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[rick.ca]

Finally, are the backgrounds cached? This might speed things up a bit. I expect they are though.

They are cached, but the cache is limited to the last 500 images. And that's for all backgrounds—Artists, Series and Movies. It's not difficult to browse 500 items in a short period of time. Then the backgrounds for any items bumped from the cache have to be downloaded again. Also, the last x items viewed is not necessarily a good predictor of what will be viewed next. I suppose the limit is for performance reasons, but surely it could be much larger than 500. If only one image per item is cached, a larger limit might accommodate the entire library for most users (e.g., 2,000 would be enough for mine). For larger libraries, age could be considered as well. If an item is less than a week or month old, maybe it shouldn't be purged just because the cache is getting large.

[raym]

I wonder though, are they cached for LS clients? Between MC sessions, it seems MC is re-downloading images for my LS client.

[rick.ca]

If only one image per item is cached,

My assumption was incorrect—multiple images per item are being cached. Other than for the selected item (or very recently selected items), I don't understand the point in that. If just one item is cached, others can be downloaded while that is being displayed.

[MrHaugen]

I think that this problem might be a mix of two things.

1. The cache might be to small or there is something wrong with it, making backgrounds download unnecessary
2. The time of transitions and trigger for new backgrounds is off in some cases. If the cache works, I would like to see the faster background switching used in the main menu for browsing new Series, Artists and Movies. The slow transition makes it hanging faaaaar behind most of the time. And that gives the user a wrong impression of the selected items.

I suggest that you use the Themes engine to handle the backgrounds, and use the short transition effect for items Media Sub type iten browsing. Like browsing TV Shows, movies and artists. And you can keep the slower slide show for items selected and not changing. Like the slideshow of different backgrounds within one single TV Show. Example: Browsing Movies or TV shows gives you fast transition upon selection, and entering an item will change the images with a slower frequency and slower transition effect, because the fast switching is not needed, and the background loading can use the time needed.

[Matt]

That cache is limited to 500 files and 1 GB.  These were SWAG numbers.

I have 500 files and 200 MB in my cache.

I changed it to 2500 files and 1 GB.

[MrHaugen]

That sounds good! It will sure help offload the downloading a bit, and perhaps also giving users a bit faster background switches.

I still think that a way of downloading or adding this backgrounds manually and permanent would be a solution that is needed in time though. Because of all the strange hits (especially for Artists), and the transition speed that is needed when browsing fast. Not to mention the bandwidth limits on the online services...

[rick.ca]

I changed it to 2500 files and 1 GB.

That will help, thanks. Wouldn't limiting it to one image per item make better use of those limits?

[raym]

That cache is limited to 500 files and 1 GB.  These were SWAG numbers.

I have 500 files and 200 MB in my cache.

I changed it to 2500 files and 1 GB.

Is this working right? MC still takes ages to display backgrounds from one movie selection to the next even if I wait and make sure an image has been downloaded at least once.

Also, I have a very basic genre>name viewscheme for my Movies view. When I first enter the view the cursor is on the "All Genres" group thumbnail (first thumb in the list) but MC is showing me a background for the movie "Anchorman" which makes no sense as this isn't even the first "A" movie I have. I'd still prefer the backgrounds do not show until my cursor is on a single title. 

Thanks

[MrHaugen]

Is this working right? MC still takes ages to display backgrounds from one movie selection to the next even if I wait and make sure an image has been downloaded at least once.

That is because the backgrounds have never been designed to follow the fast selection change of several different items. It's meant as a background slideshow for a single item at a time. That is at least how I see it.

There's been some changes here for the main menu backgrounds. These backgrounds have gotten a secondary transition modus or speed through the Themes engine, so the switching is much faster. This exact same thing would be good to use for the other parts of background handling as well imo. This will obviously not work well while downloading backgrounds from online sources. That's why I've been suggesting allowing users to have a manual stash of backgrounds and allow the themes engine to either look in this manual background directory or in the download cache folder. Manual control of backgrounds is needed especially for music, and using the faster switching method is really needed to allow MC to keep up with the user selections in theater view.

[raym]

I don't need manual control of images. I like the way the program downloads them. I just think if the cache is working right, it should transition faster than it does right now. Probably just needs a little tuning.

[MrHaugen]

I just think if the cache is working right, it should transition faster than it does right now. Probably just needs a little tuning.

Exactly. It just needs to be faster to cope with the selections. When there is background slideshow of the same artist/movie or series however, the slower transition is just fine.
I agree that the online cache works for most things, and it's really handy for most users. But some less known media, and especially artists, get very wrong results sometimes. So, both things is equally important imo.

[fitbrit]

MediaBrowser video for comparison. The background changes are instantaneous, as soon as you stop scrolling through your videos. Quite slick.

I do also like the filtetype, codec, audio channels and resolution info as icons. To me it really helps to get info about your videos across quickly, because we are all familiar with the 1080p, DTS and Dolby logos etc. But that's for another thread/version of MC?

[darichman]

I think all the functionality that's in that MediaBrowser video is what we should be aiming for. There's no rush - what I can do in MC at the moment I'm still very happy with, especially with the recent list style changes and lookup. Some might call it eye-candy, but there's no denying the utility as well in being able to gather all that information from a few simple icons at a glance.

As far as the background cache - I have several thousand movies and TV shows as I'm sure do a lot of users on this board. I also have a few dozen terabytes of space available... I'd kind of like to be able to dedicate a bit more of this space to cached backgrounds (and banners if JRiver does decide to make some views which might use them) to streamline the whole experience. It takes one complete browse across to the left or right and the images need to be re-downloaded at the moment, which is a shame. Not to mention the artist images share the same pool.

[MrHaugen]

Some might call it eye-candy, but there's no denying the utility as well in being able to gather all that information from a few simple icons at a glance.

Yes. It's far from being just eye candy at all. It's no point denying that much of it looks good, but it's also very informative at times. And it's not just icons for media attributes. That is the two reasons, and the only reasons why I've been pursuing things like this all this years. Backgrounds, icons/logos, cover art, banners, all of it gives you fast info that you are familiar with instantly, and you can make decisions based on this quick overview instead of reading text. It's far from Just eye candy, even though that is what most people think of first when they see it. Design and beauty sells very well. Just as functionality. Together, it's a darn good recipe for a killer software.

[fitbrit]

Yes. It's far from being just eye candy at all. It's no point denying that much of it looks good, but it's also very informative at times. And it's not just icons for media attributes. That is the two reasons, and the only reasons why I've been pursuing things like this all this years. Backgrounds, icons/logos, cover art, banners, all of it gives you fast info that you are familiar with instantly, and you can make decisions based on this quick overview instead of reading text. It's far from Just eye candy, even though that is what most people think of first when they see it. Design and beauty sells very well. Just as functionality. Together, it's a darn good recipe for a killer software.

After a lot of consideration, I do agree with this - again. Originally, I drooled over an interface like that. Then, for a while, I thought it might be distracting, too focused on eye-candy. However, I do see it as functional now, and also know that sales would increase even faster if something like that were implemented. We are straying off topic, though, so I apologise for the tangent.

[locust]

I think keyboard short cut and a programmable button for remote controls could be introduced for the situation with obscure artists and the wrong images appearing.

one could flag an image as non related to the artist, then mc could blacklist the url of that image & delete it from cache. another could flag an image you see as related to the artist and mc then prioritise approved images to appear first.

anyone else think this is a good idea?

i am also on the boat where it could be nice if we could set our own cache limits.

[locust]

also i think that some artists have very ambiguous names. for example i like the artist machinedrum, but that mostly just throws up images of hardware.

if there was some way of adding an additional word(s) to the search criteria, maybe through the keywords, band, bios  fields we could feed more relevant information to the search criteria hopefully filtering out negative results.

For example

Here is a Google image search of machinedrum (There are a few positive results)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=machinedrum&hl=en&qscrl=1&biw=1360&bih=643&site=webhp&prmd=imvnsl&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=-68_T4uBEYGm0QWW6IiPDw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBUQ_AUoAQ


And here is a Google image search of machinedrum Travis Stewart (With many more relevant images)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=machinedrum+Travis+Stewart&hl=en&qscrl=1&site=webhp&prmd=imvnso&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=GrA_T4PmJuai0QW2_YWPDw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CA8Q_AUoAQ&biw=1360&bih=643

The only difficulty is that I don't have artists names tagged for every artist. That's why I suggest having another field maybe keywords that is included. That way I could add a term to the search for an artist. It wouldn't always have to be a the artists name as sometimes that can be difficult to find out. It could just be the word Dj, Musician etc.

for example here is a Google image search machinedrum musician (It still gives just as good a results as having the artists' name in the search and still better than just searching the artist.)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=machinedrum&hl=en&qscrl=1&biw=1360&bih=643&site=webhp&prmd=imvnsl&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=-68_T4uBEYGm0QWW6IiPDw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBUQ_AUoAQ#hl=en&qscrl=1&site=webhp&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=machinedrum+musician&pbx=1&oq=machinedrum+musician&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=256738l258082l0l258300l9l9l0l5l5l0l133l420l2.2l4l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=a4ea4f2695742bc5&biw=1360&bih=643

I don't know maybe the word musician should be included by default in the mc search criteria. But if that is not possible my suggestion may provide a quick way for us users to get better results.

[rick.ca]

15.0.73 (7/9/2010)
5. Changed: Theater View uses a replacement table to provide better a better online slideshow for artists like Kansas and Bush. (please submit improvements made to [MC Install Path]\Data\Default Resources\ArtistSearch.txt back to us)

Can an ArtistSearch.txt file still be used to modify searches?

[locust]

Can an ArtistSearch.txt file still be used to modify searches?

This looks promising. I'll have to test it out. If only there was a way to auto populate the list from a handful of fields.

[rick.ca]

You may want to wait until someone answers my question. I'm asking because I tried it, and I couldn't tell whether or not it was working. So even it's still operational, I would wonder how effective it is.