesting.

Rick and me we described a couple of possibilities. They just add (we hope with some finite practicality) to the big discussion/controversy of Theater view, which is a subject very easy to pound at.

[MrHaugen]

It's just hard to imagine any other way than a hierarcial and category based navigation in theater view. I've thought of it a lot, but I still don't have anything.
I do belive that static views and dynamic filtering would bring us really close to a great way of navigating media in theater View.
Let's hope they can come up with something after the Theater View has been polished