INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: carbo on June 04, 2007, 05:21:27 am
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I would like to know what will be the main focuses for the next versions (12,12.1... 13 :))
I've seen recently that a lot of efforts have been made on theatre view and i would like to know if you already have plans for what s next.
Currently, I'm using MC mainly for audio. Apart for some tunes in the display of albums (there are already some topics on it) and maybe the tabs to improve, i love what MC offers.
But now i m wondering for image cataloging.
I m evaluating different softwares for it : acdsee, image media pro, imatch...
For me, MC is clearly the best in terms of customization.
but it has one big flaw: the handle of RAW files (nikon's NEF files in particular):
- First, it doesn't offer all information from EXIF
- But my main concern is that display of RAW files is slooooooooow. I ve tried all settings with cache but in the best case, it always takes seconds to genereate the jpeg from the raw file. When i compare with others, acdsee is able to display a raw file without cache in less than a second.
It seems situation has improved in comparison to version 11 but i wanted to know if there s room for more. Currently i can't handle my photos with MC but i wanted to know if it will be possible in the (near) future, before moving to another software.
Thanks,
Guillaume
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Is ACDSee actually converting the raw file or is it just pulling the Jpeg out of the file?
We just use DCRaw for conversion. We get whatever information it has. It isn't impossible that I'll add support for pulling the embedded jpeg from Adobe DNG files but it isn't currently on the list.
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I've looked at the website of dcraw and it seems that acdsee is also using it :P
I think it actually extracts the embedded thumbnail and display it while calculating the real display and update it when it's ready. I don't know if a similar process can be implemented in MC, but at least can you use the embedded thumbnail to generate the MC thumbnail ? when calling dcraw with the -e option it generates the jpeg instantly and the quality is far enough for thumbnail. It will prevent MC to take 100% of cpu for minutes when displaying newly added raw files.
Finally I've tried to replace dcraw to the last version (8.73) optimized for my cpu (which can be found here: http://www.lebsanft.org/blog/index.php?cat=9 (http://www.lebsanft.org/blog/index.php?cat=9), but when doing that, MC doesn't see raw files anymore... Any idea ?
PS: for additional Exif info, is it possible to use a program like that : http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/)
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I'll have to look into the -e option. I have a couple of small dcraw mods that put the file information in a concise formation (read: one I can parse with almost 0 effort) that kind of have to be there.
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Many thanks for integrating this so fast !!
With my raw files (nikon's NEF), it works like a charm :)
I can now use MC to handle my pictures, it s perfect !
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I would strongly suggest you look at what Adobe is doing with Raw. Their Lightroom and Bridge products support sidecar files that include a lot of meta information about the raw. they also use dng to standardize raw. Raw is becoming very popular, and adobe is trying to own the standard. Please consider conforming with their products because they own the pro-sumer and pro photo space.