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Where We're Going Next

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MrHaugen:
It's an ok list. I do however think you've missed a couple of very important things. Please do not forget the real user based database system that have been discussed for a long time. That is needed when you first start to use server and clients. And more and more users use MC in multi client/user setups.
I'm also somewhat shocked that you have not even thought of the shape of Theater View. I'm not saying that it's awful today, but if we are to attract new users and keep old ones who are getting tired of looking at the competitors leaving us in dust, then we need to do something rather drastic there. This and the metadata issue is the ONLY two major things that is making all those XBMC users stay with their beloved Media Center, and not joining our club.

When it comes to Theater View, we have two main directions of dealing with this problem. One is to enable Theater View to be totally skinnable, and to make it rather easy for the power users to make beautiful and functional skins. The other option is to keep it as is, and just focus on a better default Theater View experience. A combination of this would be the best of course.


Skinning friendly focus
What have helped communities and apps like XBMC, is that their interface is very customizable. This is one of the biggest downsides of MC, and it's one of the reason why we do not have many skins that really appeal to those people who likes functionality AND beauty while they look at their TV. I've not looked much into skinning my self, because I've gotten the impression that this is not very well supported, and I'm lousy with that XML language or what you call it. So, please correct me if I'm out of line here.

I think we need more focus on:
- Better documentation of skinning?
- Better support for module skinning. Every part of MC Theater View have to be programmable. Move them where we want, increase/decrease size, change textures, colors etc.
- Most of the items should be linked in a matter that makes it possible to remove or add things to different places
- All this in a well structured code, so most skinners don't get lost.

Better Image support
Before I get into the Theater View rewamp, I have to express the need of better image support for media. We have artist images now, so I see no reason why we could not get Series art and Season art (episode would just be standard folder.jpg). We also need support for Series banners and backdrops. What needs to be done in addition is a standard way of treating the Series image as a image for all seasons/episodes and the season art to be treated as one image for each season episode. Relational fields should be the key, and to research where this mainstream Media Centers stores this files. Theater View would get a serious face lift on it's own.

Theater View rewamp
Even if you do something about skinning, there should be a Theater View default that behaves somewhat differently than today, and looks differently. If you ever want to be competitive for all those users that users MC from the couch that is. This is a way to big field to just throw out in such a thread. I'll give you much more here in a different thread if you're interested.


Question to JRiver
I've been thinking about this subject for years. I've tried lots of other media centers, seen a lot of screen shots of what can be done. I've made basic illustrations for my self and starting taking notes of what have to be done. In fact, I think I have a complete Theater View setup in my head that I think would work VERY well with a remote, mouse and touch screen input. It would be a LOT nicer looking, be more intuitive, have lots of WAF and it would support all of todays needs with images, backgrounds, different view types and list types etc. It would NOT prevent our power users to do amazing things either. It would also be completely supported by what we already have today, with the exception of the images and banners mentioned above. As I said, the skinning part does not HAVE to be done this round. But it would be good for the community and progress of skinning.

My question: Would you like me to write all of this down and to make some real illustrations? As a suggestion for a solution, that is yours to do what ever you want with. It would take days to complete, and I'm not about to do this huge job unless you are considering this part of MC to be important, that you see a need for it and you are willing to do something with it if the idea is good. I don't need promises, but I want to know that it will not just be forgotten.

leezer3:

--- Quote from: rjm on September 21, 2011, 01:00:39 am ---Thanks for asking. I'd like the focus to be metadata. Here is my world...

Books
I started with all (pdf) books in MC. Then along came mobi/epub and I needed something to manage their metadata so I now use Calibre for epub/mobi and MC for pdf. Then I wanted to search content so I had to introduce another application for indexing and searching. But most search engines do not index epub/mobi so I currently only have content search on pdf. Three different apps plus a search gap is not a stable situation. I want to get all my books into one app again.

Audiobooks
MC is perfect for all audiobook tasks except one metadata related thing. I create a local text file and/or links to info about the audiobook such as the plot and reviews. When browsing audiobooks in MC I crave for a feature that would pop up info when I hover or click something. Currently I have to double click and open the text file in a 3rd party app which stops any audio I may have been sampling and it's not a nice experience.

Video
MC is perfect for organizing and playing video. Not so good for metadata. I currently keep only basic metadata (name, genre, date) in MC and use Movie Collector for all complex metadata (cast, crew, plot, episodes, reviews, cover art, etc.). I would love to have all my metadata in MC. If someday you offer competitive metadata features for video you will probably need to auto-import data from other popular apps because the time invested in metadata for large collections can be huge.

Photos
I moved the metadata for my photos from ThumbsPlus to JRiver and now manage photos with MC. It works but my son switched his photos over to Lightroom and what he's shown me looks pretty good. I'm staying with MC for now but I can feel something tugging at me.

Music
MC is perfect. No other apps needed or wanted.

--- End quote ---

Agree with most of those. For a 'creative' solution to the audiobook problem, I use this:
Create a new calculated field of =[Filename (path)]description.txt Then create a new link, with the base URL blank and the search URL set as =[Your New Field] and set this to open in a new tab.
Doesn't seem to work correctly with the external browser link, and I've never bothered to debug further. This trick also works with HTML files, and you just need to remember to keep the filenames consistant :)

-Leezer-

rjm:

--- Quote from: leezer3 on September 21, 2011, 06:47:16 am ---Create a new calculated field of =[Filename (path)]description.txt Then create a new link, with the base URL blank and the search URL set as =[Your New Field] and set this to open in a new tab.

--- End quote ---
Very nice tip, thanks leezer3!
When the Links feature was introduced I thought it might be the solution but I could not get links to local files to work. I will try this.  If it does work I suspect it may not be as smooth as I would like because we still need to swtch to a different tab to view the info. The best solution would be for info to pop up in the current view.

<edit>
Jim, sorry to clutter this thread.
Leezer, it works, sort of. Switching to different tab to view info is clunky and formatting is not nice. Error handing for missing info file is not very nice. I think current method of double clicking info file for viewing in txt app is better. Perhaps for interim solution we could go back to old method of not stopping audio when data file is opened?

TheLion:
My 2 cents (big points):

- Blu-Ray playback - full menu support (make it wife friendly)

- Picture/Photo viewer - support for color management and HQ scaling algorithms (Lanczos). To make it viable for viewing HiRes/HQ photos from DSLRs and not just snapshots.

Other than that I am very happy!

rpalmer68:
My thoughts;

I think your list is pretty good Jim, and thanks for asking us, I'm especially keen on #'s 2, 6 & 7.

I also like the idea of a skinnable Theater View as discussed by Mr Haugen, and I'd really encourage JRiver to take up his generous offer to document his ideas.  If the community can help improve/develop Theater View once it's skinnable I think that would be fantastic, as it does lag behind other similar products in my opinion.

Bluray menus would, be great, but that does depend on things outside JRiver's control at the moment.

Under improved TV support I would like to suggest that MC start making more efficient use of a tuner by being able to record multiple streams off the one tuner, or at least not use two tuners to record two recordings that are one after the other on the same channel!  

Thanks
Richard

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