INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 13 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Matt on July 28, 2008, 08:26:56 pm
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We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features. Still, it's fun to dream.
So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.
Here's some of my requests:
- Integrated EPG for TV
- Tighter integration with external data sources -- i.e. viewing an artist wiki, artist images, etc.
- Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
- Ability to use my images and videos as my screen-saver
- Ability to have my wallpaper automatically rotate using my image library
- MiniDV video camera import
- Full-off MP3 store
- 3D file browsing
- Optional way to keep filenames in step with tag values
- Way to type in the Options dialog to search all available options
- iPhone 3G suppport despite Apple's new evil attempts to lock us out
- More hours in a day
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It all sounds great, Matt. Reading your caveat, "no promises on new features", I am reminded of JimH saying the same thing at the start of version 12--and look at all the great features! So, to "no promises on new features", all I can say is: HA!
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We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features. Still, it's fun to dream.
So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.
- Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
- 3D file browsing
- iPhone 3G suppport despite Apple's new evil attempts to lock us out
All of these are high on my list.
The ipod touch support must include 2-way sync of ratings.
Plus:
- Write access via Library Server. Want to be able to update rating tags from work client primarily. Would be ok if it was limited to only updating the same fields as syncing portables (ratings, playstats). Ideally full tag editing would be allowed. Perhaps a new option checkbox in the Library server options to allow/disallow edits.
- folder.jpg enhancement. Running Auto-import will import folder.jpg files. Using shell integration and importing files from windows explorer ignores folder.jpg files. Needs to import them either way.
- Data and image file enhancement. More elegantly way to keep folder.jpg, .cue, .log, .m3u files together by album. Each of these is tagged properly with genre, artist, and album fields. Rename files from tags puts songs into f:\genre\artist\album file folder structure. Currently a viewscheme must be created that shows all file types and each file must be highlighted and then moved. Would like this to work in audio viewschemes. If entire album is selected to be moved, prompt whether user would like these 'support files' moved also.
- Theater view tagging. Currently, you can modify a few tags via theater view. One that is sorely missing is the rating field.
- Blu-ray support from disc and from hard drive. I haven't made this plunge yet, but may do so later this year.
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Ok, here's mine..
- Improved television feature set. Basically the stuff you see in most other TV playback software and while EPG integration is one thing, I'm talking about much more basic things:- direct channel access (for remote users), Picture-in-Picture, improved seeking capabilities eg, slow-mo etc, Improved system performance while timeshifting (still an issue I'm afraid)...
- Ability to use all in-built and custom tags in Theater View skins. For example, I'd like to be able to show today's date on the main page
- Also related: A "View in Detail" page for Theater View (as discussed previously) allowing us to provide things like synopsis data for movies and other custom tag details for all media types. IMDB integration etc could come later. Just let us display stuff we populate ourselves for now
- BlueRay support
- Auto tagging for auto import
- An option to prevent the Enter key in Theater View from popping-up the menu ALL THE TIME!!! - youknow, how it used to be - just at the filelist level with the VK_APPS there if I need it at any level. Is this really such a big ask?
- The ability to browse and play removable media (on flash drives etc) in Theater View
- OSD improvements, eg, show current time / time remaining during TV timeshifting and regular video seeks - like DVD seeking - and leave it on screen until I press play again! Some transparency would be nice too!
- Rip and Burn from Theater View
- YouTube for Theater View
- Anything else Theater View! PS - I really love how you've implemented the OSK for basic tagging etc. Very Nice! ;)
Thanks
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HA!
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HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
1, 2, 4, 8, .... 30??? Sorry, that does not compute.
j
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I'll be the first to put in a vote for some more photo features...
And from your list, Matt, I like:
Here's some of my requests:
- Tighter integration with external data sources -- i.e. viewing an artist wiki, artist images, etc.
- Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
- 3D file browsing
I would also like to see a custom "information view"... it seems to me that currently, MC is superb when it comes to finding and organising (panes, searches etc) but there's no ideal way to view the metadata. There's track info, but this only works if the file is playing and is no good for videos, naturally. The Tag AW is okay, but it's too many clicks to view extended fields like notes and lyrics etc.
So say I'm browsing a video collection... it would be nice to pull up a template with basic director, actors, synopsis info or whatever custom fields we decide on.
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My 2cents - To me MC12 still feels at times very Desktop PC focused with an empahsis on large Audio Library managment. No probs with that....but my main interest and use of MC is from an HTPC perspective where I want one front end that will give access to my Library, it's associated MetaData, and Play it All....Audio & Video regardless on how it is delivered --> Media Files (HDD), CD, DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming, DTV, FM etc etc. From that point of view I'm always keen on any improvement to TheaterView, Video Mgt, PVR etc etc:
1) Blu-ray: While not my figures it looks like according to Nielsen, Blu-ray has up to 12% market share in the US compared to DVD (http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?s=&showtopic=50965&view=findpost&p=1117455)...I don't profess to argue what the tipping point for Blu-ray support in MC should be - I just want it (i've got more Blu-ray / HD-DVD disks that DVD!)
2) UPnP / DLNA: MC as a streamer for all media types --> http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46766.0
3) Finish implementing the higher end PVR Stuff including EPG
4) Better Meta Data support & display for other media types (eg Movies)
5) More flexibility in TheaterViews Layout / Customisation (lots of threads on this)
Thanks
Nathan
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Matt... That's a rocking list. Honestly, if we got all that over the next while with one other major thing, I'd be a happy guy. Especially that more hours in a day thing. ;)
My other big thing:
- Auto-tagging on import. Define file/foldername rules (like fill properties from filename) that are applied on a per-folder basis automatically on import. This would save me countless hours all on it's own.
There are a few other smaller things I'd really like to see though...
- Better podcasting support, including something that can run in the tray or as a service or something that'll do the downloading for us without having the full MC running. Something easy to schedule and make "just always work".
- Nested "folders" support for podcasts. Nothing too fancy, just dumb nested folders to make managing a large list of podcasts easier.
- Better prioritization features for podcast downloads, more like what FeedDemon provides...
- Podcasting and general HTPC focused RSS feed reader in Theater view. Basically, something along the lines of FeedDemon, but with a HTPC friendly 10-foot UI.
- And I'll second a few of the thoughts from the others above... BluRay (it's time), View in Detail page for Theater View, and better/easier/more slick Tag Data "display" methods.
- Dramatically improved web-UI (all AJAXy and awesomelike), with a special "skin" for iPhone/Touch.
- Cough...OSX...Cough (oh, did I say smaller?)
- Bake me cookies when I'm hungry, and provide friendship when I'm lonely (like a Companion Cube only with media and a spatula).
Again though... You covered the vast majority of what I would consider "must have" for the next version or so (EPG, external data sources, movie data sources, iPhone, etc). Nice to see what's being considered, if nothing else!
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I'm another big theater view user, so a lot of my wishes are in that area (and there are several threads on this alone already).
So here's my (partial) wish list (some of these are from above, but I want to throw my vote in too!)
- Auto-tagging on import. Define file/foldername rules (like fill properties from filename) that are applied on a per-folder basis automatically on import.
- More flexibility in TheaterViews Layout / Customisation
- Blu-ray support.
- EPG Integration, with support for multiple tuners.
- General enhancements to TV viewing and PVR functionality like RayM & Jmone mention, especially the performance degradation when timeshifting has been running for a while (yes I still get it too)... things REALLY do slow down! Also cleaner channel changing, there is quite a stutter when I change channels.
- Ability to password protect the delete option in Theater View (now that there is an on screen keyboard )
- Add the Locate Album function to Theater View... often I might be playing a random selection and something comes up and I think it would be nice to play the whole album... so a quick easy way to do this from the current playing track woud be great!
- A multi-user database (with access controls) would be great, but a big ask I know!
- Share tuners amongst MC machines, so I can watch TV on a PC that does't have a tuner installed.
Cheers
Richard
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- Better reporting in grouped views
For now you can only group the top view by two columns.
(a) make a viewscheme say Genre/Album and it tells you how many albums are present /genre using the [track #] to count
(b) make a second viewscheme Genre/Album Score, and it will tell you how many albums within that genre were above a certain album score (say).assume for now album score is a custom field and its value has been calculated manually
What i want is to be able to combine those (two or more viewschemes) into one grouped viewscheme
Genre/Album/Album Score
So 3 columns, genre, followed by number in that genre, and finally the amt in that genre that were above a given score.
For this MC needs to be able to work on the result from viewcheme 1 and then apply the criteria of viewscheme 2 to it, chain the results somehow internally and present them.
This way you can get more meaninful reports in just one viewscheme :)
With the above method currently, there is a way to get totals & averages, but no way to get percentages of the total.
simple example is
Genre / Album / Share
genre, number of albums in that genre, what percentage does this genre make of the total.
- ability to do mathematical operations in expressions.
this has been requested for a long time, hopefully it makes an appearance.
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I'd like new lungs.
Oh and some skinning engine polishing. :)
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- Way to type in the Options dialog to search all available options
This would come in handy since there are getting to be so many options.
My list which is mostly improving what's already there to make it better:
- Might this be the MC version that finally has song aliases so I don't have to keep multiple versions of the same song to fill out albums? Yeah, drive space is cheap but removing duplicates would give me more space for more songs!
- YADB now has a decent cover art feature. Time to do the same with lyrics and incorporate Doof's Lyrics Editor into MC.
- When submitting images to Pix01, a playlist is put in to the Pix01 Galleries group. Retrieve the URL after and enter that into the Notes.
- Don't require a Pix01 gallery to be completely uploaded again if only one image or caption changes.
- Whatever else I can't think of right now. ;)
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Another vote for Blu-ray support.
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Major Pix01 updates with clever AJAX stuff, make it like Facebook, only nice full res pictures like it is at the moment.
Also one good idea I heard doing the round's was having individual thumbnail sizes as you drill through a view.
This way you could have small thumbs at an artist level and then like great big thumbs at album level.
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Theater View \ Images \ Select \ SEND TO 3D VISUAL. PLAYLIST.
Thanks
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My List in no particular order (Mostly TheaterView):
* Sidecar files to hold tags of untaggable file types
* A non-TrackInfo based Customizable Playing Now for TheaterView with progress meter and rotated cover art with drop-shadow
* Auto-hiding left-side controls in TheaterView
* More control over TheaterView front-page contents
* Built-in slideshow screensaver for TheaterView based on smartlists
* TheaterView browsing mode with more meta-data per item
* Links to Artist, Album, Genre, .... (customizable?) on TheaterView context menu
* Config option to only show TheaterView context menu at single item level, or when VK_APPS is pressed. I've got a Menu button on my remote and I know how to use it :)
* EPG with season pass and recording conflict resolution
* Automatic commercial removal and background recompression to H264
* Basically replace my ReplayTVs so I can stop paying $6.95/month for the EPG and sell my units before no one wants them anymore
* Blue-ray
-John
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Mostly at the moment would be the ability to link an external file (Or web address for that matter) to any other file in the library. Performer MC's current artist info pane would be a perfect place to display this, all it needs is a little user customisation :)
-Leezer-
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My ideas are moe votes for other people's ideas I think, but here goes:
1. Totally revamp theater view (especially the "views" menu. put all the viewshcemes on the front page and let us choose from there)
2. Sidecar files or a cache for non-taggable files. Mixed with "Auto re-link files", this would be insurance for those of us silly enough to move our files around externally of MC.
3. Totally solve the browsing problem (every new MC starts off with a brilliant new browsing method, like tiles, but doesnt see it through to completion). Lets have an idiot proof way to change sorting, and browse albums (with instant access to songs) visually so that we only ever need to turn to panes for tagging mode.
4. Don't forget about stacks. For photos this is the must have feature, and it still needs a hundred things doing to it.
5. Auto Organise files. Rule based so that media types can be organized in different ways and in different locations.
6. Auto tagging. This would be great. I hate doing a "move/copy fields" ([name] to [album]) for every video file I import into MC. If I could set what the album value should be for all videos on import, that would be half my tagging done for me. Would be great for photos too.
5. Movie cover art for all movie files, not just ripped DVDs. I'd kill for this feature (what a strange expression).
Most of these requests are for existing features to be polished or extended. My hope for MC13 would be for you guys to aim small and stengthen the core, before branching out in revolutionary ways again in MC14.
Oh and like glynor :'( I'm soooooo waiting for a mac port, or web client. The good thing about the mac it seems, is that everything connects to quicktime, so anything you can play on your computer should play ok in MC without the need for any configuration. Although I havent figured out how to get the mac to look in a central location for subtitle files.
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Right now I've nothing new to add, but want to voice my support of almost every requested feature here, especially
- The muli-client write access to the library. - This is extremely important for me as, for example, it would enable my wife and I to manage our own media without having to access the server or gain write-rights over the library. To me this is one of the biggest improvements you could offer in terms of really hammering home a networked media library solution.
- Theater View - Plugins - you never got that doco out... also slickness, general increase in functionality (Shutdown/restart PC, locally installed games menu, etc), customisable RSS feeds would be an awesome start
- Auto-tagging
- Has darichman mentioned a relational DB yet?
- EPG Functionality
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Play stats!!!
For several years now, I've been wanting stats, like 'Top 10 each week/month/year' or info about 'What did we play at the last party (getting songs played on the date x)', 'Top 5 favorite decades'.
As the current system only stores 'last played' instead of having an own "table" for that kind of information, you can never see this. And the 'What did we play at the last party' only applies if you didn't play any of those songs after the party.
You know, a little bit like last.fm...and the various discussions about relational database stuff :)
More stats
It would be so cool if you could see stuff like 'Which genres are used the most', 'Which decades have the most songs' etc. On a sidenote, one could build a custom view with a tag cloud for instance (even if tagclouds are soo 2006:)). Perhaps it's just enough being able to show a file count next to the items in the top pane and being able to sort by filecount.
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- The muli-client write access to the library. - This is extremely important for me as, for example, it would enable my wife and I to manage our own media without having to access the server or gain write-rights over the library. To me this is one of the biggest improvements you could offer in terms of really hammering home a networked media library solution.
Yes!
I also would like to see photo management improvements like a visual camera image acquisition interface and an improved image view where it is easy to apply keywords, change captions, edit, etc.
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Jim -
Sorry to hijack this thread. Could you split the MPL/XMP discussion off into a new thread to preserve the "wishlist" nature of this thread?
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Sorry to hijack this thread. Could you split the MPL/XMP discussion off into a new thread to preserve the "wishlist" nature of this thread?
It's here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47622.0). If anyone finds a stray feature request in it, please copy and paste here.
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This was really a feature request, but the post it was quoting got moved ;D
The background recompression should be configurable, but with iPod compatible (crappy profile h264 MP4s) presets. You'll want configurability though for those High-Def recordings. I'll wanna keep my 720p/1080p stuff in the full resolution. Some people would rather them be "ready to go" though.
Expanding on the background recompression a little, how about a feature to skip a portion of any file, both in tags/ a right-click dialog? (Probably without recompression, I'd be worried about resolution loss)
Would be useful for little things like skipping credits sequences :)
-Leezer-
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Good Evening All!
My only request would be to have the ability to see the size of image you have for your cover art. And maybe the ability to filter it, so it would show all art that was no a certain size.
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Going along with the Integrated EPG and TiVo/SageTV/BeyondTV replacement, I thought of some additional things...
- Built-in ability to edit video recordings and export trimmed versions which "auto-update" the existing entry in the library (so you don't have to re-assign tags and all that). This would be for removing commercials and trimming off extra "gunk" at the beginning and end of the files. Nothing fancy. Just an easy way to mark multiple beginning and end points throughout a video, the intervening clips will then be removed when you "apply" the edit.
- Preferably the above would be a lossless edit on MPEG-2 video that doesn't require recompression.
- It'd probably be sweet if this was integrated into the existing media editor. Getting to it (for audio files too) should be easier though. A right-click --> Send To --> Media Editor command would be idea.
- Support for a Comskip (http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/) like feature. Support for actually using the "real" Comskip might be the most ideal method. These markings should, of course, auto-load into the above-referenced editor (but not be auto-applied because the Comskip isn't perfect).
- And getting pretty pie-in-the-sky here but a full featured auto-recompressor feature that supports x264 (including Apple compatible profiles and Hardware Acceleration compatible profiles), XviD/DivX, and WMV codecs, as well as MP4, MKV, WMV, and AVI file containers. It would be best to include "presets" for things like AppleTV, Xbox, iPod/iPhone, PSP, Windows Media Players, and other similar devices. However, we should be able to tweak the settings ourselves and create our own profiles (so I could have a general purpose 720p x264 profile with a HQ bitrate setting that'll work pretty well for most HD media, but so Marko can have his own settings for his own situation).
- Ideally, we could set specific recordings (either before or after the recording occurs) to auto-compress on a schedule (so it could run in the middle of the night or something similar), and not require that MC be open all the time to have this work (some sort of "worker" utility that could be scheduled). So, I could set my daily recordings of "The Daily Show" to automatically compress to take up less space with certain presets (I don't care much about the quality of that show) and then set my upcoming recordings of Dexter to auto-compress to much higher-quality settings (because I do care about that one). BeyondTV calls this "set" of features ShowSqueeze, but I'm sure if done well, you guys could do SO much better.
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my 'wish list'
*better chapter support for for instance mkv files. in my dreams this goes so far that mc reads the chapters before playing (just like it makes thumbnails ) and imports them into the database, which could give the option to start from a choosen chapter. but some basic features would be nice also. :)
*a way to get rid of this MOIO feature that messes up the order of lists. for movies, acteurs are listed in how important their role is in a movie, not with what letter there name starts, in images i want the people in the l to r order they are on the image.
*an easy way to get back the data ive putted into mc starting from the file. who are playing on the song, who are the acteurs, etc. in Theater View.
*more sorting options in Theater View
:)
gab
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Improvements to the 10-foot experience... theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.
Better management of series information - I record stuff (DVR) but don't have a good way to manage episode information.
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Improvements to the 10-foot experience... theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.
You know, you've said that a couple of times now.
Could you start a new thread with a few details?
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Could you start a new thread with a few details?
While I cannot speak for IlPadrino, it's fairly obvious that there are loads of great "details" in this thread already and I think the fact that there's so much support for continual Theater View development reflects both how good it is currently but also, with some on-going focus, how it could easily become a "best in class" interface.
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Just pointing out that, without any details, a comment like this:
Improvements to the 10-foot experience... theater view is still not a "best in class" interface.
is not a feature request.
If anyone has old requests pending, use the threads to discuss them, arrive at a very short list of specifics that everyone agrees on, and we'll consider them.
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Favourites needs to be improved. Mving stuff in there is slow going.
It's remained stubbornly so for four years :o
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IMO, the "beadcrumb pane" sort of implies a vertical split view, likely with tabs. This can make for a fairly intricate GUI. Any thought to that wild idea of a "floating" Playing Now?
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This was really a feature request, but the post it was quoting got moved ;D
Expanding on the background recompression a little, how about a feature to skip a portion of any file, both in tags/ a right-click dialog? (Probably without recompression, I'd be worried about resolution loss)
Would be useful for little things like skipping credits sequences :)
-Leezer-
This is the way the ReplayTV devices do it. They store tags in the file marking where they think the commercials are (usually pretty accurate), then on playback it automatically (if you have the "right" version of the software) skips the commercials if you have commercial advance turned on. If it gets it wrong it's easy enough to skip backwards, or if it really messed up, turn off the automatic advance and go back to where you were.
-John
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This is hopefully a very minor request, but one which would IMHO have a lot of extremely useful possibilities:
From the right-click menu, could we have the option to add a visual marker to a file?
This would work by appending a small icon (Preferably with the ability to select from a dialog and add custom icons) into the corner of a files thumbnail. Obviously not as useful with text based viewschemes, but could be used for little things like visually indicating where I've got to in a TV series. This can be done to an extent with playlists, but if I'm browsing the library I may not necessarily be watching things in order.
Other uses would be things like marking which files still require tagging after a major import; Basically, the sky's the limit.
Cheers
-Leezer-
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I don't think I've seen these:
* Move the horizontal Audio, Images, Video view schemes back to the vertical list where they belong
* Let me rename/get rid of any of them without them auto-returning (add some way to get them back if I get stupid)
* Let me add my own custom top-level view schemes to Theater View
* Let me add a custom icon to each top-level view scheme
* Let me reorder all the top-level tree items (add an option to sort by name)
* "Smart" Date support:
** For example I want to set up a view scheme for Theater View that shows me all photos I've taken this year. Currently there's no way to do that unless I want to edit the view scheme at the start of each year. I can do [Date]=<1y, but that just gives me all files within the last 365 days...
** [Date]=<#sw - sw = Smart Week: Within the last # Sunday-Saturday Week(s), not within the last #*7 days
** [Date]=<#sm - sm = Smart Month: Within the last # Month(s)
** [Date]=<#sy - sy = Smart Year: Within the last # Year(s), not the last 365 days
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** For example I want to set up a view scheme for Theater View that shows me all photos I've taken this year. Currently there's no way to do that unless I want to edit the view scheme at the start of each year. I can do [Date]=<1y, but that just gives me all files within the last 365 days...
i also would like better sorting options for thv. to get this though, make a view scheme with sorting z-a year, and then limit advanced 1,-1,[year]
:)
gab
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I don't think I've seen these:
* Move the horizontal Audio, Images, Video view schemes back to the vertical list where they belong
* Let me rename/get rid of any of them without them auto-returning (add some way to get them back if I get stupid)
* Let me add my own custom top-level view schemes to Theater View
* Let me add a custom icon to each top-level view scheme
* Let me reorder all the top-level tree items (add an option to sort by name)
I'll add my support for these.
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From the right-click menu, could we have the option to add a visual marker to a file?
Some time back i'd asked for graphical tags. Instead of txt in the tags, be able to add a custom image. It would show up like those tiny cover art icons but in its own column per line entry.
You could then use this for all sorts of visual or organisational cues.
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i also would like better sorting options for Theater View. to get this though, make a view scheme with sorting z-a year, and then limit advanced 1,-1,[year]
Cool! Thanks for the hack.
So, adding month z-a as a second sort and a second limit advanced 1,-1,[Month] should get the current month. I'll have to try both of those.
Even easier: Sort Date z-a then limit advanced 1,-1,[Year],[Month] for all files from the most recent Month. Not necessarily this Month, or even this Year if you don't have any files from then, so it's still not exactly what I'd like...
-John
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Just pointing out that, without any details, a comment like this:is not a feature request.
If anyone has old requests pending, use the threads to discuss them, arrive at a very short list of specifics that everyone agrees on, and we'll consider them.
OK - I'd done some TheaterView comparison theads a while ago and since then both MC and competitors have moved on. There are a couple of good comparison products that can be used to check what features are available in the industry including the open source Team Meda Portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/features.html) from which I've extracted the following features and added my own comments / comparisons with MC for what it is worth! I'm not saying that these are features I want (I've already listed my wish list above) but these are the sort of things currently being offered:
General
Create your own skins, or choose one of the available skins! - Limited
MediaPortal can easily be extended with extra plugins - No
You decide which keys you want to use for which actions - No
Internal support for several remote control (streamzap, MCE, redeye, winlirc, hauppauge, FireDTV) - Yes
Windowed and fullscreen support - Yes
My TV
Supports analog TV, DVB-C, DVB-T, DVB-S and ATSC - TV, DVB-T, ATSC but no DCB-C or DVB-S
HDTV and AC3 support - Yes
Support for multiple tuners - Yes
Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV - Yes but not in native DVR-MS format for DVB
Advanced recording scheduler:- No (can do some limited stuff from StdView)
- Record once
- Record now
- Daily o Weekly
- Weekdays (Mon-Fri)
- Every time a program appears on this TV channel
Timeshifting,Watch, Pause, Rewind, FF, RW Live TV - Yes
Advanced recording management: - No
- Handle conflicts
- Set recording priorities
- Quality settings / recording
- Transcode to WMD, XVID or MPG
- Diskmanagement auto deletes old and/or watched recordings
TVGuide: - No
- Grab DVB-EPG & MHW-EPG directly for DVB
- Supports XMLTV
- Colors for genres
TV Guide search - No
TV Channel grouping - No
Supports over > 10000 channels - Yes / Who Cares!
Auto channel tuning - Yes
Normal OSD (On Screen Display during movies/tv) - Yes
Special ZAP OSD (Shows description of what is playing currently on TV) - No
Support for Teletext - No?
Standby control to put your HTPC sleeping. It will awake when there a recording needs to start - No
My Video / MyDVD
Play any movie your PC has a codec for (divx, mpeg, matroska,...) - Yes A++++
All your movies will be stored in MediaPortal's video database - Yes A+++++
View your movies by actors, genres, year, title - Sort Of (you can set up custom view schemes but you have to set them up and manually populate the data)
Sort your movies by actors, genres, year, rating - Sort Of (you can set up custom view schemes but you have to set them up and manually populate the data)
Automatically retrieves video art & info from IMDB - No
Stacking/unstacking if your movie consists of multiple files - No
Internal DVD player with menu's (you can also use an external DVD player) - Yes
On Screen Display (OSD) for: Pause, Rewind, FastForward, Stop, Mute, Bookmarks, Switching Audio Streams/Subtitle languages... - Yes
Resume from playback on next play - Yes
My Pictures - Not really used MC T'Veiw to much for these...
Watch your pictures/photos - Yes
Slideshow support with nice transitions - Yes
Zoom in/out, rotate pictures (rotation is remembered next time) - ?
Pause, previous/next picture - Yes
Delete picture(s) - ?
Background music, either songs from my music, or radio from my radio - Yes
Auto thumbnail generation - Yes
Sort in Name, Date, Size - Yes
View in List, Icon or Big Icon display - Yes
Ken Burns effect slideshow - ?
Filmstrip view - ?
My Music
View your music by artists, albums, genres, top100 or plain songs - Yes A+++ (setup via StdView
Sort your music in many ways like tracks, genre, filesize, artists, album,... - Yes A+++ (setup via StdView)
Use visualisations from Windows ?Media Player 10 - ? but has own Viz
Load, create & save playlists (.m3u, .pls, .b4u) - Yes
Automaticlly gets album art & info for all your albums - Yes
Automaticlly gets artist art & info for all your artists - Yes
View by list, icons, and big icons - Yes
Shuffle, repeat, FF, RW, pause,... - Yes
Music ratings - Yes
Favorites - Yes
Party shuffle mode - Yes
Search music for specific songs - Yes
Display all your favorite songs in one screen - Yes
Utilize Winamp, Foobar or iTunes plugins for music playback - ? not sure why you would want to
My Radio - No
Listen to your favorite radio stations (FM, DVB or internet stream)
Auto tuning (FM)
Logo's for each radio station (manual process)
Supply a friendly name for each radio station
Internet radio station streaming (ASX or Shoutcast)
Support for external radio tuner applications
Auto start listening to your selected radio station when MediaPortal starts
My weather
Show the latest weather information - Yes
Support for multiple cities - Not really - but you can change it
Current temperature, 3 Day Forecast - Yes
Temperature (in degrees C/F) - Yes
UV Index, Humity (%), Wind (mph/kph), etc - Yes
Support for live images from internet, like: - No
- Satellite images
- Temperature images
- UV Index images
- Winds images
- Humidity images
- Precipitation images
More features!
Launching external programs like: - Can Add Button
- Games
- Emulators
- Email application
- Internet Browser
- IRC client
Burner let's you burn all type of files and folders directly to CD-DVD from within the MediaPortal interface - No
Showing RSS news feeds - Yes
Read and send mail within MediaPortal - No
Monitor computer hardware: - No
- CPU temperature
- Motherboard Temperature
- Hard disk Temperature
- Used Memory
- Used Virtual Memory
Allow the PC automatically go to standby/hibernation and wakes it when there is a scheduled recording! Just like a real VCR! - No
Has different alarm features - No
You can even play included games like Tetris or Sudoku! - No
This only a small list of plugins & features that MediaPortal offers. - No Plugins
I've not really played with MS MediaCenter but one thing I see is that Blu-ray / HD-DVD Support is being provided via a plug-in from the likes of ArcSoft's Total Media Theater.
Thanks
Nathan
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Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV - Yes but not in native DVR-MS format for DVB
I'd really prefer that they be stored in MPG file containers for MPEG-2 recordings, or some other format other than the stupid broken DVR-MS container (which is really just a fancy and somewhat broken to support DRM MPG container).
Just noting that there is nothing "native" or "standard" about the DVR-MS format. It's just the stupid format Microsoft invented for Windows MCE.
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A couple of things I didnt notice as previously mentioned...
- Improved OSD - more menu/heirachical based - semi transparent
- Better support for multiple tuners (PIP, Side by side)
- Streaming of TV (or anything else) to/from other computers - with remote channel change and timeshifting capabilities
- The ability to be locked to Theater View - Wife/Kid/Drunk proof
- Smart support for multiple monitors - eg, where -- see below a HTPC case has a touch screen and also a TV attached
"a HTPC case has a touch screen and also a TV attached "....
1. Disable the HTPC screen when playing a movie etc
2. Automatically set the 'primary' screen for Theater View to the TV when the TV is on, and the remote is being used
3. Automatically set the 'primary' screen for Theater View to the HTPC when the TV is off (enables music selection etc without having to turn on the TV)
4. Other smart uses of this ides that I cant remember or havent thought of
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I know the Audio/Images/Video presentation and custom top-level view schemes have been mentioned, but I'd also like to see the Tree in general cleaned up and re-organised a bit. Having to dig into drives and devices to get to TV seems a bit odd, when it's a primary function of a media centre (yes Theater View is the better way to get to it in most cases, I admit). Ultimately, a fully customisable tree would be the aim - let ME define what I want quick access to, and what can be buried 2 levels deep.
Also, direct access to drives and devices in Theater View! I hate having to bomb out of Theater View on the HTPC because I want to view some photos on an camera or SD card.
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jmone,
I split your post to a new thread here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47682.0).
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one feature i would really like is the possebility to make smartlists based on the current playing track. it could be an easy way to get to other songs from the same artist, or songs with the same name, or just the whole album where the current track comes from.
two other small things for theaterview:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45280.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45827.0
:)
gab
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I was using my friends DVD/HDD recorder the other day and realised how easy it was to transfer recorded TV shows to DVD, so....
I'd like to see MC13 given the ability to be able to burn recorded video files to a DVD (with menus) AND from Theater View.
Richard
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I was using my friends DVD/HDD recorder the other day and realised how easy it was to transfer recorded TV shows to DVD, so....
I'd like to see MC13 given the ability to be able to burn recorded video files to a DVD (with menus) AND from Theater View.
Richard
+1
This one's on my list too. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47572.msg326111#msg326111 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47572.msg326111#msg326111)
It's one of those things I get asked about all the time. The last time I suggested this feature (over a year and a half ago now) there was a lot of support for it: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38191.msg259709#msg259709 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38191.msg259709#msg259709)
And now with basic tagging available from Theater View, some of the problems highlighted in that thread go away :-)
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- More complete support for .mka files (chapters, tagging, internal images, attachments)
- OSD based quick TV channel selection - I may be missing something here, but at the moment trying to move 10 channels is a slow, tedious and frustrating business)
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- AAC tagging... m4a, m4b, m4p, etc. etc.... Please let us dump iTunes! :)
brad
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Actually... In addition to the sidecar XMP files discussed in detail above and in other threads, I'd like to see substantially improved in-file tagging for those file containers that support it. Including:
- MP4 (including all of Apple's stupid sub-variants: M4A, M4B, M4V, M4P, AAC, etc)
- MKV and MKA
- OGM (and variants)
- FLAC (that should be particularly easy since they use APE tags, don't they?)
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Hanheld Transfer/Sync Enhancements:
Panes: Right now we are not able to easily modify the view of the Handheld transfer view, which makes it impossible to browse the current contents of a handheld by [Genre] or by [Media Type] (for example). If this was changed so that the Drive and Devices view worked more like a View Scheme, where we could customize what Panes were available (and these panes showed up at the top rather than in the odd vertical position) and more easily customize the Columns and Sorting. I rarely want to browse the contents of the handheld by [Artist] or [Album] (the only two panes currently available) but [Genre], [Media Type], and [Media Sub Type] would all be very useful, among others.
Deleting: When you add media to a device it queues it for transfer on sync, but there isn't a way (not one I could figure out easily) to Queue deletions for the next sync. I'd like to be able to grab a bunch of files off of the handheld view, mark them for deletion, and then grab a bunch of other files from my library and add them to the queue, and hit sync and have it do it all then. As is, if I select 1000 files to delete manually, it takes FOREVER and blocks me from doing anything else with the application until the actual deletion from the device is done. This is no good! We should be able to easily change the "status field" from On Device to Delete on Next Sync or something like that. I can't see any reason why a deletion needs to happen immediately, when adding files doesn't happen until the sync.
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More handheld sync stuff:
I'd love to see a way to use the current contents of the handheld to tailor the sync Smartlist. For example, I generally like to put a group of random albums (using a smartlist) on my 2GB Sansa player. Then I listen to those for a while and when I get sick of them, I sync it again. Unfortunately, there's no way to ensure I don't get any of the same albums I just got sick of on there again. I want to use the current contents of the hand-held to pull those albums out of my smartlist.
-John
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I've not really played with MS MediaCenter but one thing I see is that Blu-ray / HD-DVD Support is being provided via a plug-in from the likes of ArcSoft's Total Media Theater.
Mmmm Vista Media Center "just runs itself" occasionally on my HTPC I without doing anything I say that TMT must integrate itself for Blu-ray / HD-DVD as you can see below! Looks good....
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The ability to customise the 'Standard' fields. Big fat warnings here are OK. Make it hard to find - OK. Turn the field red - OK. Please, just let me do it.
I AM willing to compromise - if I cant edit the field data type, then let me make it calculated... see below.
The logic: I have several custom fields - great for managing my library, so much so I rarely (if ever) use several of the standard fields, which are too restrictive, or dont take into account the amount of data required in that field to be useful. I would LOVE to be able to (for a simplistic example) do the following (in 'pseudo' code). (note- this isnt how I'd actually use it - but it gives you an idea.
if [genre] is classical then
[album]=[myalbum] + "(" [Conductor] + "-" + [Feature Artist] + ")"
else
[album]=[myalbum]
end if
This is most useful for iPods and the like
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I've been playing with the "Simplify Media" iphone app. It lets you access and stream music from your computer to the iphone. It reads your music folder directly, or itunes libraries. The problem is of course, that it only offers the same 3 fields as itunes: Artist, Genre, and Albums.
Something like this app from JRiver, that would work as a firefox addon, and/or iphone app would be amazing.
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A few wishes ...
1 ) add Navigation ( Favourites ) to Theatre View
2 ) add "Browse with MC" to the windows context menu.
3 )Individual shortcuts that can be placed anywhere like on the windows desktop, that'll take MC to that location directly. ( have no idea if this is possible ). Possible have the shortcut with an MC icon but adding the arrow to the icon to show it is a shortcut.
4 ) A Customizable "track info tooltips" eg. able to have "notes" tag visible, or be able to disable the image when "show track info tooltips" is enabled.
5 ) to be able to attach (tag) audio notes/files to an image.
6 )to be able to add buttons (command shortcuts) to the toolbar in fullscreen view, similar to what can be done to the top & bottom toolbar presently in standard view.
7 ) option to auto-hide main toolbar and tree or other panes (similar to auto-hide function in windows toolbar and Adobe Lightroom) so as to give more viewing area. This would as well give the ability to make the view area or panes change quicker. At present I struggle a bit to get the mouse actually click on the right spot as to minimize or maximise them.
8 ) some extra image editing tools like ... batch image conversion ...etc
9 ) oh one last little thing ... to be able to change MC's text colour in the options text menu. At present only text type and size can change, but no option for text colour.
Thanks
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Better drag and drop ability of the tree, so that it is entirely customizable.
This would allow the moving easily of items like television to a root menu.
It would also allow non expert users to be able to create root level view's.
At the moment it's not an easy thing to do, which seems a huge shortcoming.
It amazes me no one here ever seems to comment or request it, but all my friends whom have MC love the way I have Radio Stations/TV-Series and Film views available from the root view.
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1. Ability to backup EVERY settings, thumbnails etc
2. A polished Theater View is a must in my opinion.
3. PVR and EPG improvement/implementation would also be good
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PiP, PoP, PaP ;)
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Use a real (or fully documented) database for metadata. Don't worry about IDxx-style tagging of files unless the user chooses to export them from the MC/MJ library.
Include all MC/MJ settings in the system database/repository. Forget things like .ini files and registry entries.
Support belts and suspenders replication and/or simple backup/restore (import/export?) of the entire system database.
Be able to speak to more network connected audio/video components. Onkyo NetTune protocols, Philips/Marantz, etc. Being natively fluent in Girder, Pronto, and Harmony protocols and emulation would be tres chic too.
Keep the running log of 'now playing', allow it to be exported as text, edited with a simple text editor, and then re-imported as a custom playlist.
Reliable handheld sync (files, tags, playlists) with the most common handhelds; Apple, Windows Mobile (5 and 6), iRiver, Creative, SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, Symbian 40 & 60, don't forget the simple USB mass storage devices!!
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Maybe the ability to integrate an aac encoder with tagging, like Nero aac encoder or Apple's products (Qt or itunes). The developers of MediaMonkey have build their own and sell the plugin for a few dollars. The only problem is, that the quality isn't as good as the quality of Nero's encoder. http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/input-output/ (http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/input-output/)
thenoob1
PS: I'm really happy, that you decided to move on a bit. Can't wait anymore to see new MC13. You did a great job in the last years. The support is the best I've ever seen. ;D ;D ;D
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an option like the 'send to' in standard view, but then in theaterview. so that it is possible to for instance play a video with an other player when you want to (which is possible now by changing the media type, but that makes it again hard to play it from within mc), but also to open imd for more info, without first having to close theaterview.
:)
gab
an other small wish would be an mcc command to play unseeded radio, so i can start the radio from my remote. :)
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Remote Control for MC by iPhone/iPod like the Apple Remote Application!!!
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Improved image handling. I should be easier to use nested tags. Also, a calendar view. It should be easier to edit pictures, remove read eyes etc. It should feel more like a image program rather than a audio program, which happens to do images too. Also, playing images in full screen should be different than playing video in full screen.
Improved document handling. This including auto filling of tags based on location. Also, MC should read PDF tags.
Improved Pix01. For every album there should be a playlist. If the user add a picture to the playlist it should be uploaded automatically. If a comment is added to picture (assuming this would be added) one should be able to see this comment from within MC. Also, a more fancy Pix01 webskin would be appreciated.
In general, it would be nice if MC would be smarter about guessing tags. A lot of times MC could guess tags, based on something like location or previous experience. For example, I have a certain folder; every time I import something from this folder the procedure is to rename files from tags and import into the library. MC should recognize that when I import files from this location this is what needs to be done.
Cheers,
Rasmus
Edit: Support for other platforms in one way or the other
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My requests are mostly music-related:
- Integration of meta data database(s), like Musicbrainz, Allmusic, or Discogs
- Logical continuation of the "Stacks" system: a way to handle identical tracks on different albums (keeping tags in sync, etc.)
- Optimized "Shuffle" functionality (There has been a discussion about that topic a looong time ago. What i want is an optimized "human-perceived" shuffle - MC should avoid clustering tracks with the same artist, album, title, genre, ...)
- One-click backup and restore of all MC settings and data files (database, thumbnails, etc.)
- Database backend based on a standard relational database (maybe optional, MySQL or similar)
- Built-in, lightweight scripting system (Allows creation of small, user-defined functions without having to write a complete app in an IDE. Would allow, for example, easy implementation of functions like album rating or metadata import, or integration of external apps/tools)
- Optional user-selectable mapping of MC's tag fields to arbitrary tag fields (IDV2/APE/etc.)
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Screensaver mode... with funky and varying 3d effects...
When I've got MC as my media center, why not let me use it's power to display my photo, art, etc collections...
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I'm find configuring views in MC12 a bit cumbersome, and I had an idea for simplifying the process: "tiles". Here's how it would work:
- Enter "tile mode", presented with an empty MC window. "New tile" command adds a blank rectangular box to the screen. Size as desired, and freely choose what content will go in the tile.
- Options include: 1) Type (action items, playing now, library views---whatever you want. 2) Columns or thumbnails, etc 3) Drill down levels freely configurable (e.g. double click on an item and see columns, where the previous level was thumbnails; or click on playing now and see all tags for the item---whatever you want), 4) Specify final action (do nothing at end of hierarchy, play file, etc., reverse through hierarchy)
- Option to link (e.g. panes in MC12) or not link the tiles.
- Lock size of tiles.
- Tabs
Does that makes sense?
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My primary interest is in further fleshing out the expressions/smartlist engine:
Spreadsheet type calculated expressions, eg ability to do maths on other fields.
Album-centric data, eg calculate album averages BUT must be adjustable such that the field used in the calculation isn't necessarily RATING (for instance I use MY RATING to rate tracks 1-10 and would like that field used). Tied in with above, should be able to reference an album worth of data when doing expression calculations even if only one track is visible.
Add a way of querying the currently playing track for use in smartlists.
Mark
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2. A polished Theater View is a must in my opinion.
You need to be more specific than that.
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Given that a focus for MC13 is video, I think a better way to browse info (dvd covers, plot, reviews, rip notes, etc.) associated with videos would be a major step forward. I described one idea here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47843.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47843.0).
There are probably other ways to achieve the same objective. I'm not married to the specifics of my proposal. Just would like a convenient way to quickly browse info associated with files (or groups of files (aka albums)).
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I"m hoping for some plumbing evolution, to provide more control over some areas that can be tough to deal with now. These aren't new ideas -- many were posted on this board by others (and/or me). Some of these suggestions are possible now, partially or via a few extra steps, but maybe can be streamlined.
(For those who know it, yes, several of my MC wishes are derived from IBM Lotus Notes, a strong model because it has been used to build a huge range of database systems, ranging from accounting systems to media library systems to several of my large web sites (such as http://databased.advisor.com). The basic design has worked well for years, and I love how its text-file configuration (notes.ini) makes it easy to move and fix stuff, and lets IBM support Windows, Mac and Linux using the same .ini file.)
Suggestions for Media Center 13:
-- Switch to a text .ini for MC config, and store nothing MC-specific in Windows Registry (only what Windows requires, such as file-type associations).
If all MC config, view design, smartlists formulas, etc is in an easily accessible/copyable/editable text .ini file (like the good-old-days of PC software) it would allow easy moving of specific items or the entire configuration to another library or another PC.
-- Ideally, put view configs in individual .ini, similar to custom fields, so they can be easily shared.
-- As someone else mentioned, I've found it desirable to use mostly custom library fields to get the level of control I need, so I avoid many "standard" fields, mainly populating those that matter to my iPod. But I'm not sure my deviations from "standard" are unusual -- all I'm doing is cataloging a very large library of audio recordings (more than 60 thousand, heading to 100 thousand), so perhaps some of my custom fields (and customizations by other MC users) that would help others too. For instance, I've added a multi-value Artists field and used it extensively in views, I've added a Rank field to overcome an editing risk with the Rating field, I've added several fields to identify the source format of recordings, original ID, recording type, and others -- all fields commonly found in professional radio station programming libraries, so likely useful to users who are doing serious "catalog" library building.
-- Allow easy sharing of field and view design among users (see text-based config request). Maybe allow easy "snap-in" of such designs, helping users who aren't comfortable digging into library and view design.
-- Include some of the better "non-standard" library fields as options, similar to the various special-purpose views that are included.
-- Include some additional built-in views (perhaps selected as "best of" from user submissions), in-addition to allowing sharing of view designs among users. Many postings are users trying to explain to each other how to build complex/useful/attractive views, when it would be easier to just say "here's the config text that defines it", or even better, "click this".
-- Allow more control over standard library fields, perhaps with a warning if a change would make jeopardize tag compatibility, and/or default behavior that kicks in when required. For instance, let a "standard" single-value field be switched to multi-value, but notify the user that only the first value, or the entire string, might be used by other software. OR, behind the curtain treat this as two fields: put the first value in the standard field, then put all the values in a "hidden" custom field, giving the MC user the desired behavior but not truly messing up the standard field. Or allow more use of expressions (below).
-- specify for each field how edits are handled -- accept, or confirm first, or read-only, etc. (I don't use the stars Rating field because a keyboard "oops" slip changes the value, permanently, without warning or confirmation, so I added a custom Rank field).
-- control the type of list that pops up for a multi-value field (so short lists of values can behave differently from long lists).
-- control ALL fields via an expression if desired (small example: I'd like to automatically update Rating when I change my custom Rank field). This could also be a way for a user to use a custom multi-value field (such as my Artists) while automatically maintaining the standard version of the field. (An expression could take whatever I put in Artists and automatically put either the first value or the entire string in the standard Artist field.)
-- Allow changing of the cover art field in the Action Tag window, via Search/Replace and direct editing, often MUCH faster than using the file dialog to change the stored file path/name.
-- Provide a way to change the music file associated with a database record, not requiring delicate editing of the Filename field, and while preserving the db tags -- typically to update the music file to improve quality or fix a problem, without messing up the database/tags.
-- Optionally allow the Action Tag window to be floated and then resized to customize the tagging experience. (And, remember the user's preference for float/position/size.)
-- In views, allow column-level display customization -- font, bold, font color, column background color. This allow info to be optimized for user awareness (key info is more prominent), screen space use (some columns could use small font, some large) and even readability (some text works better in a courier-type font, such as columns of comparable numbers, for instance).
-- In a view and in Action Tag window, allow hover-over or right-click FAST viewing of a cover art image at full size, to quickly check what it really is.
-- Allow more menu/action items to be put on the top menu bar. Some of the things I do most-frequently aren't in the available list.
I'm excited about MC 13 -- thanks for asking!
-- MusicHawk (a user since Jukebox 7)
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-- Switch to a text .ini for MC config, and store nothing MC-specific in Windows Registry (only what Windows requires, such as file-type associations).
If all MC config, view design, smartlists formulas, etc is in an easily accessible/copyable/editable text .ini file (like the good-old-days of PC software) it would allow easy moving of specific items or the entire configuration to another library or another PC.
-- Ideally, put view configs in individual .ini, similar to custom fields, so they can be easily shared.
-- Allow easy sharing of field and view design among users (see text-based config request). Maybe allow easy "snap-in" of such designs, helping users who aren't comfortable digging into library and view design.
-- Include some additional built-in views (perhaps selected as "best of" from user submissions), in-addition to allowing sharing of view designs among users. Many postings are users trying to explain to each other how to build complex/useful/attractive views, when it would be easier to just say "here's the config text that defines it", or even better, "click this".
-- Provide a way to change the music file associated with a database record, not requiring delicate editing of the Filename field, and while preserving the db tags -- typically to update the music file to improve quality or fix a problem, without messing up the database/tags.
-- Allow more menu/action items to be put on the top menu bar. Some of the things I do most-frequently aren't in the available list.
These proposals are excellent!
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Simple (I hope) request. It probably comes down to having some way of having preset seed smartlists for radio mode.
Radio mode is probably the MC12 feature I use the most, because it saves me ploughing through my library to set up playing now, when I just want to get some music playing. I find that it often quickly spirals down to selecting from a small number of artists, based on me skipping through other artists I dont want to listen to according to my mood. Thats OK sometimes, but Id also like to see this feature enhanced to be able to tweak the randomness a bit. How about radio 'stations' - classics (based on popularity), new music (most recently imported/year field), genre based, mood based etc, with an added dose of randomess to throw in some unusual picks etc.
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I'd like to introduce a couple of factors to ask you to keep in mind when you make suggestions or requests. It would help us a lot if you could think of these first before posting.
1. Will the change sell more copies of MC?
I hate to be blunt (that's a lie) but our dev time is expensive, so we need to at least have a chance of selling something.
2. Is the change of general interest?
We have some very very smart people who use our product extensively, and they tend to be outspoken on this forum. Ask yourself if your wife or the neighbor who drinks your beer would find your request valuable. Apologies to Shelly and the three other ladies who frequently post, and to the guy who drinks my beer.
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I'd like to introduce a couple of factors to ask you to keep in mind when you make suggestions or requests. It would help us a lot if you could think of these first before posting.
1. Will the change sell more copies of MC?
I hate to be blunt (that's a lie) but our dev time is expensive, so we need to at least have a chance of selling something.
2. Is the change of general interest?
We have some very very smart people who use our product extensively, and they tend to be outspoken on this forum. Ask yourself if your wife or the neighbor who drinks your beer would find your request valuable. Apologies to Shelly and the three other ladies who frequently post, and to the guy who drinks my beer.
I've stated my opinion in the past that MC is not ideal for non-tech savy users, and that a better strategy would be to charge more and focus on the desires of your sophisticated users. I also know and respect the fact that the majority of people on this forum probably disagree with this opinion.
Perhaps there is a compromise that would satisfy everyone. How about springing one developer to work on geeky features like those proposed by MuscHawk above and bundle those features in a more expensive pro version?
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I'd like to introduce a couple of factors to ask you to keep in mind when you make suggestions or requests. It would help us a lot if you could think of these first before posting.
1. Will the change sell more copies of MC?
I hate to be blunt (that's a lie) but our dev time is expensive, so we need to at least have a chance of selling something.
2. Is the change of general interest?
Ask yourself if your wife or the neighbor who drinks your beer would find your request valuable. Apologies to Shelly and the three other ladies who frequently post, and to the guy who drinks my beer.
Easy one I think...mc can organize their metadata like no other...in getting and presenting that data there is a lot to enhance in the experience for the general user. But I am with rjm in its current form mc feels more like its targeted to the more "sophisticated" users.
peter
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"MC is not ideal for non-tech savy users..."
I totally agree. I wouldn't recommend MC (in its current form) to anyone who's not somewhat tech-savvy. Of all the dozens of people I could recommend a player to, only to one have I recommended MC.
The biggest single barrier, in my view, is that MC does not simply "work" out of the box. There are too many visible options, many of them potentially confusing to new users. Even for someone tech-savvy like me, setting up a simple view of album covers and a column list below has taken an inordinate amount of time in experimenting and posing questions to the forum.
I believe there should be default, user-friendly library views that cannot be changed easily unless a "show advanced options" box is checked.
You've got to hide the techie features 'under the hood'.
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Add a way of querying the currently playing track for use in smartlists.
yes... now that would be something very usefull. :)
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>> Will it sell more copies of MC?
To whom? If we can understand who buys MC (beyond the gang who hangs out here), it would help us contemplate this question. If MC is bought by people who aren't satisfied with Windows Media Player/Center, iTunes, and the like, which they already have at zero cost, WHY did they look around enough to discover MC, then buy it?
I agree with other comments, of all my music-loving friends, I've only steered a couple to use MC, and even they struggled to get comfortable with it (relying on my ability to tweak and customize). This is one reason I suggest making it easier for power users to contribute custom fields and views that can be adopted by users who would never design them but can benefit from having them. (It seems odd that MC allows a variety of sophisticated plug-ins but not interchanging of library/view designs.)
MC is valuable to me because it allows sophisticated ways, some easy, some not-so, to manage, catalog and play a large, heterogeneous library of music. As I said, in-essence I've created in MC a near-optimum radio station music programming system, and MC deserves most of the credit ;D. If I couldn't do this degree of customization, I doubt if any of the other MC features would be enough (cool ways to see cover art don't matter if the music isn't what I want). So, I'm motivated to offer suggestions on how to add to the power of MC, and equally important, how to make the existing power more accessible and customizable and controllable.
I know there has been strong effort to make MC do good/cool/fun things "out of the box", such as the so-called Radio mode, and auto-finding cover art, but these and other features rely on MC having proper tags to work with. If all the key tags aren't there (or aren't accurate), MC just spins in circles.
As seems common among this online community, I too have incredible control over my large library because I use a bunch of custom fields, way beyond the "standard" tags, to profile all my music. Once MC can "understand" and select my music by many key parameters, I can build smartlists that generate just the music streams I want.
Assuming one notable market segment values MC as a set of power tools, JR could continue adding/improving the many hooks and tweaks and options. The more powerful MC gets, the more essential -- and unique -- it is to buy and use. But, the best marketing slogan might not be "JRiver Media Center -- difficult, but worth it".
So, I suggest putting more library design "templates" into MC by default, AND documenting why and how to use them, explained for average new users. If users can see that it's easy to categorize their music (database/tags), and the playback benefit (via smartlists) is immediate and powerful, they'll be motivated to adopt MC as the personalized media library they've always wanted.
For instance, there are a bunch of database fields that a music library would have that a video library might not (and vice versa), and almost no tags that would be in common with a photo library. MC handles some of this as-is, and can be customized to do the rest, but getting to the complete design probably is beyond the "average" user, and/or forces the user to make database structure decisions that might turn out to be quite wrong. I've designed and built a zillion database systems, and still had to go through several MC iterations trying to devise custom fields that handle all the important parameters and variations of "just" an audio/music library. I ended up reluctantly splitting it into five libraries because one structure didn't "fit" them all. (For the curious, the libraries are pop/rock/jazz/etc music, classical music, christmas music, radio, comedy and talk recordings, and other sounds/effects, each with its own library design.)
Can a media library/player be "easy to use" AND "powerfully customizable"? Judging from the evolution and fate of hundreds of database products, "one size fits all" is impossible, EXCEPT when third-parties (i.e. developers, consultants and the like) can use the database system as a platform to customize. In fact, there is a sizable industry based on this three-party combination: core database platform maker, database developer/customizer, and end-user. A thought for MC...
Maybe there's something useful in these musings...
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I think MusicHawk is right in that much of the power of MC is not available if the tags aren't filled out correctly. This is certainly true for organisational things (view schemes), searches and features like coverart lookup... Maybe we should try looking at something user friendly that guides a new user when they import new media.
At the moment, if anything new is imported, it goes to recently imported and apart from that... who knows? Were the artist and name and album fields filled out correctly? If you have haven't really been paying attention to what you're importing (very easy to do with auto-import) the library can get messy very quickly and it's hard to really make use of things like smart lists or view schemes.
So what about a wizard that pops up with a few simple questions, that any new user could understand, as new files are imported:
What type of media is this? (Is it music? Is it a film? Television?)
Are the basic fields correct?
Would you like to download coverart?
The hierachy of questions would depend on which answers you give, and it could naturally be skipped or turned off if you don't like it.
The first question (What type of media is this) could be linked to a field, and this field could be used to determine which links/view scheme/links options etc are available for files once they're in the library. I have found you can organise anything with two [Type] fields (and two [Genre] fields)... if MC had a built in list of media types a bit more comprehensive than what's in there now, it could simply be a matter of the user clicking "Yes, this is an audio book" or "Yes, this is a home video" and the files would automatically go into predefined view schemes built into the software....
Just a few thoughts...
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With regard to tagging...I think it should be made fun, and part of the listening process.
Imagine: I play a file called "track 1" and immediately recognise it. "Ah, that's Steely Dan, Aja." I open a new tab in MC for the web browser, type in 'Aja', and there's the discography page. I read through it, as the song's playing. Then, I highlight a word on the page that says "Aja", right click Tag As-->Album; right click again, tag as "Name". Wow, that's Wayne Shorter on sax? I select "Wayne Shorter - Sax" on the page, right click as tag as "Musicians". I do the same for Steve Gadd on drums, and the tag is automatically semicolon delimited. I never need to realise that. There's the album, right click "Album Art". MC automatically sizes it.
Next track "Deacon Blues" comes on, and I realise it's the whole album I've got. I select all the tracks, and I drag the "Aja" tags one by one---automatically populated.
No need to overdo the illustration. I do think that tagging can be made easy and fun. Such a system would work well for any sort of music, as well. For example, I could select a new "Tag Group" and be presented with "Composer" as a standard tag, instead of "Artist", for classical music. Adding the individual musicians, of say, a chamber piece, would be easy, since lists are automatically delineated. I just keep happily selecting and adding names to the "Musicians" tag. The complexity (and aggrivation ) of tagging is eliminated.
Indeed, again, the whole process becomes fun, as I'm learning more about the music I'm listening to. You'd have to help point the user to good source pages, but they're easily found. Wikipedia in fact is fairly comprehensive and often includes album art.
Database querying becomes more of a secondary, 'advanced' feature. I bet most people can recognise the music they have, therefore they can tag it themselves, their way.
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While I'm truly not desperately asking for any major requests at the moment (due to major recent computer changes) I am very pleased to see continued intense development of MC and look forward to the next version greatly. I'm also ready to upgrade the second I can.
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if MC had a built in list of media types a bit more comprehensive than what's in there now, it could simply be a matter of the user clicking "Yes, this is an audio book" or "Yes, this is a home video" and the files would automatically go into predefined view schemes built into the software....
We had an unsuccessful run at trying to bring some more structure to media types a while ago...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43731.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43731.0)
I solved my need for a complete list of media types by creating a custom field and have designed some really nice views to leverage it. I suspect others have done the same. Unfortunatley we cannot easily share our work because of excessive use of custom fields. A little more structure would make it easier for users to share cool customizations as proposed by MusicHawk.
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I solved my need for a complete list of media types by creating a custom field and have designed some really nice views to leverage it. I suspect others have done the same. Unfortunatley we cannot easily share our work because of excessive use of custom fields. A little more structure would make it easier for users to share cool customizations as proposed by MusicHawk.
Same. The problem then shifts to transferring the items onto an iPod or such, hence my request regarding the user editable fields above.
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I must have missed that thread at the time :P
If it wasn't time back then, maybe it is now?
I think the key point is that with some very modest changes to MST we could meet the internal needs of MC and provide a standard organizational framework for users.
As it stands today, everyone has to design their own unique organizational method including associated views. This wastes time, does not encourage best practices, and makes it more difficult for users to share libraries.
I agree with what you were saying, and I think it's still the case. If we can work towards some sort of standard framework, even if it's just a default template that the user can delete or customise if they want to, it'll make organising your stuff much easier from the get-go.
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4 things that I would like to see in the upcoming version of MC:
1. Images support, I want a more configureable index-page printing on the currently selected images
(I want to be better able to control how many thumbnails can be printed in an index page).
I asked for it in the past... perhaps in MC13...
2. when either burning mp3 (data) CDs or syncing songs to mp3 devices,
I want to be able to select automatic volume leveling based on the files being synced.
currently, there is no support to the volume-leveling what so ever.
3. tags stored in files. I somtimes come across an mp3 file that was tagged in musicmatch,
which means that I have fields I don't want and I can't delete.
I read somewhere that musicmatch uses a more standart aproach to storing tags in files than MC.
MC can't remove those tags.
My request is basically 2 things:
A. maybe in MC13 the tags will use a more standart aproach to storing tags.
B. MC13 will be able to clean those (mostly) 5 extra fields.
4. Improve the function editors OR be able to use a 3rd party editor to edit them (which implies that MC will read external text files).
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So what about a wizard that pops up with a few simple questions, that any new user could understand, as new files are imported:
What type of media is this? (Is it music? Is it a film? Television?)
Are the basic fields correct?
Would you like to download coverart?
I like this concept.
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Picassa/Google Photo upload support please
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My only request would be more UPnP support i.e. PS3 / XBox / Wii.
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Some kind of intelligent batch tag editor. The case that I want to be able to handle is when you have taken a lot of photos, but the camera's clock was wrong. It would be nice to add some hours to each pictures.
Currently MC does not write Exif tags, as far as I remember. It would be nice if these tags were written as well as read.
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posts ive made in the past. that others have showed interest in...
Abiltiy to lock split views! so i can eventually enjoy 3 views instead fo the default and don't have to worry about the views moving!
integration with xbox 360
abilty to use Karokee with jriver meaning make our karaokee playlist and hit play and have the abilty to see text. ( a karokee option)
Ability to incorporate moviecollectorz database or a way for jriver to implement movie collectors database into jriver or make something similiar?!
view pdf files in jriver
Burn dvd's \ rip dvd's and incorporate with anydvd or similiar program
backing up of settings so you can import settings to other computers or on same machine after a crash or reformat
mini view incorporated into vista sidebar OR desktop sidebar (instead of using the unstable capture panel)
those have been my wishes :)
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Here's a few things I want out of the top of my head:
Let's call it... Steamlined Playlist Editing - but what I really want is simply a secondary function e.g. ctrl + click that can be mapped to whatever you want, in my case, add to playlist since simply clicking in my case is replace playing now.
I want the option to have a separate searchbox in different panes. I only use search in my library, and am constantly annoyed when I happen to have the playing now pane highlighted and thus search there.
"Toasters" or song notification "stickers"... Ah, you know what I mean. Possibly also a Sidebar Gadget and/or that thingy that Windows Media Player has. Preferably skinable so that you can only show a tracker and the artist/track (have media keys on the keyboard, so no need to have a cramped small UI when all I really want is the ability to glance info without doing anything, always there...
The last one is perhaps the one that might "sell more MC".. Maybe. The other ones may be of more limited appeal, but I want it at least..
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* Even tighter integration with last.fm. Latly I have been using the Fire.fm firefox add on heavily at work, I would like similar options within MC. So when i play a track from my library I would have the option to let Last.fm stream similar music etc, I would also like to sync my tags to last.fm, and other awesome stuff you could do with Last.fm
* Yadb with movie covers. Lyrics and tag clouds?
* Store all Mc settings in library backups, everyting! so you could restore everything from a backup, not just the library
* The ability to use one library from many computers. I don't care how this is implemented, as long as it works and is easy/fast to use.
* Improved tagging: I have never used MC for basic tagging and renaming my new music, and I would love to be able to do so. But until there is some way of grabbing basic metadata from at least amazon and preferably discogs, amg, rateyourmusic etc. It aint gonna happen. For Video and Picture I also would like to see auto tagging from filemane/path. Metadata from Imdb etc.
* BlueRay support
* Dramatically improved web-UI (all AJAXy and awesomelike) and skins for handheld toys(iPhone) and tools(winmo) ;) this new awsome Web-UI should also be able to stream music directly in the browser.
* even better support for MKV
* tag able bookmarks in all files
And of course the usual speed improvments and improved UI we always get with a new version of MC.
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I've tried to gather all my ideas, sorted by importance
Here's my list:
The most important of all. It has been discussed widely on the forum so there's no need for additionnal description :)
If relational database is implemented we need a way to "link" different items.
An idea would be to extend the "locate inside MC" function, that is pretty limited in MC12.
To be able to set the scheme of the results would be great.
- easily create dummy items not related to file
I'm using MC not only for audio / video / images but as a powerful interface for a database as well.
Right now I have to create "dummy" files to create an entry in MC so I can tag it as I want.
The idea is to be able to create other types than the basic 3 (music, images and video) and to be able to have items in the db not related to files.
With this we can use MC for a lots of tasks. Personal information manager with tasks, notes... is just one example that can be easily done with the custom schemes already in MC.
The idea is to display only full rows in thumbnail mode.
Scrolling will be a lot nicer and faster.
It was described in this topic: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46250.0
In pane view, I would like to have the ability to define a default value selected when you first display the scheme.
For example in an image view if my first pane is filetype, i want to have by default "jpg" to be selected. That way, my default view display standard files and only in a few cases I can easily display the raw files.
It would be also very useful for the playlist type because "all" doesn't have a real interest in this case.
- vertical size of the panes to be saved per view scheme disposition
- ability to tag a file from view mode (image)
It would be really great to display the tag window (or something similar) in full screen display mode. That way, I won't have to exit display to tag a file I'm watching.
- A tool to detect missing files
Ok that one may already exist and I just don't know about it.
Right now, I found it's pretty difficult to find files that no longer exist on your hard drives. I don't want to have something to automatically remove them, just a way to search and display them.
Missing files can have a use to store information on "offline" data such as CD backup...
- define the stack order for "play stack"
Very small feature request: in the last builds of MC12 you have the ability to play a single stack. But in my understanding, there is no way to easily change the display order.
A small option to define the time the action jump is using.
- customizable keyboard shortcuts
- faster explore the disk
In MC 12 explorer the disk explorer is pretty slow (especially with videos). It's probably the only reason why I'm not replacing explorer with MC :)
The big black bar can sometimes be a bother. Especially for videos with subtitles when pausing/unpausing. I'd like to be able to disable it or change its display (position / size)
related to PIM idea. Files will be grouped by a custom date (modified, taken, imported...)
- ability to disable thumbnail generation per file
I have some files in my db for which a thumbnail has no interest. A tag like "use bookmark" would be great.
Guillaume
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[...]
put all the viewshcemes on the front page and let us choose from there)
[...]
I agree.
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i agree too.
i miss the ability to have all view schemes the same throughout jriver. and dislike th ethe cistomize same for all parent views. be nice to just adjust them all at once!
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I'd like to see some kind of macro/script feature which can be invoked by iconic buttons, keyboard shortcuts, or customized remote commands.
This script feature should have access to the current selection (also in theater view!), much like the smartlist or file filter syntax. There should also be an "API" available, for example towards web pages internally in mc.
Here's an example of what I'd like to do:
o Add an Information button to my remote.
o When media type is video, do a search in IMDB for this video
o Open the results on the right side in Theater view, or in the right pane in std view.
o For music, do the same thing, but search in Allmusic instead.
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A GUI for the "Mix" playlist command :)
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47990.0
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yeah... i know an other one. make datatype=list in a calculated field etc behave the same as a list, with nesting. :)
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First post and all that :)
I have been testing the media center for some weeks and I am pretty pleased
with it. I mostly use the Theater View (for music), but there is one thing.
Let it be possible to be hard to exit Theater View. If I press Escape a few times
to leave a menu I am in the end presented with a box that asks me if I want to exit
the mode. The Ctrl-n (n=number) does it without asking. I use a Streamzap remote
and its Exit button will, as Escape, close menus and in the end leave Theater View
(and worse: even without asking the user). Both Escape and the remote Exit makes
it harder than it should to use the View in a party setting and also in normal everyday
use.
For me, it is more than enough that the "Exit" button in the left bar is the only way
to exit the View and in a party setting it could even be password protected there.
I am a developer myself, and over the years I have noticed that I (and others) often
add functionality to make it simple to leave or exit something (often with global
shortcuts) but this is something the users quite seldom request. The options are
often added because we (developers) like to have a simple way of navigating
through a program when developing.
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over the years I have noticed that I (and others) often
add functionality to make it simple to leave or exit something (often with global
shortcuts) but this is something the users quite seldom request. The options are
often added because we (developers) like to have a simple way of navigating
through a program when developing.
;D
true..
and welcume to the forums and all that.
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2. A polished Theater View is a must in my opinion.
You need to be more specific than that.
Ok, I will. I belive this is something that will sell more copies of MC.
When I speak of an Theater View overhaul I'm thinking mostly of the main menu. It looks rather old compared to Apple and Microsofts Media Centers.
When the main menu is fixed, the rest of the buttons and other textures in the underlaying pages would also need some work. A more shiny and glasslike buttons and textures would go a long way I think.
Much of this could probably be done with just another great looking skin. It would also help having a new super skin to emphazise that this really is a new version, and it brings something new to the table.
Not just for TV, but also for standard view, to make it complete. This makes me think of how it is today with the very good Noire in standard View, and then Obsidian in TV (as default!). What's up with that?
I'll just copy a previous idea I had, from another thread:
Tiles would look nice, but I think it's important to have it in one line as it is to day, to preserve the left and right browsing. That's prefferable imo.
Something like this just vertical maybe:
(http://www.vectorform.com/silverlight/screenshots/tilenav.jpg)
This could also work:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x Tile Art Tile Text x
x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x
x Tile Text Tile Art x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x
x x x
x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x Tile Art Tile Text x
x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x
x Tile Text Tile Art x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More tiles on less space. Almost as todays menu, just with alternate tiles left and right. Squint if my illustration makes no sence.
The best look would be to have this, or the straight vertical tiles, expanding as you mark the tile. Zoom function if you like. Much like the picture above.
Theater View is one of the most important things of a Media Center in my opinion. If it's good looking as well, it will draw more attention from people visiting.
The first impression is something that will stick and probably make people try it out, or at least ask some more questions. IF they are impressed...
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Given that a focus for MC13 is video, I think a better way to browse info (dvd covers, plot, reviews, rip notes, etc.) associated with videos would be a major step forward. I described one idea here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47843.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47843.0).
There are probably other ways to achieve the same objective. I'm not married to the specifics of my proposal. Just would like a convenient way to quickly browse info associated with files (or groups of files (aka albums)).
Exactly! This also get's my highest vote. Alot of people adds dvd and HD rips to their library, and also DVD's and images of them. With the tags that are there today, mostly people will not bother to enter anything except maybe the name of the movie. A way of extracting review, covers, plot etc from another source would do a world of difference. Just look at DVD Profiler. That's a great app for DVD library.
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It's been mentioned before but thought I'd add it to this list in the hope that MC13 addresses it...
Tabs are a superb feature. Unfortunatley I have found that tabs become unusable with large libraries (>150,000 files) because of the delay they add to tag editing. I think the problem is caused by an auto-refresh that occurs after every tag edit.
To avoid the problem I now use only one tab at a time. Note that simple tabs (like Playing Now, Playlists, etc.) do not add delays to editing so I still sometimes keep one of these open when editing.
Perhaps refresh could be disabled for tabs that are not displayed?
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yeah... i know an other one. make datatype=list in a calculated field etc behave the same as a list, with nesting. :)
+1 especially the nesting for calculated panes.
peter
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64 bit Linux version ce vous plait.
Complete Party Mode lockdown. Off the top of my head, it's still possible to edit tags, delete files (though not permanently), and alter the interface (ie deleting panes).
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Hi there!
One feature I'd like to see added in MC is the support for the small LCD screens of HTPC cases. Even a very simple one, like having the screen displaying track title, author and time during play. I know that there's a plug-in that can do this, but from some posts here it seems to be buggy and not supported any more.
Some of those LCD screens can even display Japanese characters, like the one on the Thermaltake DH103 (http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Chassis/desktop/dh103/vh3001bns.asp). A lot of the music I listen to is in Japanese, so it would be really cool to have the title displayed in its original language without the need to transliterate it.
Another one would be a sort of screen saver during Theater Mode. After x seconds without any user input the screen goes blank so the video card consumes less power, for example when you are listening to music and the TV is turned off.
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I have two suggestions:
The first is interface: I've recently discovered the power of the navigation tabs at the top of the window. The reason that I've only recently started using it was that it took me a long time to realise that the tree on the left was specific to each tab, even though the tree appears to be to the left of the tabs and therefore a separate thing. The idea, then, is to stretch the tab bar all the way to the left so that it appears above the tree also. I understand that it will take up space. Perhaps the compromise is to only show tabs if there are more than one?
The second is to build some mutated cross between the "radio" function and a smartlist so that we can generate seeded playlists of specific types of music. I would really find this useful for handhelds and so on. Making my own playlists is tedious. The "supersmartlists" could work by updating as songs are skipped and others fit the criteria. In the case of iPods, the supersmartlists would be updated in retrospect, based on which songs were skipped.
I hope those make sense... Let me know if I can clarify anything!
P.
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- AAC tagging... m4a, m4b, m4p, etc. etc.... Please let us dump iTunes! :)
brad
Totally second this!
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Please introduce a script like this one MKV muxing script:http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46118.0
With Library integration please.
That would be very very amazing!!!
Thanks alot!
Alaskatu
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Hi,
Sorry if this has been mentioned before. I didn't see it.
I think that being able to have multiple cover art (e.g. front AND back covers) is ideal.
Just to illustrate - I could "thumb" through my collection on the computer monitor, if multiple cover art were available, just as easily as I could physical media on my shelf.
V
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I think these have all been mentioned but I'll cast my vote for them:
* Write access via Library Server: This would be HUGE (and a full-fledged relational db would be ultracool too).
* Straightforward way to display extended tag info. Better interface for entering tag info
* SmartLists based on currently playing track (& current Playing Now).
* A Linux implementation.
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Please introduce a script like this one MKV muxing script:http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46118.0
With Library integration please.
That would be very very amazing!!!
Thanks alot!
Alaskatu
That one's mine ;D
For what it's worth, I built the script specifically to integrate into the library. If you change the autoupdate variable or select Yes, the library will be modified. If you're looking for something further (Right-click integration?), then I may be able to do something when MC13 becomes publicly available.
I agree though that this sort of functionality would be rather nice integrated, both for video and audio :)
Everyone has a standard format which they store each filetype in, and if MC automatically converted files to suit this would be very nice. The major problem I can see though is the possibility of data loss- If something errors out during conversion, or a format which adds loss is used, then dumb scripting can sometimes be a real issue.
Cheers
-Leezer-
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- write access from library server.
- synchronization of playlists of two libraries.
- Make MC an explorer replacement. More explorer like navigation in "My Computer" within MC. (i.e. click on folders etc). This would people who don't use tagging much to use MC much more easily. (also, I still care about physical organization, i.e. for partial backups).
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- support for folder navigation in theater view.
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Cover flow style viewing. Please.
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Face tagging, por favor!
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I've stated my opinion in the past that MC is not ideal for non-tech savy users, and that a better strategy would be to charge more and focus on the desires of your sophisticated users. I also know and respect the fact that the majority of people on this forum probably disagree with this opinion.
I think this is mostly true. MC definitely has a steeper learning curve than other competing software, but it offers a lot more. I think this points to one of the most important things J River could do to improve MC and increase sales...improve usablitily. By that I mean taking a long hard look at the the entire usage workflow (including settings, as others have said) and see how the UI can be improved to streamline it.
I recognize this is a difficult thing to do well. We all know lots of software that is harder to use than it should be. I can't give any really specific suggestions, but I can put forward one very general idea, although it would not be easy to implement. The idea has comes from my own workflow analysis and redesign of the product my company produces. We are still in the middle of this effort, so I can't say anything about the final results. Anyway, here's the gist of it:
If you could take the skinning concept to an entirely different level such that both you and your users could arbitrarily design and reconfigure the UI compontents of MC so that trying and sharing new ideas is easy to do then it make an opportunity of the community to evolve your UI quickly and hopefully come up with multiple solutions that work well for various people. To do this I think you'd need to do (at least) 4 major things.
1. Redesign each functional UI component to be as discreet as possible so it can be turned shown or hidden as desired.
2. Define dependency connections between these components so that the person working on a new layout knows that if some action is done on one component then this other UI bit will be displayed.
3. Create a UI framework where the components can be layed out. Perhaps something including the docking functionality the Visual Studio has would be a good starting point. The framework would also need to have import/export functionality so the layouts could be shared.
4. Document the above, especially #2 and #3.
Like I said above, implementing this would not be easy. Even worse, it wouldn't address all of the learning curve areas MC currently has. For example, learning truly effective ways to tag you media is difficult. Partly because what's necessary to tag popular music is different from what is necessary to tag classical music both of which are drastically different from tagging photos. This is where MC's flexability becomes a liability to some degree. Where the above layout idea could help in this area is if the UI elements can have some ordered workflow parameters applied to them so that someone could create a photo-tagging layout/workflow that moves the user through the steps necessary to tag photos.
You could possibly use this framework to implement some of the wizard-like walkthroughs that others have mentioned too.
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Since MC12 can burn audio and audio-data files to CD/DVD, how about enabling MC13 the ability to burn all file types? Surely, this feature would increase sales. :)
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2 small ones:
- Support for animated gifs
- radio "stations"
Every time I use the radio feature, I modify the filter to match my current mood. It would be great to have predefined filters just like regular radio stations: "rock", "classical", "80s"...
Also Radio should appear in the tree.
[/list]
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...improve usablitily. By that I mean taking a long hard look at the the entire usage workflow (including settings, as others have said) and see how the UI can be improved to streamline it.
You could help us out if you would post your thoughts on settings here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47975.0).
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User-defined integration with services. For example, I usually use photobox as printing service for photos. I would be nice if there was some kind of API to allow me to add upload directly to MC's right click menu. This should of course be shareable.
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One thing that can really help the usability of MC: a search box in the options menu.
I saw this feature in Directory Opus and it works wonderfully: You have an input field in the bottom of the option window and when you enter a word in it, it filters the option tree to leave only the matching items. It even circles the matching option.
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From Matt's first post:
# Ability to use my images and videos as my screen-saver
# Ability to have my wallpaper automatically rotate using my image library
Fully support this, and it should be able to manage multiple displays, so have one screensaver on display1, another on display2 and a third on display3, also setting different rotating wallpapers on different displays.
Also:
1. a frame engine for images, being able to have different frames for images (type of frames, colors, thickness etc.)
2. more configurabilty for image caption (fonts, font size, fg/bg colors, screen position etc.
3. more configurability for slide shows (similar to track info system, more than one image per slide, ability to create image collages)
4. support for photo/image frame devices
5. support for container management, user defines his own container with images, audio, video, text, kind of a project folder
We not only want to be image collectors and taggers, but really want to use the images we collect in various ways.
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The main problem with MC today is the high threshold to start using the program.
If something was done with this, MC could easily be sold to a much wider group of users.
You can just look at the basic configuration help in Vista Media Center. It's not the best, but it's a step in the right direction.
My thoughts goes toward a wizard as a guide to the initial config of MC.
Each group is supposed to illustrate a new window. I think it's important not to make this to time consuming for the user,
but rather include only the most used options. It could look something like this:
1. You want help configuring MC?
o Yes
o No
If yes:
2. What will you use MC as?
[] Music Player
[] Video Player
[] Image Viewer
[] Data Organizer
[] TV (tuner needed)
---- When music is selected -----
1. Import Music
o Make MC search my computer for music
o Browse to my music directory
[] Auto import tracks in the future
2. Online cover art and tags
[] Make MC look for album Cover art online
[] Make MC search for tags online
[] Submit tags and cover art to online database
---- When music is selected -----
1. Import Video
o Make MC search my computer for videos
o Browse to my Video directory
[] Auto import Video in the future
2. And so on...
* General
1. Set MC as default player for
[] Music
[] Video
[] Images
2. Select default View
o Theater View (best for TV viewing)
o Standard View (best for monitors)
3. Portable Players
o Add portable player
o No player
4. And so on...
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How about adding support for lyrics.
If this could be added, there are many users that could quickly update the database to give it a nice start.
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Theater View is one of the most important things of a Media Center in my opinion. If it's good looking as well, it will draw more attention from people visiting.
I agree - Theater View needs to look simple, sharp, and be effective by default. I have tweaked the hell out of a custom skin that I made and it's just about there, but it should kick some ass right out of the box. Like MrHaugen said, MC's interface pales in comparison with the competition - of course, the underlying software wins hands-down (that's why I use it).
I like MrHaugen's example, BTW...
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I agree - Theater View needs to look simple, sharp, and be effective by default. I have tweaked the hell out of a custom skin that I made and it's just about there, but it should kick some ass right out of the box. Like MrHaugen said, MC's interface pales in comparison with the competition - of course, the underlying software wins hands-down (that's why I use it).
Without specifics, this kind of comment is no help at all.
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my vote also for read/write library access to better enable sharing of my music on a LAN with multiple family members using it.
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Without specifics, this kind of comment is no help at all.
Sorry. I guess you wanted us to do the UI design? Not my area of expertise. I just wanted to +1 Mr. Haugen's comments.
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My list so far:
1. DVB-C support. Since you already support DVB-T via BDA-drivers, that perhaps shouldn't be that big change?
2. DVB subtitles support
3. Record multiple channels inside one DVB mux with one TV card.
- use standard .TS container for recordings
4. Theater View Should have info view for Movie, TV Show/TV Show episode, Album and for Artist.
- For Movies/TV Shows the view would contain info for example about actors/director/imdb rating/plot etc.
- Artist View info -> Artist Bio, Albums in database etc
- Album View info -> Tracks for that album, Album Review etc
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2 things:
I know wizards have cropped up a number of times in the past - they may be a bit 20th century, but I do think there is a place for some kind of assistance to get users into MC. Ive posted on the forum before somewhere about the first 10mins post install: create my library, play music, find music, sync my ipod etc. Same goes for TV and video Im sure. So I support MrHaugen's suggestion.
Will the change sell more copies of MC? Yes, I think, by word of mouth and ease of use.
Is the change of general interest? Yes for triallers, non experts etc I think. I usually avoid wizards once I become familiar with a program - as long as the wizard just repackages commands/options and doesnt take away the detailed functionality thats OK.
Every time I use the radio feature, I modify the filter to match my current mood. It would be great to have predefined filters just like regular radio stations: "rock", "classical", "80s"...
Also Radio should appear in the tree.
I posted the same thing here too, glad Im not alone.
Will the change sell more copies of MC? Not worth $40 on its own, but a simple addition (I think)
Is the change of general interest? Yes, probably everyone at some time wants to just press the play button and hope MC matches their mood.
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1) Like previously mentioned, grabbing meta data for movies form an outside source. Couple of ways would be able to import data from an xml file that programs like DVD Profiler, Movie Collector, etc... create. It is my impression that a commercial program such JR Media Center would need to pay a fee to IMDB to grab their data. An open source, free alternative would be movie-xml.com, which is user maintained.
2) Just like movies, it would be nice to grab meta data for TV Shows as well, there is a free open source website for this as well called thetvdb.com. The data is also user maintained, and it has a rather large community as well.
I do not know what kind of issues would have to be dealt with using those websites, Those two websites are very popular for the open source and free HTPC programs such as Media-Portal, but being a commercial program might make it more difficult then just using their API, for whatever legal reasons.
Theaterview:
1) I think the best way to describe it is this; A Skin designer should be able to create any number of pages that could contain any buttons, any data from tags, and any graphics, and backgrounds anywhere on a page they want. Basically theaterview should be completely customizable. That is a big reason the HTPC frontend Meedio has been kept alive 2 years after the last update is because people are still creating completely new and original skins, it is so open people have figured out how to do pretty amazing things with it.
2) For the out of box experience though, Theaterview should have a few things. The now playing page should contain more data for the song that is playing, possibly lyrics, bios, that type of information.
3) If there is data for movies, and tv shows, there should be page for each movie that shows, actors, overview, ect... TV shows should list each episode, and show the same type of info.
It is hard to describe so though I am sure you guys probably have done this, look at the some of the skins for mediaportal, xbmc, and meedio, there are some beautiful skins out there, Aeon for xbmc, is one of the most amazing. The interfaces are very nice they just don't have the power behind them like Media Center.
I really think a fancier theaterview, with movie and tv show data, could attract a lot of the HTPC crowd.
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So I'd love it very much if we could define profiles in MC:
- super light MC
- medium
- heavy
You could define various profiles, each one having more or less plugins/features/options, thus giving you much more control over the resources. I'm asking this because I want to start offering playlists to restaurants and we don't want MC to crash in the middle of a tune or start having hickups on a track like my version has started doing since my last patch upgrade (version 12.x.x.x).
Cheers
melkiades
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Real easy request here...
Please include one simple dialog box attached to the "Exit" button of the "Record Sound" menu such that if a recording is in progress, "Exit" prompts you to "Save" OR "Discard" the recording. At present Exit dumps any active recording without so much as a whisper.
As we use this feature regularly with guest operator of our projection machine - it's proving to be a real gotcha! Ouch.
Thanks heaps.
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I'd like the ability to drop in a playlist (given to me by someone else) and MC would search my music to try and 'fill' the playlist with my music.
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Make CD burning easier.. My son used to use Nero where he could build a folder structure in the bottom pane and then drag and drop files into the folder and hit burn. In the MC case we would also need to convert file type before burning.
The current system uses a "rule based" folder structure that is too difficult for normal people to set up and burn one cd. Then have to reinvent the wheel next week to burn the next one....
Thanks
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- More complete support for .mka files (chapters, tagging, internal images, attachments)
- OSD based quick TV channel selection - I may be missing something here, but at the moment trying to move 10 channels is a slow, tedious and frustrating business)
Count me in this too ;D
and also full support for WavPack (.VW)
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And one more just to don't forget it: more upnp compatibility with xbox 360, ps3 and wii.
thanks a lot
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I think wavpack decoder is already included in MC12, but maybe I'm wrong.
-- I think you can download it here:
http://mcplugins.sourceforge.net/ (http://mcplugins.sourceforge.net/)
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Every time I use the radio feature, I modify the filter to match my current mood. It would be great to have predefined filters just like regular radio stations: "rock", "classical", "80s"...
Also Radio should appear in the tree.
[/list]
Totally agree with these!
Something like the way "Web Media" works under Audio.
Audio
Radio Mode
Station 1
Station 2
Web Media
-John
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I'd like to see the concept of "virtual albums". Think of creating a playlist that looks just like an album mixed in with all the other albums.
Right now, playlists are separate entities, what if we could mix them in with the albums with their own artist/albumName tags?
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2. A polished Theater View is a must in my opinion.
If you need some inspiration, XBMC has some great skins... AEON, for one. And I love how XBMC grabs album & artist info from allmusic to incorporate into the UI/menus. It makes it feel like your collection is maintained & supported by something big... MC could use this approach or use it's own database (like it does for cover art and track info).
http://www.aeonproject.com/
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I'd like to see the concept of "virtual albums". Think of creating a playlist that looks just like an album mixed in with all the other albums.
Right now, playlists are separate entities, what if we could mix them in with the albums with their own artist/albumName tags?
MC already has the needed functions internally. I explained how virtual albums can be created in this post three years ago: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29082.msg201123#msg201123
Only a usable user interface is missing.
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Sorry. I guess you wanted us to do the UI design? Not my area of expertise. I just wanted to +1 Mr. Haugen's comments.
And I agree with Peter. Mr. Haugen's example is exactly the direction I'd like to see Theater View's interface design headed.
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I'd also like to see improvements with Theaterview (don't currently have the time to offer specific exampes - sorry). As it is now, I rarely use it. In fact, for most things my wife and kids much prefer using Vista Media Center. The main reason VMC is superior is the interface for watching and recording TV and the integrated EPG. We also own SageTV and still prefer the VMC interface. For watching movies in VMC, we use the MyMovies plug-in. I especially like the separate MyMovies application for adding movies to the database and editing related info/tags.
When I want to listen to music, I exit VMC and use MC. However, my wife and kids still prefer VMC. I explain that there are all sorts of great Auto Smartlists that depend on the play stats, etc., and none of that syncs between VMC and MC.
So, like MyMovies, would it be possible to create a plugin for VMC that ran off the MC engine? This way you could use the VMC interface, but any play stats would update your library database.
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There are some great ideas here for the next major version of MC. I'm excited to see how it progresses. There is one feature that I have mentioned in another thread here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=48026.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=48026.0)) that I would love to see implemented in the next version. Basically it would be the ability to have MC physically apply the replaygain value directly to the mp3 file so that the advantage provided by players with replaygain ability built in (ipod) could be enjoyed on players that don't, like most car stereos. At the moment it requires a multi step process and multiple programs to accomplish this. It could be done by MC on the fly as it sync'd the external device. Another option brought up by Alex B would be a plug-in that might accomplish this as well....... So what do others here think?
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I know you said focus would be less on music, I'd love an additional visualization in Theater view that offers customizable tag info. In other words, the rotated cover art view + tag info only (no extra graphics).
I love the clean look of the rotated cover art view on my TV when music is playing, but there is no info visible (track, year, etc.)
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Xbox 360 and (but I guess MC already does this since it's upnp..?) PS3 streaming. This has been requested before.
However, here's something of interest that I stumbled upon: http://a8t8.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2518DD508BB713E8!156.entry
I didn't read it to carefully since I obviously don't use WMP anyway, but what it seems to be saying is that you can stream FLAC to the 360/PS3 (I assume it will convert on-the-fly..).
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Hopefully, the Link Bar support will include the much-needed <Ctrl><Click> support and opening the linked to screen in a **NEW** tab (like good tab-supported programs should have...ref: Firefox). This has been requested before (for things like 'Locate...' and 'Favorites...' functions). Opening in a new tab preserves your current content and lets you view the 'new' screen data in a new tab.
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I only use theater view so making that as configurable as possible would be good. Particulary the playing now screen, so you could choose to display current track name, album/artist name etc
In my opinion i think the biggest oversite is that theater view does not display track time/remaining time.
which i would of thought is one of the basic things any media center should display.
And maybe a full screen that displayed just current and next track with album art and track details....and of course current track times :)
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We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features. Still, it's fun to dream.
So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.
- Please, a new skin for theater view - something that compares to WMC. MC has lots of great 3D technology in the theater version but it lacks some art and "slickness". The 3d effects have too many rough shapes, plus not much use of transparency (except for spinning a MC logo in the background). I'm not very keen on all the MC logos everywhere (3d visu and others). I like Vista's "aura" type of visuals for instance.
- A new skin for media center - maybe some vista glass effect, this is a major new version!... and same here, more transparency effects, maybe more 3d effects.
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Actually... In addition to the sidecar XMP files discussed in detail above and in other threads, I'd like to see substantially improved in-file tagging for those file containers that support it. Including:
- MP4 (including all of Apple's stupid sub-variants: M4A, M4B, M4V, M4P, AAC, etc)
- MKV and MKA
- OGM (and variants)
- FLAC (that should be particularly easy since they use APE tags, don't they?)
I would like this as well. Proper multi-Artist support for FLAC, ie more than one artist tag for tracks with more than one artist. :)
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An idea that I had a little while ago was a Time-line View. Have a horiz scrollable timeline. The data could be based on any time field. This would also go along with another poster wanting more play stats. I associate many things with time, and often want to find music that I bought, listened to, etc. within a certain timeframe.
Get real fancy with the timeline and you can explode out cover art when you mouse over points.
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Small request....
.cue and .m3u files. Want these imported as entries in the database.
If I run auto-import manually, it will do this.
If I select these files in windows explorer, then right-click and import into MC this way using shell integration, it will do this.
If I select these files in windows explorer and drag them into MC, it will NOT import them as entries.
Would like this standardized for all three methods.
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A great future in the next build will be a specific top hits list. The actual TOP HITS list makes a list with the most played songs of all times [since the creation of the media library]. It will be absolute a great and very cool option if MC will introduce a specific time TOP HITS lits, that will work simultaneous with usual TOP HITS list. What means this: the specific time TOP HITS list should to create the list with the most played songs - let's say in the last week, in the last month, etc. and to not be affected by the usual TOP HITS list - most played [all time - since the start of the library]. Also the usual TOP HITS list should not be affect the SPECIFIC TIME TOP HITS list and both lists run separately. Of course each played song, should be counted normally in usual TOP HITS list.
If a song has 7 plays since the start of the library and 3 plays in a specific week; at the end of the specific week that song should be counted in usual TOP HITS list with 10 plays - and in the specific most played in last week (our example) just the 3 plays.
In this way certainly MEDIA CENTER will be more appreciate and the difference from the others media players increase.
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For now, MC13 uses cover art files from the previously linked locations, but possibly we will get some new options for changing the cover art location (if I understood correctly what Matt said in another thread). This would be nice in case the user has the cover art files in the old default location in MC12's application data folder.
This would be very nice. I stopped using screen grabs for video a long time ago because they are stored in program files. I have had to maintain an old MC11 folder in program files when I build new systems because it contains some screen grabs.
Perhaps implementation of this feature could allow us to edit the Image File field so that we can clean up legacy messes.
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In a post somewhere on page 3, I suggested a feature that I likened to a mix between the "radio" function and a smartlist. I believe that apple call it a "Genius" playlist: http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/
P.
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A super-small thing.. I believe Winamp had this.. There should be an option to stop/pause after the current track being played, contextually available on the stop-button and also through e.e. ctrl+stop. Many times I want to pause the music, but its not so urgent that I can't finish the track I'm currently listening to.
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- Nestable fields for dynamic fields.
- Full support for all standard id3v2 fields.
Thank you for this great program.
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1. The ability to replace iTunes 8 as the controller of AppleTV very much the way MC11 and 12 is my sole controller for my iPods.
2. Given #1, ability to stream any video (Joost, Orb, YouTube,) to AppleTV.
3. While we're at it, stream any audio playing on a computer to Apple TV or Airport Express a la Airfoil so we can listen to Shoutcast, Pandora, Sirius., etc.
3. Ability to play DVD files stored on server and have them streamed to AppleTV, negating the need to convert them to H.264.
Thanks. ;D
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The only problem I still have is that I cannot work with original ripped DVD files from my server. I want it to be played through the library server so I can watch my movies in the bedroom, living room etc. I guess there must be a way the have this working one way or the other. And NO I cannot rip them again to DivX or whatever, I have too many and want them the way they are. Now I have to copy them to another PC first. But this was never how I looked at MC. I though it could handle all of my media. Now it's used mainly for my music, which it does great, and I have my DVD library complete with actors, directors, year, poster thumbs etc. But wouldn't it be nice to play them by double clicking those thumbs? For me it would... :)
Regards,
Theo
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The ability to change zones whe usign the web interface.
Some better controls and screen info on zones.
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One thing I've wanted for a long time is the ability to right-click an album cover (when browsing music by album thumbnail) and have the individual tracks appear in a popup window, so you can play a selected track instead of just playing the entire album. I noticed version 13 has a new view of files for the selected album, which is great, but it would save screen space to make it so you can view the album files as a popup menu instead of it's own window.
The AlbumView plugin is a good example of what I mean.
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The area I am most concerned with is an overhaul of Theaterview with far greater customization, better "stock" skins and an easier way to create new skins. It looks like this is already part of the plan so I will be upgrading for sure.
Also, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet as I haven't read all of these posts, but I would love to be able to manage my email with MC. Microsoft Outlook sucks for organizing email. If MC was able to import email I would highly recommend it to co-workers and I'm sure others would do the same.
A exhaustive Manual that is updated in parallel to program updates would also be nice.
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Also, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet as I haven't read all of these posts, but I would love to be able to manage my email with MC. Microsoft Outlook sucks for organizing email. If MC was able to import email I would highly recommend it to co-workers and I'm sure others would do the same.
I realize this is a thread to solicit requests, so i wouldn't normally comment on another person's feature request, but I couldn't help myself here (apologies to thurston, because I don't want to be offensive or anything).
I worked many years in software development as a project manager and I've seen pretty good applications get ruined by trying to expand the original feature set to increase market appeal. I think you should only consider adding features that will work seamlessly with the user interface of the core feature set. I don't see email, word processing, and even audio/video editing features fitting into this application seamlessly. There are plenty of other applications out there that do these things well. If you think there is a problem with apps like Outlook (and I agree that Outlook sucks - heck, even Microsoft employees will agree with you on that) and you also think there is a market opportunity there, then consider creating a dedicated email client, but don't try integrating an email client with MC.
I'd rather have several applications that do each of their tasks very well, than just a few that are mediocre at doing several things. That's just my opinion.
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Hi Guy's,
Well done on MC13.
Any chance of supporting Windows Media Audio PRO (WMA Pro).
Cheers,
John
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(apologies to thurston, because I don't want to be offensive or anything).
No offense taken. I just like how MC tags media files and often wish my email app had similar organizational capabilities. Maybe I am a bit ignorant as to how email is handled, so I don't know how difficult this would be to implement. MC 12 is already capable of importing different types of documents, etc and I don't think this has detracted from its functions as a media organizer/player/etc.
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1) +many for (completely) customisable theater view and well documented instructions on how to make changes.
Suggest using a mark up language and a stand alone tool where you can quickly test/view results without having to run "full" MC. That would allow rapid tuning/mod. to interface without the pain of making changes, incl. into MC dir's running MC, waiting, find changes did not work quite right, wait, fix, repeat.
2) Also full control of import/export of tags via "simple" interface so I can extract tags to make mass changes in say EXCEL and reimport with confidence.
3) Test/diagnostic mode for easier diagnosis and identification of codec issues or codec preference? Not sure about how this would work, but the codec selection aspect seems to be very manual and could lend itself to some inteligence. Perhaps there could be an approach where the system intelligently cycles through codec/settings looking for something that works and then the user accepts this setting?? kind of like channel search on a TV?
Dav.
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No offense taken. I just like how MC tags media files and often wish my email app had similar organizational capabilities. Maybe I am a bit ignorant as to how email is handled, so I don't know how difficult this would be to implement. MC 12 is already capable of importing different types of documents, etc and I don't think this has detracted from its functions as a media organizer/player/etc.
I'm pretty sure you can do email now. Just export all your email messages as individual files in some text format, import into MC, and have it. I don't recommend this though (and I say this with the experience of 11,000 documents in my MC library). Suspect you would be better off studying the hidden power of Outlook, which is pretty good once you understand it.
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In case it hasn't already been specifically mentioned (there's a lot in this thread now)...
Increased Customisation.
We can already skin to a degree, but it would be nice to really nail the skinning abilities for theater view (make it simpler if possible, and generally more flexible). It'd would be really nice to get that Theater View plugin interface finalised and some doco/samples out.
I *really* think this will improve community uptake -people love to tinker and customise, and I think MC's overall abilities really lend it to this type of user.
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More options when using 'Group By' would be useful.
1. Clicking on the group header should select all files within the group, then when the right-click menu is activated (from the group header) the selected action would be applied to all files in the group.
2. Customisable group header description.
3. Group sort option.
Thanks
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Agree With Ludo's comments about "Group By' options.
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I'm am iPod user and an album-centric music listener. I would love an option in Media Center so that Album Gain values are applied to the iPod Soundcheck database fields instead of the standard Replay Gain values. Of course other people are more track oriented, so both options should be available.
I've been using MC12 for ~3 months now for my music collection and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I'm still discovering new tricks and haven't yet seriously explored image and video support. I would love to use the awesome tagging capabilities of MC to tag my family photo collection. However, I like the browsing experience of Google's Picasa much better for images. Also, of course, the image processing features of Picasa are handy for managing a photo library. While I wouldn't necessarily expect MC to go the image editing route, since its strength is in its database capabilities, I think slicker image browsing would be good. Again, Picasa would be my point of reference.
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I've talked about this in another thread, but just to keep it all together...
I use Theatre View mainly for video files which are played over a (sometimes) slow Powerline ethernet network connection. The internal video player doesn't really work for me, so I use BSPlayer Pro for video playback since it has a nice configurable 'network buffering' feature... the only player to my knowledge that does this. It's probably not practical to add this feature to the internal player... so... I would like the following:
- The ability to set certain types of files or specific files to be played automaticaly using an external player (i.e. not using the MediaType="Data" trick that doesn't work in MC13's Theatre View anyway)
- Together with this, an option to play that same file in the internal player on demand, for adding screen grabs as cover art. Maybe two 'Play' options on the right click menu of a video file.
That is all for now. Please keep up the good work.
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I'd like to see Audio Conversion enhanced to include:
- Multiple Processor Support - convert several files at once as done in Handheld transcoding
- Process status indicator showing total time remaining (now only shows status if individual file)
I'd also like to see the ability to manage my offline lossless archive drives and keep them in sync with their lossy matches, including an option to transfer any tag changes made to the online set applied to the offline set when it comes online (Manually controlled of course, with the necessary dialogs to reduce chance of error).
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- Please, a new skin for theater view - something that compares to WMC. MC has lots of great 3D technology in the theater version but it lacks some art and "slickness". The 3d effects have too many rough shapes, plus not much use of transparency (except for spinning a MC logo in the background). I'm not very keen on all the MC logos everywhere (3d visu and others). I like Vista's "aura" type of visuals for instance.
- A new skin for media center - maybe some vista glass effect, this is a major new version!... and same here, more transparency effects, maybe more 3d effects.
Seconded.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way but I think that the skins/engine looks a little out-dated and dare I say 'tacky'. Whilst in XP these skins do make for a nice change, I think that with the introduction of 'Vista glass' it adds a new way of using the windows and has a built in drop shadow. A nice new example of this is Google's Chrome using the top for the tabs, and when un-used, still looks good. The glass is usually just a border so you could still easily have skinnable contents inside /captain obvious.
Here's something I knocked up quickly. It's kinda shoddy but you get the idea xD
(http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/8282/jmchx6.th.jpg) (http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jmchx6.jpg)
Before I saw your screenshots from this thread (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=48199.0). I was hoping you would be using the 'glass' effect, but it seems as though (at this point at least and from the evidence) you're not opting for it. Perhaps a Vista specific skin?
The dilemma for me is that I really like your program (which I must get in, is the best out there), however, do think that aesthetics are important. The current skins are perfectly acceptable, but would like to see a cleaner and more modern interface.
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The current skins are perfectly acceptable, but would like to see a cleaner and more modern interface.
Welcome to the forum. If you have not done so already, check out the No. 4 skin. It's the best in my opinion.
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Thank you for the welcome.
And yeah, i've checked out the other skins and currently use the WMP11 skin someone made.
I like the Glass effect basically and would like to see it :P
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A new skin is really important, but what about Artist Art??
I think MC13 would really stand out as a rather unique product when family, friends and other people can browse through your artist with a image of the given artist/group. This can also be applied to TV Series cover of a series etc, instead of a rather random cover in front. The cover art it self often do little for me, except looking good, if I don't immediatley recognize the cover of a band.
I do not belive many other players have this option.
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1, 2, 4, 8, .... 30??? Sorry, that does not compute.
j
1x ((-2) + (4x8)) = 30
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Sorry if this has been requested, but the ability to stream FLAC thru a uPnP server is a must!
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MrHaugen has got it in one. (sorry I don't know how to quote from other posts).
Images of artists/groups has been requested for ever it seems. And it would be an amazing unique feature that I believe would have mass selling appeal. Imagine images included in drop down panes. The search facility is so responsive you would not be restricted by displaying less results because of artist or album images showing. Just add another letter and search further. Or what about going from a 3D type wall of artist images to the existing 3D album wall. Come on, we've had album art for ages give us artist images to play with and let the others catch up to MC13. At the moment I don't see any other suggested feature that would appeal/sell more to "average" users. Fancy skins/improved theatre view are appealing but would not be unique - more like catching up to competitors. Charge ahead on a unique feature!
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You say the search feature is very responsive - but with an extra huge database, that ceases to be true. I guess I'd like to see an emphasis on database efficiency, not that you all aren't already aiming for that :)
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You say the search feature is very responsive - but with an extra huge database, that ceases to be true. I guess I'd like to see an emphasis on database efficiency, not that you all aren't already aiming for that :)
Maybe you could start a thread with some details. Virus checkers can slow things down a lot.
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You say the search feature is very responsive - but with an extra huge database, that ceases to be true. I guess I'd like to see an emphasis on database efficiency, not that you all aren't already aiming for that :)
This has not been my experience. Search has remained very fast as my library has grown. I have noticed that my view display time has grown with library size, however I am hoping that it might be caused by an inefficent view design which Matt has kindly offered to investigate.
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Two part question...
1. On the image, if I'm understanding you correctly, the song image can play on the desktop as the song is playing? If so, how do I configure my MC13 to do that...
2. Under Cover Art...the option says get image from Internet...got excited until I realize it was searching my art collection, not the internet.
any suggestions..
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1. Auto-tagging on import mapped to folders (this has quite a few votes I believe).
2. More options for syncing handhelds i.e. more video dimensions and formats (FLV?)
3. Support, buy, steal King Sparta's data for Datamaster and host it :P (what a huge loss for JRiver users)
DC
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I've been playing with the "Simplify Media" iphone app. It lets you access and stream music from your computer to the iphone. It reads your music folder directly, or itunes libraries. The problem is of course, that it only offers the same 3 fields as itunes: Artist, Genre, and Albums.
Something like this app from JRiver, that would work as a firefox addon, and/or iphone app would be amazing.
I would argue that this is almost a NEED in J River more than just a feature request. This very well could be the future of media. All located in one place and then you can stream it not only to any other computer, but also to cell phones and the like. I've played with this program as well and its potential is amazing.
You can have 30 friends and share libraries amongst each other. My sister and father both have 3G iPhones and they can stream any mp3 from my collection through Simplify Media.
Please, J River, deliver this!
For now, music (and photos) is probably the only real option. But as bandwidth abilities for mobile devices increase, and as upstream abilities in home connections rise, we could be talking about streaming blu-ray video to cell phones, etc.
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An entropy wizard...
I am in the middle of an excellent book by Brian Greene titled The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. One of the topics he covers is the concept of entropy and how we started with minimum entropy (maximum order) at the big bang and thereafter everything in the universe has moved towards higher entropy (less order). I suspect that many libraries follow this same path as media is collected and added over time.
This led me to think about a new feature for MC that might be quite unique in the media player universe, and that might be well received by a user with a high entropy library.
The wizard would calculate and display the entropy of a library and would provide suggestions and/or tools for reducing the entropy.
I am thinking about things like missing data in Artist, Album, Name, Genre, etc. Similarly spelled Artists. Missing artwork. Non-contiguous track # in albums. etc. etc.
I personally would not use this feature because I have brute forced my library into very low entropy at the expense of very high entropy in the rest of my life. But I have a feeling this would be a unique and useful feature for those people contemplating a switch to MC.
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[...]
The wizard would calculate and display the entropy of a library and would provide suggestions and/or tools for reducing the entropy.
[..]
I personally would not use this feature because I have brute forced my library into very low entropy at the expense of very high entropy in the rest of my life. But I have a feeling this would be a unique and useful feature for those people contemplating a switch to MC.
Ha, Ha!
Good idea...
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With all these MC 13 improvements focusing in on video. How about extending DSP studio support to include video.
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For me I'm a huge fan of Library Server, but there is a big feature missing.
When connected remotly I would like my library to sync so I can Tag and rate files when listening remotly.
Better handle if ID3 standard for music.
Bored of MCCOMMENT in ID3tag
I also stack every song that are duplicate putting the best quality on top. I would like when playing a stacked file to default play the one on top of stack without selecting that file. So I would have all my albums falgged complete, the playing now wont show the Top stack file to mess the playlist but in the background MC will play the top stack file with better quality. A right click option should show to play the original stacked file.
So my Features are :
- Two way sync with library server
- Better handle of ID3v2 standard and use of TXXX field
- Option to write ID3v2.4 tag
- Top stack file play by default
There is a lot of pot in that thread, hope mine will be read by dev.
Thx
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This independent guy has made a really slick front-end that would work well as a our Theater View. Some of the features like database look up for movies would be great. Maybe MC could talk to TheLost? It's certainly great work for an individual.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1065353 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1065353)
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A new skin is really important, but what about Artist Art??
...
I do not belive many other players have this option.
XBMC does this with scrapers... they crawl through places that you specify (IMDB, TVDB, AllMusic) and collect images, reviews, bios, and even fanart and put it together into amazing and beautiful spreads automatically. Some skins take this to the next level by filling your screen with the collected images.
Like this:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37188
Mind you, MC still kicks XBMC's butt in all of it's library/sorting/DB skills...
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XBMC does this with scrapers... they crawl through places that you specify (IMDB, TVDB, AllMusic) and collect images, reviews, bios, and even fanart and put it together into amazing and beautiful spreads automatically. Some skins take this to the next level by filling your screen with the collected images.
Like this:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37188
Mind you, MC still kicks XBMC's butt in all of it's library/sorting/DB skills...
It sure looks beautifull. I like the way it seems to look up IMDB movie descriptions. Iiiha! :o
I would be satisfied with only being able to add Artist art the way cover art is added today, but something like this xbmx thing would seriously kick butt.
The way it shows the artist behind the cover flow.... Wooow. I'm literally drooling here.
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one small esthetical request. maybe it is time to move the repeat/shuffle/dsp buttons to the place that became vacant when moving from 11 to 12.
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/3CD79178-3394-46C4-9A6E-8F96F0DDA583/dsp/image_orig0.jpg)
i think that there is also place for a fourth button. something like 'radio always on' 8)
:)
gab
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It sure looks beautifull. I like the way it seems to look up IMDB movie descriptions. Iiiha! :o
I would be satisfied with only being able to add Artist art the way cover art is added today, but something like this xbmx thing would seriously kick butt.
The way it shows the artist behind the cover flow.... Wooow. I'm literally drooling here.
It would be great. Now that we have the Image link, I'm feeling compelled to download images of the artist I'm listening to. But I don't see myself creating slide shows for all artists to run when they're playing. If there was a way to have this automated, wow.
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Custom field drop downs for list selection and flyouts (for multi-selects, just like new custom Tab-Fields-Also Show functionality)
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1. please include some kind of a internal skin maker for easy customization.
2. please have a popup down by the task bar stating what song is playing when MC13 is minimized.
3. please include some track info templates that can be easy customized.
Thanx
TC :)
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My votes:
1) Improved and expanded plugin API
2) Ability to write a remote control plugin OR
ability to extend the existing remote control plugins
Other than that, is there really any other way to improve MC<g>
Darin
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It would be great. Now that we have the Image link, I'm feeling compelled to download images of the artist I'm listening to. But I don't see myself creating slide shows for all artists to run when they're playing. If there was a way to have this automated, wow.
Exactly. A set image (folder.jpg or similar) to represent the Artist/Band when browsing, and an automatic way of showing several images of artist/band as a slide show. That would be spectacular
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I am a new user of Media Center 12. I just found it a month ago when I aquired a collection of 65,000 mp3's and I was looking for a replacement of musicmatch jukebox - which was riuned when Yahoo bought it.- It just stopped working right. So far I find this program is awesome- I have a lot to learn about it but it seems to do more things better then I expected it to- which is so unusual these days.
One thing I am hoping is that JRiver media center can keep away from the advertise mode- so much music/media software just seems to try to sell you more media - and advertisements.
The idea I thought I'd bring up is a little out there and certainly not technical but after seeing this interface I realized your software designers are excellent (maybe I'm describing a differant program entirely):
What about a desktop interface that actually is desktop like. Something with the music/ picture media controls being like a stereo on one part of the screen that of course expanses as you tune in what you want to play - but then it can go back to a corner of the desktop and you can have phone or a rolledex for (basic phonebook lookup database), A file manager link for win. explorer , a Calender and Clock (alarm clock), A Internet brower link, and something like a newspaper link, a link that opens your word processor, spreadsheet (Excel), etc.
The idea is a copy of an actual desktop maybe a picture window above it (you could view a slideshow of your own pictures). On the desktop you would be able to bring the main programs you use and cover over Window GUI completely - I have no idea if it would be hard to do but these links would be something like clicking on an ink well and pen icon brings up MS Word or whatever, a small calculator could bring up MS Excel or whatever- I'm not a Microsoft freak I just am using them as examples. When you close what your working on it brings back to the media center desktop.- Although I don't have it maybe a small TV icon would bring up the TV- the idea is Apple like I guess- I'm thinking back to years ago when Texas Instruments had a desktop like program that knit/ linked a bunch of things together on a real looking virtual desktop. Simple things like a notepad of sticky notes- or maybe a corkboard with sticky notes.
I realize this is way out of the scope of your program- however I think of the media center is the center of most the things I do- play around with music and pictures- but It could expand to cover most common computer tasks - by linking to other programs that hopefully wouldn't be to hard to do, and creating some small subapplications like a simple phonebook, stick pad type notes, maybe even a fax machine -like winfax used to do.
A program view where the program you might be using would be in the center 3/4 of the desktop with the other links and radio/cd player, calander, phonebook along both sides so you could quickly switch between them as needed. The idea is that media center wouldn't disappear behind the program you are using but would be on both sides of screen while you work in the center of the screen you could still see what song you are playing or have a sticky note with someones phone number or a weather forecast along the sides of the screen at the same time-- I use a wide screen(21") LCD computer monitor so usually 2" or so of the sides of the screen are not needed - I realize I could propbably stretch the program to run along the side of another program I'm using - but I think I'd have to waste a lot of time setting this up each time a I run a program along side a Media Center window.
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you talking about a desktop sidebar panel, or vista sidebar gadget?
Ive been waiting for one of them for along time..
That would Be GREAT!!!
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there is already a vista sidebar gadget for MC. i wish it was more customizable (and was a little bigger in area, as i don't get all the info displayed that i want). would also be cool if there was a tiny visualization in the sidebar gadget, but i digress.
head over to the skin/plugin forum and you can find it. i recently made a post applauding it but hoping to get a few more things added. if i had the programming knowledge i'd do it myself :)
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I'd love for a Library to keep it's Import Folders and other settings, even setup and interface options intact when switching between multiple libraries.
Currently when I switch to a library that uses different drives I must go into the options menus and reset all my import folders. If I forget to do this and run an Import I can easily mess-up my library requiring a restore and associated rebuild of thumbnails (which can take hours on a huge library).
Come to think of it, also include thumbnails and settings into Library backups too pleeeeez.
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umm wowo thats sounds great.
umm what section is it in? or whats it named? i cant seem to find it??
Looking forward to using it though :)
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I would like to request the ability to sort groups. Currently you can group however you want, and within a group you can sort. But you can't sort the groups unless I'm missing it.
For example, I download a bunch of stuff at the same time. I want to group all the albums together, but I want the albums downloaded last to be at the top of the list. Sorting by date imported doesn't work, because some of the songs from the 2nd album may finish downloading before some of the songs from the 1st album. *
The are many other ways this could work. Maybe you want to play 3 songs each by a number of artists, but you want the artists to be sorted randomly. You group by artist, you sort the group of artists randomly, so you could have 3 songs by Neil Young followed by 3 by Bob Dylan. Currently, you would have to play the artists alphabetically to keep the 3 songs together.
* BTW, anyone else having a problem with auto-import not working? I have to keep clicking on Run Auto Import Now.
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How about the ability to customize GLOBAL hot keys instead of just using media buttons, which can be awkward on a Dell laptop.
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Sorry, this is a duplicate post. Only saw this feature request thread after I posted.
DVB-S would be good.
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Re Options|Tree&View|Sorting: Ignore articles (a, an, the)
Just wondering/hoping about somehow being able to 'internationalize' this for songs with titles in languages other than inglés?
Even just letting us provide our own lists of which acticles/pronouns to 'skip' would be great.
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I think theater view should have some improvements. and there should be a command that brings down the more menu and a command that will automatically add the highlighter video or song to the playing now list.
Edit: I think you should also have the ability to raise the volume on specific videos that would be saved. alot of new HD formatted videos have very low volume and the ability to start and end a video at a certain spot. Where whenever you start the video again, it will start a certain amount of seconds or minutes into the video instead of at 0:00.
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Here's mine: change tag contents based on library fields while synchronizing with a handheld
example: combine [album] and [year] to a new album-tag displaying "(album title) - (year)"
example2: combine [genre] and an expression(imported last month) to a new genre-tag "NEW (name of genre)"
I know it has been requested sometimes before but I can't find the thread :-\
I always have a problem finding newly imported stuff on my ipod and this would basically solve it...
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How about a whole new level of complexity? :)
There are currently several hierarchies - genre, style, artist, album, track...
It would be nice to have a way to rate or assign a weight to every level. For example, you could have a rating for your genres:
rock = 5
jazz = 4.5
electronica = 4.5
new age = 3
classical = 3.5
country = 2
etc.
(that's just an example, not necessary my weights)
Then you could also assign a rating to every other level like style, artist, and album (we already have ratings for tracks).
The other feature that I think would be cool, would be "listeners". When you are running MC and listening to music, you sign-in as a listener. And, you can have more than one listener at a time. When playing music, all of the play history will be associated for each listener. And all of the listeners will have their own ratings (at each level).
Then you could have a smartlist like:
Listener1 genre-rating > 3 AND style-rating > 3 AND artist-rating > 4
Listener2 genre-rating > 3.5 AND ...
Listener3 genre-rating > 4 ...
Each listener could be named, so in my case User1 would Gregg. When a listener signs in, then the smartlists will only use their settings, but if other listeners sign in, the smartlist will do a boolean AND to include their preferences.
With this kind of feature, you could have an extremely powerful "family" or multilistener system.
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Standardize MC Replaygain and its tagging method.
No more proprietary replaygain methodology and tags.
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SDK Addition Requests :
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44939.0
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One enhancement I'd like to see is resizable dialogs.
When using items such as the Tools > Options dialog, I would really like to see a resize handle so that I can expand the view, thus eliminating the need to scroll down to access option further down the list.
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IMO MC needs to be better at recognizing image tags (and possibly video tags). The following example should illustrate what I mean:
I backup my MC_DB and move it to another computer.
On computer A pictures are stored in \pics\... ; on computer B the pics are stored in \Rasmus\docs\pics. Tags will (probably) be gone due to different file path.
Currently MC hook tags to the file path. This is quite fragile. It would be better if MC hook it to some calculated value (some random number base on some clever algorithm . . .) or even better if this was stored directly in the file (if possible). I do not know if ExiF tags allow non-standard tags.
Cheers,
Rasmus
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- I like the MC 12 feature for customizing the bottom toolbars. I'd like to be able to add a command to the bottom toolbar to change libraries (like the Zones command on my toolbar now. ( I like being able to toggle zones quickly from the Zones command.)
- I'd like to be able to pick up where I was the last time I was viewing the current library. (Right now, MC 12/13 seems to always start in a new library whith the start view.)
Bill
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Data of a smartlist view can be exported to Excel using copy/paste.
Since my library holds more and more albums, I seem to reach a limit of this copy/paste functionality. Selecting i.e. 6000 lines and copy to clipboard, nothing will be copied and therefore nothing can be pasted.
Please extend this limit in MC13.
(Vista Ultimate, Office 2007)
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Well, lets see:
1- I want to be able to stop using Tag&Rename .... A better interface for tagging and more functions would be nice .... Example: I tipically get music by: a- Downloading, b- recording it from old media cassetes, LP and such), c- ripping CD´s. a- Lot´s off downloaded music tags are wrong, and file names arrghhhhh, I have to tag correctly, add album art and commentaries and rename files.
2- A REAL analog recording applet with LEVEL calibration (to avoid clipping) and track splittin, I hate bringing up Audition only to record analog.
Everything else you can add (if it works) I will LOVE. I bought this soft for its quality, flexibility and power. I always want more of that!!! ;D
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- I like the MC 12 feature for customizing the bottom toolbars. I'd like to be able to add a command to the bottom toolbar to change libraries (like the Zones command on my toolbar now. ( I like being able to toggle zones quickly from the Zones command.)
While we're asking for buttons, I'd like one for playing Radio, please.
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I'm like a broken radio on these things but perhaps they could be implemented in a new version... I apologize if I have already written about this in this thread, I can't remember...
I would like some contextual options on playlist manipulation and stop/pause. Firstly, I would like to be able to select "stop after current track" as a contextual option upon right-clicking on the stop button or some hotkey (e.g. ctrl + STOP), which would then make MC finish the current track, and then stop (of course advancing the playlist to the next track upon stopping).
As for playlist manipulation, there should be a secondary mode that you could enter through pressing a hotkey. I have replace all as standard, since I usually just replace albums in my playlist... But when I'm constructing something more track-specific, it would be nice to be able to hold e.g. ctrl and enter a secondary (customizable) behaviour (e.g. add at end of playlist).
OK, let me apologize again, because I'm almost positive that I have brought up this before. Writing, especially the second "request" gives me strong déjà vu feelings...
And this one bears mentioning again and again, and I won't apologize for it ;) : please, intergrate a slick and reasonably customizable song notification ticker/popup / toaster or whatever it is called.
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I would like some contextual options on playlist manipulation and stop/pause. Firstly, I would like to be able to select "stop after current track" as a contextual option upon right-clicking on the stop button or some hotkey (e.g. ctrl + STOP), which would then make MC finish the current track, and then stop (of course advancing the playlist to the next track upon stopping).
ctr & shift & s does the trick. but unfortunately it does not advance to the next track :(
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any thoughts about adding the ability to view PDF's\Ebooks?
Just curious if this will be ever implemented.
also curious when we can expect a non beta version? so that we can get our plugins to work again.. Gforce, Whitecap. what i'm listening to know, etc...
Thank You.
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Add a new option to the delete dialog:
"Delete on disk, Keep in library"
Later, when import is done, the missing disk instance is ignored, but the database record is kept.
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I'd like to have a command to combine the currently selected files into a single file. For example, to combine the four tracks representing a symphony performance into a single files containing all movements.
Foobar2000 has a command that sort-of does this but I'd like to use MC 13 for this task.
Some details:
1. I'd like to select a set of files and right-click on them. The "Combine Files" command would be on the right click menu or a lower level menu (like the Library Tools/Convert format menu.)
2. I'd like to be able to choose an output format (and bits rate if necessary.) I often want to make a single MP3 file from several Flac files.
3. I'd like for MC 13 to suggest a name for the output file based on the names of the input files (and display it in the Save File" dialog.)
The input files may be related and if so, the common parts of their names would be a good starting point for an output file name. A short numeric string could be appended. If there is no commonality in input names, MC could leave the file name text box blank.
4. I'd like for MC 13 to transfer tag values from the input files to the output file. If the files are related, they will have the same value for most tags. If the input files have different values for a tag, MC can leave that tag blank.
When I got an 80 GB iPod 8 months ago, I selected one or two performances of each symphony, concerto, sonata, etc. that I really like and produced single files combining all movements of each work for that performance. It would be really handy to have a command in MC for that purpose.
Bill
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null
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I have two requests that would help my work flow when ripping CDs.
When done ripping a track I'd like to see more info then "complete" in the status field, like "secure" or "bad rip." This would allow me to more quickly interrupt a bad rip. As it is I have to either watch the rip speed indicator, keep an internal timer going in my head to detect a possibly bad CD, or wait until I hit the complete button. I wouldn't mind MC popping up a window warning me about a possible bad rip either.
I'd also like to see MC tell me during the rip that it couldn't find any cover art in J River's database while ripping the CD. This would give me a chance to look for the art during what might otherwise be idle time for me.
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Just a thought from the peanut gallery - don't know if this has been tossed around before, but for those of us who store our
libraries on non-local drives and therefore can't make changes to the library when away from home, it would be great to be able
to enter a 'virtual mode', make changes to a virtual copy of my actual library, then at home have it pop up a window, show me
the list of changes it's saved up to perform, then while I'm napping make all of those changes for me at once! Actually, that
would be really nice for speeding up things anytime I'm working with very large files, or on a slow network. Just pop into the fast
virtual mode, do everything, then go grab a snack and wait for the real work to get done.
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Would like some sort of macro scripting feature.
Here's where I would apply it....
Import a new album, it shows up in the recently imported viewscheme.
Make any tweaks to the tags I want.
Now, from this point forward I currently do this:
1) Clean File Properties
2) Rename Files
3) Analyze Audio
4) Get coverart from internet
5) Run Lyrics Editor plugin
Would like to be able to set that series of steps up for single-click access.
This should of course be user-configurable, since everyone would have their own progression of things they do.
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where can i find this lyrics editor plugin please?
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As a new 'library tools' feature, a command to set the Sequence of a list to the current sorted list order would be helpful - sometimes it would make things a little simpler.
I often want to put songs in a new sort order but instead of having to change the view so a refresh doesn't lose the list order, this would be quicker - and I could keep
my default view sort order.
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Sometimes after import i got file name like this : "02.Sweetest Perfection" it would be helpfull , when MC can delete 02. in the name of file, otherwise i must do it manually. In the case of 400 files......."
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get flash renamer ;) Super easy!!!
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I use MC on seminars "as a DJ tool": To zones - one goes to the speakers and one to the headphones / second soundcard.
It's easy to toggle between the zones with ctrl+t but it's not easy to recognize in which zone I am!
Better differentiation of the different zones
Suggestion: Just a coloured border around the player section e.g. like this:
(http://www.tollmann.de/mc/mc - zone - highlighted.png)
And the colour could be set in the Zone Manager:
(http://www.tollmann.de/MC/MC - Zone Manager.png)
That should be easy to implement and would be a big improvement!
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I use MC on seminars "as a DJ tool": To zones - one goes to the speakers and one to the headphones / second soundcard.
It's easy to toggle between the zones with ctrl+t but it's not easy to recognize in which zone I am!
Better differentiation of the different zones
Nothing wrong with your suggestion, but you can display the current Zone now.
Just right clicked in the playback display area, choose the Customize display command and add [Zone] to the status line.
Bill
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To reiterate/paraphrase/add to part of what glynor said:
I would love if Theater View had a seperated podcast category so we don't have to sort it out under audio, with editable view schemes i.e. podcasts by date or by feed/date.
Also, Theater View could integrate and allow for configurable RSS feeds so we can pick whatever feed we want and adjust as we wish.
I would also like better handling of online Video_ts folders. Basically if Media Center could be set up to look for [Title]/video_ts/video_ts.ifo or whatever folder scheme, and look for cover art within that folder...though this may already be possible now that I'm writing it and putting it to words. But better online (or on drive) DVD video integration would be great.
Thanks for an already Wonderful product!!!
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I don't know if this has been requested before, but would there be another option that you could manually enter Title/Artist in a field and then have the ability to search on the data that was entered in to this field? Currently, if you have compilation albums, MC has a hard time finding its associated cover art. Way back when, I used MediaMonkey and it had the ability to change the data that was being sent in the search.
Other than that, the cover art lookup in MC13 has been outstanding. Keep up the good work
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Sometimes after import i got file name like this : "02.Sweetest Perfection" it would be helpfull , when MC can delete 02. in the name of file, otherwise i must do it manually. In the case of 400 files......."
While this isn't a feature request, it's super-easy to solve. I think your file name would be "02.Sweetest Perfection.mp3", which is how that got into the track title in MC. Anyhow, right click on the file, choose Library Tools-Fill in Properties from File Name and then tell MC that the filename is formatted like this: [track #].[Name]... try on one or two before trying on many.
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We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features. Still, it's fun to dream.
So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.
Here's some of my requests:
- Integrated EPG for TV
- Tighter integration with external data sources -- i.e. viewing an artist wiki, artist images, etc.
- Richer metadata lookup for movies (reviews, plot summary, etc.)
- Ability to use my images and videos as my screen-saver
- Ability to have my wallpaper automatically rotate using my image library
- MiniDV video camera import
- Full-off MP3 store
- 3D file browsing
- Optional way to keep filenames in step with tag values
- Way to type in the Options dialog to search all available options
- iPhone 3G suppport despite Apple's new evil attempts to lock us out
- More hours in a day
Support for the PS3 would be nice but maybe Sony don't want to provide that sort of connectivity and control of their device.
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For those of us who are irrevocably stuck in the habit of using the keyboard instead of the mouse, there are
quite a few places where this could be made easier - dialogs w/o the ability to tab between controls,
controls w/o Alt-shortcuts etc.
Where it is possible to do, it would be appreciated!
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This threads getting too long to read/remember now, so I hope this hasn't been mentioned previously:
Scheduled remote library updates. The remote server is all very well, as is the file share method, but a scheduled reload of libraries would be very much appreciated.
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Different icons for different file types
Browsing Explorer with MC default program to all files is useless because you just see thousands of the same icons all over
There is no need for over the top icons.
concerning audio , foobar just change color of the foobar general icon and ad the kind of file
Orange/flac
Grey/ape
and so on
The same can be done for video and pictures
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SHN decoder back , like it was up to MC11
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Verifying data after burning like in Nero
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Visual notification when new episodes are available in the podcast feeds.
======================================
Right now all the podcast feed icons are orange and the color does not change when there are new episodes, so one must check each feed to see if there is new content available. I suggest a change in the color (preferably green) of the icon if new podcast episodes are available. So the podcasts with new episodes will have green icons, whereas the others will keep the orange icons. Upon closing the program and reopening it all the podcasts will again have orange icons until the next feed update, when the ones with new episodes will have green icons. Also if the user clicks the feed with a green icon so it is opened and the episodes are displayed, the icon should switch to orange.
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I would like some more features on the Video part.
Things I would like.
Tag's like music with Coverart, naming, imdb ratings +++
Better streaming of videos. I have a gigabit network, but still it takes forever to stream a movie from my "server" to my HTPC.
Genre both on "horror, comedy etc" and "Series, comics, movies etc"
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There's two major areas that I would REALLY like to see improved:
TV:
- Support for IR Blasters so those of us with digital cable can use JRiver. I hate having to use a second app for TV when JRiver has TV support.
Podcasts:
- It seems that not all types of RSS feeds are supported (at least not fully). When I tried to use JRiver as my podcatcher it only supported less than half of them. Either it wouldn't recognize the feed, couldn't read it, or couldn't successfully download anything from it.
- Global settings for things like auto-delete and auto-tagging (ESPECIALLY auto-tagging). When you subscribe to a lot of feeds, it's a huge pain to edit every one of them individually.
- Ability to group feeds. I subscribe to many feeds, but on just a few subjects. I would like to be able to organize them by subject. This is a big thing for me, and doesn't seem like it's really asking that much.
Video:
- Better support for/tolerance of video files. It seems that half of the video files (Divx especially) I have either won't play or hang/crash MC half way through. Just about every other media player I've used has been able to handle the same files, and so I often end up using VLC or WMP (which I really don't like doing). Sometimes I can remedy this by messing around with the codecs, but I shouldn't have to do so for every other show. Perhaps what I'm really asking for is just better intelligence (or some at all) in what codecs it uses when playing videos.
Lastly, I would REALLY like to see an option to play a file via file associations without loading the library, plugins, etc. Right now I don't let JRiver take any file associations because when I launch a media file through explorer or a third party application I want something that will just pop up [very] quickly and play the file. I don't want to wait for the full library to open, I don't want to take up that much screen space, and don't want to have to change modes/etc. Right now I'm using VLC for file associations because JRiver is just to bulky to play files this way. This is often for things like podcasts or files downloaded from websites that I just want to listen to quickly (just once through, sometimes just quick samples) and then probably delete. If and when I decide I want to keep it then I put it in my library and let JRiver pick it up. It would be nice, of course, to have a button or context menu option to add the file to the library. I believe that iTunes actually has this option.
With these things I could actually use JRiver as my sole application for media - as it's intended to be!
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It would be nice to have an address bar in the built-in browser, so I can type in a URL from within JRiver and launch the site without leaving the player :)
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more robust 'undo'/'redo' -
1. when I accidentally delete a song from a playlist, I can't 'undo' that and instead have to go find it again.
2. in general, some way to know *what* is going to be undone/redone, so I'm sure it's what I expect. Sometimes I've been surprised. Maybe just update the menu text each time - ie from just 'undo' to a more descriptive 'undo file deletion', etc...?
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One other thing that I would really like is the ability to add a playlist to "My Web Media." When you play a stream from a site like SomaFM, it downloads a playlist that contains multiple servers in case one (or more) of them is down or already at capacity. It would be great if we could have all of those servers under one entry in My Web Media.
It would also be nice if specifying a 'name' for a stream in the dialog that displays when you play a stream actually changed the name of the entry in My Web Media. The fact that it doesn't already do this is frustrating.
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MC12 already does dang near everything I'd ask for.
But there are a couple of things I'd wish for.
1) Somebody else voted for it too, but true database support would be fantastic, especially if it supported multiple machines hitting a single database simultaneously. If you run MC on a server to server up audio but also occasionally run it from a workstation to import and tag tracks, etc, it's a pain they can't use the same DB (read and write).
2) Improvements/enhancements to the plugin model. I know this is terribly generic, but the more capability that's exposed, the better.
3) A nice café mocha warmed by that Core 2 Quad<g>
Darin
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null
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a "rotate according to EXIF orientation" command
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Duplicated from my post elsewhere (sorry, didn't realise this thread existed!)
Currently, the 3d visualisations that display images (Image Cube and Slideshow) stretch the images to make them fit the 3d object that's displaying them, which is far from ideal unless all your images happen to be the right aspect ratio.
It would be great if we could have the following options:
- stretch to fit (i.e. what we have now)
- crop (i.e. chop off top and bottom or sides)
- display bars to fill the aspect
This is what you'd normally get with any slideshow application, and it's what would get me actually using these visualisations :-)
I realise the fact that they're textures on 3d objects makes it a bit more complicated, but seems worth looking at...
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I don't know if this has been requested, but it should have been:
iPod gapless playback for ALL files, not just LAME encoded.
You guys need to come up with a database field like iTunes has that represents the gapless info, and upon importing music you should scan it to figure out the gapless playback info. iTunes does this for ALL music files, and it works pretty darn great. I think you guys can cook up an algorithm just as spiffy as theirs.
This would be useful for gapless playback in the player itself, as well.
This would be a huge feature for all the audiophiles out there.
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Edit \ Select Group
a keybd shortcut would be helpful too.
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Back when we all had actual multiple disc cd players.... we had a button called "Next Disc" to advance to the next album.
It would be great to have a "Advance to Next Album" and "Advance to Next Artist" button. Personally I wouldn't need it in the gui, if I'm looking at the gui, I can click to play what I want.
But having those options as MC13.exe commands so I can execute them remotely would be great.
These features would have little use for those that play single tracks or shuffle, but for those that play ALBUMS, they would be very useful.
Actually - I have implemented them myself using the PlayingNow plugin and some of C++ code.
I have PlayingNow write out a file on each track change (shown below).
Then when I execute my C++ nextAlbum program, it reads the file, and keeps calling "MC12.exe /command next" until the file contains a different artist and album name.
Obviously this is messy and noisy and the first few seconds of each track are played while my pgm waits for the PlayingNow plugin to write out new data to read.
[PLAYING_NOW]
DURATION="4:01"
TRACK="1"
ARTIST="Woods, Matt"
ALBUM="2007 Be My Friend"
SONG="She Used to Be Your Woman"
PLAYCOUNT="6"
GENRE="Blues"
GENRE_ALL=" Blues;Rock "
YEAR="2007"
NEXT_ARTIST=" Woods, Matt "
NEXT_ALBUM=" 2007 Be My Friend "
NEXT_SONG=" The Law "
RATING="5"
LASTPLAYED="11/1/2008 6:22 PM"
SOURCE="mp3-320"
FILETYPE=" mp3 "
[END]
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UPnP Support:
1). A variable usable in smartlists which allows you to specify the MAC or IP address of a UPnP media box as a criteria. So, for example, you could create a smartlist that says "If the MAC is (the kids) and the Access Rating is < PG-13" thus, to that MAC, only those movies rater below PG-13 would by visible or accessible to the kids.
2). A variable for the current time, usable in smartlists, which would allow you to vary the included content based on time of day. For example, you could not have any X-rated content show except late at night.
3). Some kind of support for subtitles-- such as SRT by the same name in the same directory as an MPG causes the subtitle information to be streamed.
4). UPnP support for un-protected DVDs, so you could put an entire DVD in a directory (or in the physical drive) and have full DVD navigation capability streamed to a media receiver.
5). Follow-me: When you pause or stop a movie at a particular media server and go to another room, it would be really nice to have a way of picking up from where you were. My suggestion is- save the position info for each unique IP address from which a video is streamed. Have a "playlist" of automatically generated "paused" movies, accessible from anywhere. The playlist could display in terms of a nickname for each IP address (Living Room, Master Bedroom, Bob's Room, etc.) and doesn't even need to ID the title or position. If you want to pick up in the Master Bedroom from a film you were watching in the Family Room, you go the Master Bedroom, select the "paused movies" playlist, select "Family Room" and press select. Your film would continue from right where you left off.
6). A "monitor" function that allows you to see (on the MC12 computer) each UPnP connection, its status (playing, paused, stopped, etc.), the title and the position in the film.
I'm using MC exclusively as a UPnP server on a dedicated box with 5.5 Tb of storage. I'm very happy with the data organizational abilities of MC, but am looking for more UPnP capability.
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The ability to display user defined tags/fields with the built-in visualizations and/or album art display. Album and artist are fine, but I'd like the ability to customize what gets displayed.
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Back when we all had actual multiple disc cd players.... we had a button called "Next Disc" to advance to the next album.
It would be great to have a "Advance to Next Album" and "Advance to Next Artist" button. Personally I wouldn't need it in the gui, if I'm looking at the gui, I can click to play what I want.
But having those options as MC13.exe commands so I can execute them remotely would be great.
These features would have little use for those that play single tracks or shuffle, but for those that play ALBUMS, they would be very useful.
Actually - I have implemented them myself using the PlayingNow plugin and some of C++ code.
I have PlayingNow write out a file on each track change (shown below).
Then when I execute my C++ nextAlbum program, it reads the file, and keeps calling "MC12.exe /command next" until the file contains a different artist and album name.
Obviously this is messy and noisy and the first few seconds of each track are played while my pgm waits for the PlayingNow plugin to write out new data to read.
It'd be nice to actually have Advance to next [any field] option. I usually use shuffle, but it would be interesting to be able to add advance to next artist/album/year/genre/whatever. could also be useful in TV. advance to next date (if i want to watch my tv shows in sequential air date), or next episode if i want a marathon, or next series if i just want to change the show, etc etc etc.
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My quick list
1. Ability to act as a UPNP/DLNA Client for all media, so I can attach to a myriad of other servers
2. Ability to store tagging information with every type of file, particulary the video file types (even if it is a proprietory format(but xml) for now)
3. Ability to import movie information tags and covers from somewhere....
4. Full x64 platform support
Keep up the good work
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theatre view:
"Alpha" property for text tag... like:
<TEXT>
<Item Text="[Time]" Location="***" TextColor="FFFFFF" Rect="72,3,96,7.5" Capitalization="0" Alignment="1" Alpha="50" />
</TEXT>
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I've been eyeing this program for a while and I'd really like to see more versatile zone control. It's a bit of a pain to have to navigate through the menus the way it stands. I'd like to see an optional set of buttons for different zone controls including syncing, as well as windows messages to sync any zone to any zone and a way of telling the statuses of the different zones for use with third party software. It would also be great if there were a way to play files (MP3s, WAVs, etc.) through a command line to certain zones over certain channels. For instance, if you would like to play "welcome.wav" in zone 3 over the left channel.
I feel that multi-zone audio is one of J River Media Center's most useful features and I'd like to see it used to it's full potential.
Thanks for listening.
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I've been eyeing this program for a while and I'd really like to see more versatile zone control. It's a bit of a pain to have to navigate through the menus the way it stands.
In MC 12 (and 13?) You can add a Zones button to the bottom toolbar. Right click on the toolbar and choose "Custom Toolbar". Select the Zones button in the left and click the right pointing arrow to add it to the list of displayed buttons. You might set "Show text labels" if the icon isn't self-explanatory.
When you click on the Zones button, a short menu pops up. Very handy for changing the zone you are working with in the UI.
That's not all of your list but maybe it helps.
Bill
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Thanks for the pointer. I'll take a look at that.
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Thanks for the pointer. I'll take a look at that.
My toolbar has buttons for
Zones
Playing Now
Recently Imported
Rip disk
Tag
Import Folder
I agree that the MC menus are a bit of a pain. I don't have to use them that much.
Bill
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theatre view:
"Alpha" property for text tag... like:
<TEXT>
<Item Text="[Time]" Location="***" TextColor="FFFFFF" Rect="72,3,96,7.5" Capitalization="0" Alignment="1" Alpha="50" />
</TEXT>
Hey, that one was easy. In a coming build:
NEW: Theater View text objects support "alpha", just like image objects (0-100).
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turn Library Server inside-out 8)
I want the install of MC13 on my laptop to control the MC13 install on my server, playing through the server's soundcard. [as opposed to Library Server playing out the laptop's soundcard]
I use Library Server to 'serve' my collection to my laptop when away from home, and it is great for playing out of the laptop on the go.
But at home I use the audio card in my server since it has much better sound quality, but still wish to control it from my laptop since the server is headless. A full MC gui on the laptop controlling the MC install on the server would be ideal. Sure would beat having to use Remote Desktop or RealVNC.
oh, one small thing as well
the slider that changes the size of the thumbnails, it would be wonderful if after you slide it you could click the handle to lock it in place.
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turn Library Server inside-out 8)
I want the install of MC13 on my laptop to control the MC13 install on my server, playing through the server's soundcard. [as opposed to Library Server playing out the laptop's soundcard]
I use Library Server to 'serve' my collection to my laptop when away from home, and it is great for playing out of the laptop on the go.
But at home I use the audio card in my server since it has much better sound quality, but still wish to control it from my laptop since the server is headless. A full MC gui on the laptop controlling the MC install on the server would be ideal. Sure would beat having to use Remote Desktop or RealVNC.
I agree. Being able to use MC on a laptop to play music on a server PC running MC would be a big win for me. Being able to run the MC UI on a small, cheap device like a PDA or a Nokia 800 to control a sever PC would be good too. Some [people might like to use an iPod Touch or an iPhone.
I've been asking for this for a long time.
Bill
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I agree. Being able to use MC on a laptop to play music on a server PC running MC would be a big win for me. Being able to run the MC UI on a small, cheap device like a PDA or a Nokia 800 to control a sever PC would be good too. Some [people might like to use an iPod Touch or an iPhone.
I've been asking for this for a long time.
Bill
Actually forum member Messiahs made a program to run MC from devices like an iPhone, it is called xpTunes and can be found on the third party plugin board here. It works great too for this purpose.
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Actually forum member messaihs made a program to run MC from devices like an iPhone, it is called xpTunes and can be found on the third party plugin board here. It works great too for this purpose.
The last time I looked, xpTunes didn't provide the functionality of the MC UI. I listen to a lot of classical music so an interface that is hard wired to an Artist / Album view is not the least bit useful to me. If I could live with those limits, I could be using any of hundreds of players on Windows.
Question from skeeterfood: Are there any plans to add a way to browse View Schemes?
Messiahs replied: I'm sorry but no. I have to spend too much time for this feature (which i don't use)
I'm happy that Messiahs provided what some MC users needed. It just doesn't cut it for me.
Bill
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@Matt
Hey, that one was easy. In a coming build:
NEW: Theater View text objects support "alpha", just like image objects (0-100).
thanks !
@listener
no problem, but one point i have to mention... the interface (html) isn't hard wired to an Artist / Album view. If you have some html skills, you can change it in 1 minutes. thats the big effort of an html interface.
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'Rename, Move, @ Copy Files' -> Ability to save expressions is greatly needed. It's cumbersome when you have different tasks needing different expressions at the moment.
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One other thing that I would really like is the ability to add a playlist to "My Web Media." When you play a stream from a site like SomaFM, it downloads a playlist that contains multiple servers in case one (or more) of them is down or already at capacity. It would be great if we could have all of those servers under one entry in My Web Media.
It would also be nice if specifying a 'name' for a stream in the dialog that displays when you play a stream actually changed the name of the entry in My Web Media. The fact that it doesn't already do this is frustrating.
Whilst you can't do exactly what you ask, you can add said playlists to the Playlists menu item - even group them, give them whatever name you like AND then play them back from the Playlists menu item in Theater View. ;)
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'Rename, Move, @ Copy Files' -> Ability to save expressions is greatly needed. It's cumbersome when you have different tasks needing different expressions at the moment.
Yeah I'd get a lot of use out of that one...
I'd like to see a rename profile which combines the Filename and path settings (and included expressions, if you use them). That way you could bring up the Rename/Move/Copy tool, and then just select your "Music" or "Photo" preset etc.
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'Rename, Move, @ Copy Files' -> Ability to save expressions is greatly needed. It's cumbersome when you have different tasks needing different expressions at the moment.
I'd suggest an MRU drop-down list for the expressions as well as the drive/folder location and other places such as the "Find & Replace" function under Library Tools.
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Better Undo/Redo functionality. Much better. Please. I never use it since you have no idea what you're undoing. But it would be sooo great. For example, instead of just saying "Undo", you could have some sort of indication of "Undo |Rename Artist" or "Undo | Delete c:\music\path\".
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Most of this have been mentioned before, but it can't be stressed enough really. With a major leap as version 12 to 13, there should also be at least one major improvement imo. There have been several good additions and enhancements, but none of them are major in my eyes.
1. A renewal of the Theater View. A new way of controling TV and the way it's looking should be a priority. There are several MC editions out there who looks nicer and is easier to control with singel clicks (with enter on remote) etc. A new super smooth skin would not hurt either. Just look at Media Portal, Windows MC, Apple MC and you will see good menu and info layout and/or some really nice loking skins.
2. Full database support. With user logins where you can control who can read and write to the library. Full two way support of multiple machines
3. Video database integration with the basic things like cover art, reviews, rating and watched / not watched.
4. Support of Artist art, series and tv show art etc.
5. Full streaming capability. Not just music.
I hope at least one of this are being looked at for this version.
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5. Full streaming capability. Not just music.
Oh yes, if we can do this for video, I can finally stop using WMP when watching video on my laptop at home.
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I would like to have an add in for Windows Home Server that provides the library server to my other computers. My server is the only computer that is on all the time. I don't want to install the complete MC13 or any other program on my server. There are many handy add ins available and Microsoft actually promotes them through their website.
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Search Modifier for Proximity
I recently asked about this in another post and was told it doesn't exist. I want to be able to specify that there be X tracks of separation between two tracks from the same artist (or album,etc.), or that sequential photos in a slideshow always have a date separation of X months, or track separation based on any number of other Rules. We already have a modifier that says don't play a song that's been played within X days, so the concept is not totally foreign to MC.
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I would like to be able to analyze tracks with Replaygain (album mode) and normalize the tracks when syncing to a portable based on the ReplayGain values without having any ReplayGain info written to the original file.
I would also like to be able to make an .iso of an unprotected DVD and MC be able to play that without having to do any video conversion. Basically just virtual discs. If there is a way to do this already please give me a pointer.
Also I would like greater control over which tags get written to the file vs the library.
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That would be an easy one - but most comforting:
The same way as "Sync handheld" is working I would like the feature "Sync playlist". Its annoying to drag-drop my songs onto the tree item (which is in fact small - chances of missing it are high) - instead it should show up in the action window.
thx
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That would be an easy one - but most comforting:
The same way as "Sync handheld" is working I would like the feature "Sync playlist". Its annoying to drag-drop my songs onto the tree item (which is in fact small - chances of missing it are high) - instead it should show up in the action window.
thx
A related item. How about a Last Synched option for playlists. MC doesn't always get play stats from handhelds, my Zen X-Fi for example. With this option you could avoid synching songs that have been synched in the last 30 days, 60, whatever. Combining this with the Last Played modifer would insure I only sync songs that I haven't listened to lately, at home or on the player.
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- ability to associate an album to a folder of images as Cover Art for that album
- ability to customize the Display cover art selection to display a customized list of database fields WHILE scrolling through the folder of images.
- ability to right-click on an item in any playlist, library, playing now view and select a "Filter On" that would filter for the selected item in a new pane/view.
- ability to create sub-folder/grouping by year of a custom library view. i collect LOTS of live recordings of multiple artists, sometimes whole tours, and i'd like to create artist library views, with subfolder/groups by year.
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- Shell Integration working on Vista 64-bit
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We have a lot of balls in the air right now, so no promises on new features. Still, it's fun to dream.
So let us hear what you'd like most in MC 13.
Hi Matt,
I have been a user of JRiver Media Center for many many years now. I applaud the support of WASAPI in MC13.
The one single feature that could probably make the biggest difference to sound quality for most people would be support for a convolver so that MC13 would support room correction.
I have been using the open source convolver http://convolver.sourceforge.net/ (http://convolver.sourceforge.net/) with the directshow filter but the integration leaves to be desired. Just getting this code integrated well so you can install it as a native DSP effect would be fantastic.
Cheers
Thomas
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How about DVD navigation via UPnP??? (Assuming that DVD's can be saved in a folder, unencrypted).
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Have I mentioned dual tuner support? The ability to watch one program whilst recording another, PIP etc.
Not a major thing, but a nice to have...
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i really like to see a new SDK feature "MJPlayback.getcanBePlayed"
MJPlayback = mediaCenterRef.GetPlayback
MJPlayback.Play()
at his time the code above throws an Messagebox "'Media Center was unable to play any of the files. Please make sure that the path in Media Library points to the right...." in MC if the file is not available (broken network connection).
... I found no solution to check if a file can be played.
Markus
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Have I mentioned dual tuner support? The ability to watch one program whilst recording another, PIP etc.
Not a major thing, but a nice to have...
Spoke too soon :-)
You guys are really on top of your game. Legends! ;D
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I just started using multiple zones again and came across two features I'd find extremely handy, perhaps others would as well.
1- Ability to use multiple 'Playing Now' Tabs, each showing a different Zone's 'Playing Now'.
2- Ability to "lock" two or more zones together, so as to use one Playing Now window to control all selected zones playback functions [stop, pause, add to playing now, etc]. Basically just sending the same audio 'stream' to all selected output devices/zones.
(yes I am aware of audio sync'ing issues between zones, and it's not an issue in my case as the zones are more or less acoustically isolated, I am only concerned with programming & control)
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Matt
your sofware is great. However I do think that it would be very good to be able to remote control via UPNP the renderers that you have at home. Those renderer can already be hooked via the Media Serveur features and they can see and play the content. It would be great to be able to push what they play from inside MC13. You can therefore use your MC as a very sofisticated remote control and drive NOXON or Windows PC or whatever remotely via WIFI for example. I would be ready to pay for that!
I know that your are busy those days...
Thanks
Bendec
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SDK:
FastForward() and Rewind() with amount
FastForward(5) -> jumps 5 sec
FastForward(30) -> jumps 30 sec
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Burning an mp3 CD should also have file name rules like handhelds.
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Ok here is an idea in the OTHER direction
How about a JRiver lite....no not jukebox, but something aimed more towards audiophiles who are obsessive compulsive [rightly or un-rightly so]. Something that has a very small memory footprint, runs in realtime, provideds users the ability to tweak buffer enough to load an entire CD into RAM, features geared only towards music [no photo manager, tv, etc.], and other Audiophile features I am sure I am missing.
Other portions of the normal JRiver could be available as module add-ons for a small fee. This way users will get the exact JRiver they want with a smaller price of entry. The other features of JRiver are good enough to sell themselves, and those that don't sell would give JRiver a clue as to what features are not value added.
Well, how about it???
Maybe call it JRiverX
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Something that has a very small memory footprint, runs in realtime, provideds users the ability to tweak buffer enough to load an entire CD into RAM, features geared only towards music [no photo manager, tv, etc.], and other Audiophile features I am sure I am missing.
Under MC Tools/Options/General(?)/Advanced/Features, you may be able to remove some of the things you don't want.
I have trouble understanding why a program that runs in 50 to 60MB of memory playing audio is a problem when memory is so inexpensive. If you're having any performance issues, please start a new thread.
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ive asked this before all the way back to 11 and not sure if it will ever be implemented or if you you've talked about it.. but a pdf\ebooks viewer... i have an extensive collection of ebooks... TONS!!! would be great to view them within jriver, i know we use to be able to import them just couldnt view them... will this ever be implemented? do you programmers find it maybe usefull? not to pry but been waiting and curious if its been talked about or will ever be implented, or i fi should find another ebooks type cataloging type software? is there maybe a pllugin outthere that we could use another cataloging software but be able to list\sort within jriver then view them on another type of software? so that all media is within jriver and is easy to find\easy to use.
ty.
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In MC 13, you could tell MC to play a PDF with Acrobat. Same for any file extension.
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Ok here is an idea in the OTHER direction
How about a JRiver lite....no not jukebox, but something aimed more towards audiophiles who are obsessive compulsive [rightly or un-rightly so]. Something that has a very small memory footprint, runs in realtime, provideds users the ability to tweak buffer enough to load an entire CD into RAM, features geared only towards music [no photo manager, tv, etc.], and other Audiophile features I am sure I am missing.
Other portions of the normal JRiver could be available as module add-ons for a small fee. This way users will get the exact JRiver they want with a smaller price of entry. The other features of JRiver are good enough to sell themselves, and those that don't sell would give JRiver a clue as to what features are not value added.
Well, how about it???
Maybe call it JRiverX
KingDoughnut,
A couple of weeks ago, you were lobbying for Wasapi support. Then you were lobbying for a Linux version. Now you are lobbying for a stripped down audiophile version. The reality is that you aren't actually going to use any of these for long before you look for the next new thing to try.
A company like JRiver has finite resources for developing and supporting enhancements to their products. It isn't fair to JRiver or to other users who really need some new feature to keep suggesting a stream of changes that you will not be using in a month.
Bill
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OK GOT THE PDF'S AND TEXT BACK IN :)
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I"m hoping for some plumbing evolution, to provide more control over some areas that can be tough to deal with now. These aren't new ideas -- many were posted on this board by others (and/or me). Some of these suggestions are possible now, partially or via a few extra steps, but maybe can be streamlined.
(For those who know it, yes, several of my MC wishes are derived from IBM Lotus Notes, a strong model because it has been used to build a huge range of database systems, ranging from accounting systems to media library systems to several of my large web sites (such as http://databased.advisor.com). The basic design has worked well for years, and I love how its text-file configuration (notes.ini) makes it easy to move and fix stuff, and lets IBM support Windows, Mac and Linux using the same .ini file.)
Suggestions for Media Center 13:
-- Switch to a text .ini for MC config, and store nothing MC-specific in Windows Registry (only what Windows requires, such as file-type associations).
If all MC config, view design, smartlists formulas, etc is in an easily accessible/copyable/editable text .ini file (like the good-old-days of PC software) it would allow easy moving of specific items or the entire configuration to another library or another PC.
[ ... ]
MusicHawk hit it on the head big time.
Thank you for the time and clear request.
Second time his thread has been quoted, for a very good reason IMHO.
I would be willing to pay a premium for this.
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I understand Bill,
But does it really hurt to ask?
Hopefully JRiver et.al were not offended or upset due to my persistence.
Right now myself and a lot of other people are enjoying WASAPI via JRiver, I think if it were not for someone putting the bug in their ear it may not have gotten done or at the very least been on a back burner.
I believe that if you want something you should ask for it, not just wait for it. ;D
BTW, I use JRiver every single day for at least 2+ years now. So I am not the flighty media player person you make me out to be....and YES I do try other players, YES I do have and enjoy sound via Linux....but the fact remains JRiver is as much of a main stay in my system as my Dynaudio speakers. Please don't go out of your way to paint me in a bad light that is not true, its really uncalled for..
Keep in Mind that the NAME of this thread is "JRiver Feature Requests" started by I believe a JRiver associate.
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I would like to be able to store passwords for network paths on servers ... i.e. my library is on
\\mediaserver\music\...
but is password protected.
thx
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I would like to see the Explorer shell context menu have the MC icon. It seems like it would an easy thing to implement. My context menu is getting crowded and this would help to quickly pick MediaCenter out of the crowd.
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Other portions of the normal JRiver could be available as module add-ons for a small fee. This way users will get the exact JRiver they want with a smaller price of entry. The other features of JRiver are good enough to sell themselves, and those that don't sell would give JRiver a clue as to what features are not value added.
Maybe call it JRiverX
Don't you think the current price is an aboslute steal, even if you never use anything but the audio functionality?
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i think its a steal!!!!
but i would pay for pdf support or at least ability to see thumnails of pdf's :)
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If you're having any performance issues, please start a new thread.
You mean like this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49536.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49536.0) this thread pertains to the lack of being able to get anything greater than 16bit output via WASAPI. Unfortunately the performance issue went un-noticed. Shall I continue to post on that thread in hopes of a response?
I was however able to resolve the issue of getting a sampling rate greater than 48Hz out via WASAPI and posted the resolution. All it really takes is about a 1.5 second reduction in the buffer via the reg key.
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ive asked this before all the way back to 11 and not sure if it will ever be implemented or if you you've talked about it.. but a pdf\ebooks viewer... i have an extensive collection of ebooks... TONS!!! would be great to view them within jriver, i know we use to be able to import them just couldnt view them... will this ever be implemented? do you programmers find it maybe usefull? not to pry but been waiting and curious if its been talked about or will ever be implented, or i fi should find another ebooks type cataloging type software? is there maybe a pllugin outthere that we could use another cataloging software but be able to list\sort within jriver then view them on another type of software? so that all media is within jriver and is easy to find\easy to use.
ty.
Yeah! and it could all scroll automatically like the begining of star wars...
Seriously though. How about being able to see playlists in a grid view like albums - the tree can only do so much.
(sorry if this got posted already there's so much allready posted - and I'm so lazy)
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Naaaaaaa scrolling Seriously wouldnt need to be a feature!
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cubanr,
your post is here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49649.0)
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I would like MC to jump to a myself configured view and not to the playlist "Recently Imported".
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At the top of the views are the 'Back' & 'Forward' arrows for following the 'breadcrumbs'.
I'd love to see a Drop-down menu there showing the available locations so that you can select a location and jump directly rather than being required to step through each rung by clicking the arrows.
Also would like a Drop-down showing available choices for the 'UnDo' menu.
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When transfering files to handheld or burning data cds - I would like to clean up ID3 tags i.e. be able to remove äüö etc. ... just like the Clean File Props work.
File Naming "[track #] - [Name]" for handhelds and burning cds - needed for mp3 player in my car.
A library update for a single Album would be nice: If there have been some changes outside MC I dont want to update the whole library, instead I would like to right click on the Album and say: Update Album library ... missing files would be removed, new files in the Album folder would be added.
thx
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To give mp3 conversion a lower thread priority ...
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To give mp3 conversion a lower thread priority ...
1 - Make conversion adjustable for thread priority such as: Normal, Below Normal, Above Normal
(like another software I often use).
2 - allow for multiple conversion threads (like in the Sync Handheld setup)
3 - Add 'Convert File Format' to the Windows Right-Click menu
(so I no longer need to use that 'other' software)
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UPnP Renderer for access to Playon and Tversity, and others as they become available in Theater view.
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Any chance of adding a 'PAUSE' button to File Conversion and Sync Handheld functions?
How about making it so a Library Restore from backup does NOT require a complete rebuilding of thumbnails?
This can be a long proceedure with a large library.
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Any chance of adding a 'PAUSE' button to File Conversion and Sync Handheld functions?
This I need too ...
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Lyrics download support from within MC now that Datamaster is dead...
DC
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Spent the last couple of days playing with the MC13 beta and setting it up to mimic my current MC12 setup. As it stands, MC12 does almost everything I want so here is what I'd like to see MC13 added in order to make it a compelling upgrade...
(currently all my usage is music based, thus my comments are restricted to that aspect of MC. And of course, apologies if any requests are already implemented.)
Album centric data - eg expression fields which can calculate values based on the specified fields. Example, in my setup I use a field called 'My Rating' for each track, which goes from 1-10. What I'd like to do is create an expression field called 'Album Rating' and have MC13 allow us to use math expresssions such as SUM, AVERAGE etc on given fields. I could then calculate 'Album Rating' as the AVERAGE of 'My Rating'. Currently I export the entire database, process it with perl scripts and then reimport to generate my own 'Album Rating' field. This calculated field must also be available to smartlists for processing.
Use Firefox as the internal browser. I never use IE and don't want to. My browser, Firefox, is fast and *secure*, and I'd like to use it in MC13.
More smartlist stuff. Smartlists are the thing that, for me, set MC apart from all competitors. I'd like to see more functionality added - expressions, math functions, string functions etc.
TABS - the ability to LOCK a tab in place and have it never change... for instance I'd like my first TAB to *always show NOW PLAYING, my second tab to *always* show my collection by Artist Thumbnail (or whatever view I configure). Then I'd browse an album in my collection tab and click play and then, rather than replace my collection browser view with a duplicate PLAYING NOW, as it does now, it would jump to the playing now in the first tab (assuming my options say 'jump to playing now') and leave the current tab alone (or create a playing now tab if none available). That way I can quickly flit between tabs and get access to my various view schemes without them being continually replaced due to my actions.
NAVIGATION - The ability to save and load the NAVIGATION options. When migrating between MC revisions all such options are lost (locked away in the registry). I'd like to see either those options stored with the library or available to load/save.
SPLIT VIEWS - these need to be available on a PER VIEW basis, so that I can set up a view which contains a split view and another which doesn't and when I switch between the views the splits are applied as required. Also I'd like to see an option to connect the SPLIT VIEWS together such that changes in one view, eg selection of an album thumbnail causes an update in the second split, eg shows the details of the albums. Would be useful to specify whether tabs are available on all views or only specific ones to cut down on screen wastage.
PANES - sort of tied in with the above... we need many more ways to configure our views. I have a PANE view with artists listed down the left column and album thumbnails in the right column. What I'd love to do is have a third pane *below* these two which shows album details for any album I click on (this is the same example as above but done with one view rather than a split view). Right clicking on a pane would, in this example, give the option to ADD A PANE *BELOW* the existing two panes to create this view. In other words, the freedom to define a PANE view with panes anywhere, eg one on the left, one on the right and one below those two rather than the restrictions we currently face.
RATINGS field - the ability to increase the ratings field from 1-5 to 1-10 (or indeed any user specified value).
Add the ability to display stars for any given number field, and again for fields with a wider range than 1-5.
Add a lyrics server in the same way as the cover art.
That's enough for now.
Mark
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It just occurred to me that when we all (including me) say oh, I'd pay a premium, it's completely worthless. I mean they have enough trouble (effort required) creating a new serial system for each version and supporting the new version purchases. I surely doubt they would love managing micro payments-- $1 modules! Not to mention building them all and supporting them and the broad scope of such a system. I personally prefer the one price to get it all. I just typically ask for things that don't seem to get priority because they aren't popular enough for the large crowd.
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Add the ability to the sound recorder to record what MC is currently playing. This would allow recording of radio streams, for example.
My Web Media - add ability to customise this view
Links - add ability to open multiple windows/tabs. With Send To -> External you can create URLs for Firefox that opens multiple tabs but this cannot currently be done with Links.
Tabs - add ability to close all tabs except current selected one
Navigation - Add option for it NOT to expand the left hand tree. I use Navigation from the toolbar and don't need the left hand tree opened every time I click on it. Doing so adds clutter to my experience.
Left hand tree - allow this window to be locked shut on startup. I know this has been discussed previously and turned down, but this is a wish list after all :)
Mark
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Podcasts - Allow us to override KEYWORDS to avoid the podcasters polluting our keywords with their rubbish. I'd like to be able to tell MC to ignore all incoming podcast keywords, for instance.
Mark
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When right clicking on a column header which contains an expression we should be given the option to edit the expression rather than being forced to figure out that the only way to do so is to use the Customize View dialogue.
Mark
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Add a user field type: DATE which allows us to enter and display date formatted information.
Mark
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Add the ability to know what the currently playing track is and be able to use that information in smartlists.
Mark
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Add an expression which returns the position of a string within a field, which could then be used with other expressions.
For instance I want to create an expression which removes the text " (disc" from the end of an album name.
The album could therefore be something like
album (disc 1)
album (disc 23)
album (disc 2: the b-sides)
(I could then pass that field into links, eg for looking up album art without the (disc stuff messing the search)
Right now I can test for the existence of '(disc' but cannot return it's position and thus I cannot prune the parenthesized text in any successful way.
Updating isEqual to return the position of the string would be a simple solution, but that would probably break lots of peoples' expressions, so how about something similar, eg POS - this expression returns the position of a string within a field, or 0 if not found.
Mark
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Allow us to modify the toolbar items' text labels.
Add "Get From Internet" cover art search to the Customize Toolbar (but tied in with the request above allow us to rename it to something more useful), or indeed rename "Get From Internet" to something more meaningful when taken out of context of it's right click menu.
Allow us to put view schemes/smartlists on the toolbar for rapid navigation to important views.
Mark
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Allow custom DSP equaliser outputs to be tied (by rules) to media. This would allow us, for example, to tie different equalisation to Web Streams (generally poor quality) and high quality rips to improve the overall sound output of all sources.
Mark
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Allow to configure the startup DVD menu language.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49813.0
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Add new options to playlist inclusion to support the following:
I would like to be able to create a playlist/smartlist and then when I include it in another playlist have the inclusion work only with present fields, rather than identifying each track individually.
So, for instance, if I have a library that contains 4 different copies of the track Take On Me by A-Ha and a smartlist/playlist that contains one entry,
artist=A-ha name=Take On Me with display fields of only [artist],[name]
I could then include that smartlist/playlist into another with an option to have it pull ALL tracks called Take on Me by A-Ha from the other included smartlist (or main database by default) into the result set.
Or simply a modifier for any smartlist that allows one to expand specified fields to include ALL fields from the database. Much like expand to full album ~a but for any field and for the entire databse.
This would be incredibly powerful and allow us to do lots of useful dynamic searching in our collections.
Mark
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Add an expression that displays an increasing sequential number in a playlist column for each row so that we can generate smartlists, eg a top ten played track list, and add a sequence number to the view.
Mark
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2- Ability to "lock" two or more zones together, so as to use one Playing Now window to control all selected zones playback functions [stop, pause, add to playing now, etc]. Basically just sending the same audio 'stream' to all selected output devices/zones.
(yes I am aware of audio sync'ing issues between zones, and it's not an issue in my case as the zones are more or less acoustically isolated, I am only concerned with programming & control)
Another vote for this. My main use of MC is multizone playback where all zone basically play the same source.
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This has probably been mentioned before:
Use the MC interface to control a MC instance on another computer. The remote computer could appear as a zone in MC.
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This has probably been mentioned before:
Use the MC interface to control a MC instance on another computer. The remote computer could appear as a zone in MC.
+1
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This has probably been mentioned before:
Use the MC interface to control a MC instance on another computer. The remote computer could appear as a zone in MC.
Correct, this has been requested several times. Probably it would not be very easy to accomplish -- otherwise we already would have it.
The current options are to use the very limited Remote Server web interface, one of the very limited third party remote interfaces (like xpTunes) or programs that create remote desktop access (either Microsoft's built-in Remote Desktop or some other application like TightVNC).
One relatively simple option that has not been suggested would be to develope the UPnP features further. Currectly MC can work only as an UPnP server. My suggestion would be to add two additional modes.
One instance of MC could be set to be a UPnP Control Point that streams played media and any other MC instance could be set to be a plain UPnP MediaRenderer. You could use the familiar MC interface and everything you play would be streamed by UPnP. Any MC in the MediaRenderer mode would be able to play the stream.
If the media files and the library are not on the PC that is used as the Control Point it would be possible to use Media Server or a shared library as usual. The UPnP stream would be created later at the final output stage. For audio playback it could be decoded PCM so that all DSP features could be used. If needed, fast lossless encoding could be applied, like FLAC -0 (FLAC is one of the streamable lossless formats).
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QAM support! It would be nice to be able to tune into the free channels my cable provider provides with basic cable (they don't even require a tuner box).
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A tool that would automate re-ripping process. You would just need to select the files that are going to be replaced and start a "re-rip" tool.
MC would re-rip the files from the inserted CD in case the track numbers and the total number of the files match. It would preserve all old library data including the original import date. It would replace only the file format specific fields and the filename extensions.
NOTE: This approach is credited to Alex B
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A tool that would automate re-ripping process.
A big second to this one.
Additionally, it would be nice to be able to "auto-stack" files on import. (This may be possible already, I have not yet looked into it...just occurred to me now though)
Add an expression which returns the position of a string within a field, which could then be used with other expressions.
If I understand you correctly, I also second this. In my mind it is basically a more flexible "find" (from Find n' Replace fame!), that would be useful across fields.
Album centric data
Add artist centric data to this as well. Expressions such as SUM(), AVG(), COUNT() that could do be applied to all files associated with a selected field would be awesome.
For example:
=SUM([Artist], [Number Plays]) would return the total tracks played for a given artist.
And along the same lines:
=AVG([Artist], [Rating]) would return the average rating for a given artist.
=COUNT([Artist], [Name]) would return the total number of unique songs for a given artist.
It would appear that I'm trying to avoid needing to go check last.fm for my play stats based on my examples, but there are TONS of other uses I'd find for this. MC's [Complete Album] field is already light years beyond the competition in terms of album based play (for me at least) and it seems logical to expand this type of functionality. It's sort of at the heart of MC in my eyes.
Use Firefox as the internal browser.
I don't care that much, but it'd be nice.
RATINGS field - the ability to increase the ratings field from 1-5 to 1-10 (or indeed any user specified value).
It makes using the star system more difficult to go beyond 1-10 (on a 0.5 resolution), but I'd prefer to have at least that much resolution there. Again, not a huge deal here.
While I'm thinking of it, the 0.5 rating resolution is one of two (seriously, only two) features that MC's simian competitor had that MC does not, so I'll mention the other here:
Fancy printable/exportable reports of what I listen to (or watch). All sorts of random data was available through those monkey reports and if MC made something similar that could even be based off of the artist and album centric expressions mentioned previously I'd be in music nerd heaven.
A slight reworking of the list style fields' panes. Basically I'd like to see AND, OR and NOT options easily available and switchable without having to configure anything through a menu. So for an example, what I'd like to do that I can NOT do now would be:
I select "Rock" in my genre pane. I then select "Hard Rock" OR "Punk Rock" from my OR enabled Sub-Genre pane.
But I do not want to listen to any "Grunge" OR "Funk Rock" which overlap somewhat with the "Hard Rock" sub-genre. Currently I have to input a search string into the search box to make this happen.
What I'd like to be able to do is, via a clickable icon to the left of an item in a pane, choose to exclude a given item rather than include it. So in my example I would then simply click the left-hand icon to change it to the "NOT" icon and thus exclude "Grunge" and "Funk Rock" from my song list.
Now that I consider it more, I think that it should just be adding in the INCLUDE/EXCLUDE icon, as mixing in AND and OR here could lead to a lot of confusion when trying to make selections.
Native support for PS3/Wii/Xbox 360. I know there are issues with all of them to some extent, but considering they are one of the most common uPnP (errr, uPnP-like) devices sitting next to most people's TV it seems like it could open up a lot of market space if these devices were listed next to all of the portable audio devices that are supported. And for my sake, start with the Wii! ;D
UnDo/ReDo list. As of yet, I'm not sure what actually gets done and redone for the most part. It would be super helpful (for a noob at least) to see at least the next UnDo action (if not a whole list).
This list seems to have gotten pretty big. What can I say, I now look for perfection in my media player. So thanks for raising the bar for me JR crew and hopefully you'll take my suggestions into light before MC13 leaves beta.
-JB
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Add artist centric data to this as well. Expressions such as SUM(), AVG(), COUNT() that could do be applied to all files associated with a selected field would be awesome.
For example:
=SUM([Artist], [Number Plays]) would return the total tracks played for a given artist.
And along the same lines:
=AVG([Artist], [Rating]) would return the average rating for a given artist.
=COUNT([Artist], [Name]) would return the total number of unique songs for a given artist.
It would appear that I'm trying to avoid needing to go check last.fm for my play stats based on my examples, but there are TONS of other uses I'd find for this.
Take this to it's conclusion and have database-centric expressions available so that we can use these on ANY field in the database.
Mark
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Take this to it's conclusion and have database-centric expressions available so that we can use these on ANY field in the database.
Ha, I meant to say that but clearly dropped the ball. Thanks for picking up my slack...
I also forgot one other suggestion that seems useful. I've seen it discussed around the forums here some, but I'll bring it up here too.
A more robust Access Control would be useful.
What I'd like to see includes:
Savable filters - it is aggravating to have to re-create a filter every time I turn Access Control on.
An on/off list for all of these saved filters - basically just a list of all saved filters with a check box to designate on or off. It would make sense to allow for different passwords for each filter too.
Default Filters - It would also be useful to set certain filters to default to "on", so that if one is turned off during a session it will automatically be turned back on the next time MC starts up.
Remote Client specific filters - I don't have need for this myself currently, but I saw it discussed someplace and it makes sense. Basically, for Kid A's room apply all filters, Kid B's room apply all but the PG-13 filter, for Ma n' Pa's room apply no filters, or something to that effect.
Only other reference to the subject I managed to find right now:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42744.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42744.0)
Also, in regard to Party Mode, it would be nice to have the ability to lock the player into a certain view so that I can make a nice simple one that doesn't need to be explained to the many morons that I'm friends with.
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A couple of things, apologies if they've been mentioned (this thread is too long now to read through it all :-))
1. Ad skipping in TV Recordings / playback.
2. Ability for scheduler to wake system from s3 sleep state for scheduled recording.
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I'm going to keep it simple. I like most of what MC does today, but you can't fight progress, so...:
- New iPod Support - The iPhone isn't the only Apple device that's unusable with MC and while I see no reason to ever get an iPhone, I do need to keep upgrading my nanos so that I can get more of my music library on there. MC doesn't even have to support it directly, it can go through the iTunes API and let it figure out how to sync with the iPod. I never use iTune's library anyway and I'm betting most people with MC don't, so recreating the library wouldn't impact anyone.
- Proper cover art synchronization - Maybe it's just me, but my iPod Classic (and my old nano before I gave it away) always gets the cover art mixed up.
- Commercial Skip - The EPG is a step in the right direction. One of the reasons I bought MC was for the integrated TV, but never used it because of the lack of an EPG. But, that said, it would be better if it could skip commercials. It doesn't have to do it at record time, just a plugin to figure it out during playback.
- Bluray playback support - I bought a Bluray burner recently and I figure I'll be getting only bluray movies from now on, so it would be great if this is supported.
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I would like something quite simple.
When watching an AVI movie you can jump back 10 seconds how about at least another jump of 30 seconds.
Cheers
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A slight reworking of the list style fields' panes. Basically I'd like to see AND, OR and NOT options easily available and switchable without having to configure anything through a menu. So for an example, what I'd like to do that I can NOT do now would be...
I've asked for this before, I'd like to have it for photos. It would allow me to select for example an event and a person, but only pictures including said person.
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+1
+1
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LINKS:
Add a mechanism for searching inside MC itself. That way we could, for example, click an item from any playlist, click the link and have MC open a new tab containing all the referenced artists albums... etc. Multiple different links would create their own customisable results view, eg artist album thumbnails, all tracks by an artist, artist albums by ranks etc...
Mark
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Few things I like to see if possible:
1. Ditto on requests for cover art for your video files.
2. Keyboard Shortcut for direct exit from application when not in standard view mode.
3. Ditto on better tag ( or maybe better said as associated db information ) on your video library.
Thanks!
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Allow to normalize (gain) the songs when creating an mp3 data CD.
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Something I'd like to see would be lastfm support for the UPnP server. So that when I stream my music to my UPnP device (radio/media client), the play stat is scrobbled to lastfm.
I've searched everywhere for an app that does this, but none currently do. I did find plenty of people asking this question though.
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One feature I would like to see is faster loading of USBUIRT remote: I use USBUIRT plugin to control MC via remote. It takes 5-6 seconds of lag time before remote commands are recognized after MC13's Theater View home screen is displayed upon start. Can we please fix this if possible? The delay could be really annoying when one uses MC13 often enough.
Thanks,
Osho
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One feature I would like to see is faster loading of USBUIRT remote: I use USBUIRT plugin to control MC via remote. It takes 5-6 seconds of lag time before remote commands are recognized after MC13's Theater View home screen is displayed upon start. Can we please fix this if possible? The delay could be really annoying when one uses MC13 often enough.
Thanks,
Osho
+1. I thought I was the only one suffering from this...
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Allow to normalize (gain) the songs when creating an mp3 data CD.
also when syncing to an handheld (or is it possible already?)
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Normalisation is already available for hand helds and CD burning. Check the options.
Mark
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Here are a few things that I'd love to see in MC13 (sorry if these have already been mentioned):
- Real random playback (shuffle != random) would be nice, and while on the subject, I'd also like the possibility to sort my "now playing" list as I'd like (and have it stick) and still have the playback be random. There is no good reason why the tracks must be listed in playback order.
- It would be nice if it was possible to click on grouped album headers and/or covers to select all tracks in said album. At least add the possibility to enable such functionality in the options dialogue.
- I realize that this is unlikely to happen, but what about offering a paid for (optional purchase) AAC/M4A plugin? I understand from reading some posts on this forum that you don't want to add such a plugin in MC13 due to licensing costs, but if it was a separate purchase (let's say $10) then this would be available for those of us that wouldn't mind paying a premium to have native support for this. This appears to be working for at least one of your competitors, so perhaps it could be something to consider? Especially now that iTunes have dropped all their DRM, I can see people purchasing more content in this format.
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Normalisation is already available for hand helds and CD burning. Check the options.
Mark
For Audio only, but not for mp3 data CDs.
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also when syncing to an handheld (or is it possible already?)
No - its not - and I want that too!
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No - its not - and I want that too!
You are correct. My mistake.
Mark
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More options (frame rate, bit rate etc.) for ffmpeg (when converting for portables e.g. to 3gp) or at least the possibility to specify own command line options.
thx
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More options (frame rate, bit rate etc.) for ffmpeg (when converting for portables e.g. to 3gp) or at least the possibility to specify own command line options.
+++
And better built-in conversion options that aren't tied to the hardware that happens to be connected or not connected. I often want to convert videos to iPod format without my iPod actually plugged in. Firstly because I also have an iPhone that doesn't directly support MC (but which could still use the videos converted through it) and secondly because it sometimes takes a long time to do the conversion so having them pre-converted in a cache can be convenient.
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I'd also like to see customizable RSS feeds...either that, or add a good feed for sports scores.
Any way to use the obsidian skin for theater view from MC12? I like to keep the theaterview for MC12 up on the touchscreen of my HTPC (7", 800x600), and that skin was more attractive and favorable for a small screen than the new version.
A button or some quick way to move MC from my small screen to the big screen on demand would rock as well for those of us running multiple screen on our home theater setup.
Lastly...Is there anyway to get theaterview to only dedicate the bottom 25% to whatever view you have chosen instead of the bottom 50%? I'd rather have more of my limited real estate dedicated to thumbnails for whats coming up in the playlist.
Thanks.
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Any way to use the obsidian skin for theater view from MC12? I like to keep the theaterview for MC12 up on the touchscreen of my HTPC (7", 800x600), and that skin was more attractive and favorable for a small screen than the new version.
to get the old obsidian back... is mc 12 still on your system. under program files in windows. go to jriver>media center 12> fullskins. look for obsidian. change the name of that folder to for instance obsidian old. copy the folder.
now go to jriver>media center 13> fullskins and past the folder. in the settings of theaterview you can now choose for obsidian old.
:)
gab
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Add the ability to only write tags to files without destroying data. My partner uses my central music collection but her own version of MC - I have set up both our machines with user fields, ie My Rating, Her Rating, etc that only exist on the specific users PC to separate out our important personal information. But right now it's not possible(?) to write either set of data without trashing the others because the act of writing does not look at what's already there is simply takes the database set and writes it out.
What I'd like is an option that non-destructively writes tags; thus I could write Her Rating to the file without destroying My Rating, and vice-versa.
As it stands, all my data is written, and none of hers is. That leaves me very concerned for her data after database corruptions. I do take other backups but would prefer the software could help me write the data to the original files where full incremental backups/mirroring is active.
Mark
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to get the old obsidian back... is mc 12 still on your system. under program files in windows. go to jriver>media center 12> fullskins. look for obsidian. change the name of that folder to for instance obsidian old. copy the folder.
now go to jriver>media center 13> fullskins and past the folder. in the settings of theaterview you can now choose for obsidian old.
:)
gab
Thanks! That was the main thing keeping me from going full steam with 13. Now if I can just get my sports feed on it when I'm not listening to music!
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One other update...while I was at it, I figured out how to change how much real estate the Obsidian skin devoted to the playlist and the visualization down below. However, I could only drop it to 36%. If I set it at 35.5% or below, it wouldn't properly show the visualization (I was only trying track info ones, specifically Noire, simple, and ocean). Instead of showing the plugin, it would show a white background with the thumbnail in the middle, nothing else, regardless of which track info view I chose for the bottom portion. Any idea why you can't take the bottom portion to be less than 36%? I'd like to set it at about 30% with minimal info and have more real estate devoted to the playlist.
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One other update...while I was at it, I figured out how to change how much real estate the Obsidian skin devoted to the playlist and the visualization down below. However, I could only drop it to 36%. If I set it at 35.5% or below, it wouldn't properly show the visualization (I was only trying track info ones, specifically Noire, simple, and ocean). Instead of showing the plugin, it would show a white background with the thumbnail in the middle, nothing else, regardless of which track info view I chose for the bottom portion. Any idea why you can't take the bottom portion to be less than 36%? I'd like to set it at about 30% with minimal info and have more real estate devoted to the playlist.
does that also happen when you disable 'show cover art when small'? right click on the viz to get that option.
:)
gab
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Disabling that has no impact.
FWIW, right now I'm using a modified version of Noire. I went into the style sheet and limited the art for 200 pixels, and brought the font sizes down a little. Then, I went into the index HTLM file, got rid of any background images, and set the bgcolor for straight black. All of this in the Obsidian skin that I ported from MC12.
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Add case-sensitivity option to smartlists
Mark
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Update the replace() expression so that we can specify to replace the nth entry (default is as now which replaces all).
eg
replace([name],the,The,1)
will replace the first occurrence only.
replace([name],the,The,3)
will replace the third occurrence only.
replace([name],the,The)
will replace all occurrences.
Cheers,
Mark
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Make isRange() expression case sensitive.
Mark
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Lately I have used MC13 exclusive to rip, tag and rename my new music, works kind of great but I have a couple of issues that annoys me:
On the right click -> library tools -> rename move & copy Mc 13 remembers my choices, except for the most important: I always choose "Copy" instead of "Rename" and I have to select that manually every time. :( It would be better if Mc13 could remember this as well!
Fill track numbers from list order would be even better if it used the xx format, like 01,02.. etc. Optional?
Cover art finder is actually pretty good, but I always want more metadata. Because we all know that the use of metadata is the only thing that really separates us from the apes. We allready have the Amazon store built in, can't we use some of their metadata? (And I don't mean coverart) Or Last.fm since we have built in the plugin?
I would love to organize my movies in MC, but that won't happen untill I have some kind of basic metadata-grabber to help me...
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I'll include my few wishes I've asked for a million times:
1. Way to save DVD rip tags to folder <- auto import destroys [Name] field on DVD rips.
2. Save bookmarks for DVDs to a central database <- perhaps a simple .txt file you could set. So multiple HTPCs would provide cross-TV bookmarking.
3. Option to ignore bookmark on starting DVD.
4. More server abilities <- connect to HTPC server to get all settings, configurations, etc. Sort of like library server but able to lookup a network drive listing on own.
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Two way network communication. I can rate a song on a client connected to MC13 server and it will actually be saved. Not too much to ask, I think.
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Face Tagging!
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When deleting a file, I think the following new option (radio button) would be useful: "Keep in Media Library and send to the Recycle Bin".
Thus you could keep track of what you've seen but delete it from disk...
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One thing I wish for a future release is the ability to stream the output from one MC client, to be played on another client.
The problem:
I have MC12 installed on my server, my Laptop, and a few other PC's around the house.
There is a Roland sound card on my server with 'line out' patched to my living room Amplifier. (I also have headphone out + TV Out modulated as a Nicam Stereo Cable TV channel, so I can listen in stereo on any TV in the house!)
Currently I use a MS Remote Desktop session to control Media Center, which works 'OK'. Limitations are that the server screen is diverted to the laptop, and DirectX doesn't work, so it is not possible to display Video or Images at the server (& therefore on my 'private TV channel'!). But this is acceptable if you mostly are interested in Audio.
The Remote Desktop solution however is not easy enough to pass W.A.T. (wife acceptance test!), so the only other solution to control MC on the server is to use Remote Server, which is incredibly basic, rather unfriendly and unintuitive, and has not been improved since forever. Even if with a huge amount of time invested, Remote Server will never be an elegant solution for controlling a remote Media Center installation, and of course developing it further would inevitably stop Remote Server working with PDA's and other very thin clients.
The Solution?
So.. if there was a possibility for my Server Media Center / Media Server to act as a 'Zone', this might be a simpler option, instead of extending the very basic remote control functionality?
In other words, when opening a client instance of MC that is by default loading its media library from a library server, it would be great if you could also optionally stream the output via that servers own sound card. (optionally, since often you would want to play the output to the client, as originally intended)
I guess there are many ways to crack this, but my dream is to enable others in my family to control the media on our server, using a local install of Media Center connected to the library server, using Theater view. When pressing play, (or as a menu choice) they would then see an easily accessible menu choice to output the resulting stream to the Server OR to the installed MC client.
Any other takers for this? :)
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Hi there, Apologies if any of these have been mentioned before but just a few feature requests, all related to the Theatre View experience:
1. Remote control navigation - Can the keyboard shortcut mapping be fully extended into theatre view to improve navigation
2. Any chance of an option for transparent menu overlays with playing now in the background (perhaps with a configurable time out returning to now playing after certain timeframe). Pressing any key brings the OSD back - Might just be me but getting back to full screen playing now is somewhat tricky at the moment
3. Customisation of the options in theatre view to enable removal of unwanted items (volume up/down, stop etc)
4. Ability to rename home screen buttons and reassign function (As an example i would like a DVD library button on the home screen taking me to my iso's) - I know you are considering improving things in the DVD Library area so looking forward to that.
5. Normalisation of volume output when playing multiple files of different volumes (applied to both audio and video files)
Thats my lot, all the above are navigation related (except the last one) and i think would make MC13 unbeatable as an HTPC front end enabling easy remote control operation by all the family
Oh, seen it mentioned elswhere but here's another vote for 3d view in Theatre View - Not sure how you would navigate that with a remote! but i would look way cool ;D
Thanks for an excellent piece of software guys
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I would like to see more options when it comes to printing up play lists. For example, I would love to be able to print by album then show what songs are in each album, the same with Artist - songs, artist - album - songs, yadda yadda yadda. You get the picture.
I am an old MusicMatch user. I really loved the way it used the whole screen to show it's libraries with out the left columb. It was very helpful if you had files with very long names like many that are generated when you rip a classical or opera CD. Even though it has been several years since Yahoo destroyed that wonderful program I am still in mourning. It's a good thing I discovered Media Center, I was beggining to loose all hope for humanity. Great program.
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I agree about DLNA support - I was disappointed to discover that the Buffalo support is for the Link Theatre (UPnP), and not the NAS devices. I can't believe that it can pay to ignore the existance of the growing DLNA community.
I'd like to see the implementation include the ability to create playlists based on DLNA server content, this is not supported in iTunes and is a real shortcoming of Apple's offering.
So, finger's crossed that some genius can come up with a DLNA patch.
Regards,
Pete
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I would like to have the ability to set the DSP output upsample rate to be a multiple of the native sample rate of the music file.
For instance, I could set the output to 2x upsampling. Thus
Native rate output rate
44.1 88.2
96 192
I prefer the sound of even multiple upsampling of my music out my digital SPDIF output to my receiver.
Also, the ability to set the upsampling on or off by file extension. I have .dts and .ac3 files that I don't want upsampled because that would corrupt the encoded DD and DTS streams.
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1. Make the abilty to move the video displayed an option, countless times my kids are rolling around on the couch and the screen gets moved. I do it myself when just attempting to select buttons or menus. It's a strange stock feature; it'd make me VERY nervous using MC in a business or corporate video presentation. I'm not sure why a user is able to do this, the point is....?
2. Full m4a support.
DC
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Color the background of already played files in Theater view - e.g. for when watching a series of videos I would know which one I have already seen.
MAC users are already able to give files few different backgrounds (red, green, blue, ...) to mark them for special purposes.
There must be an easy possibility to clear this flag (background color).
Also, this should go automatic when - lets say 75% - of the video has already been played. The 75% must be configurable somewhere.
thx
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ReplayGain is a super feature, and to use it for playback requires that MC's DSP Studio have Volume Leveling enabled. Works great to make tracks sound reasonably balanced across a huge playlist.
BUT... It drops the overall level of my system way down, so I have to crank the amp volume up quite a bit, which leads to a nasty surprise when switching to a different audio input (without first turning down the volume, a good practice rarely done by family members).
The question is, why does enabling Volume Leveling drop the overall audio level so much? One possible answer is that MC is looking at the loudest tracks and adjusting everything down from there. Another possible answer is that it uses the lowest tracks as the norm and adjusts louder tracks down to match (rather than raising the level of low tracks).
I expected volume leveling to allow a higher average volume because both extremes are adjusted, but this isn't what happens in my experience. Is MC reacting to a few huge peaks somewhere in the tens of thousands of tracks in my library, even though all of them have ReplayGain values?
I come from a broadcast station background where volume leveling is known as compression and limiting, and while the process details are different (audio level is adjusted continuously within a song, not just across songs), the end result is both a consistent volume level and an INCREASE in average volume (a major reason stations do it), whereas in MC, Volume Leveling results in a DECREASE, at least in my library where a typical playlist has 20,000 tracks of an eclectic mix of music.
I'm living with it, but wondering why, and if there could be some tweaking of DSP's Volume Leveling.
Plan B is to normalize the entire library, or possibly locate and adjust "too low" tracks, but we know the risks of resampling.
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It's been discussed quite a bit here and I believe Alex B has posted some details on manually adjusted the RG data for files. I think the target rate based on an algorithm I don't completely understand was an spl of 83db. So RG reduces volume to hit this and the average the most of my 47K files fall into is -8 to -12db. I don't notice any hit on fidelity and use an external DAC for volume control.
The target level is a bit low, but if you're lucky enough to have a DAC with pots or internal jumpers like the Benchmark or just really sensitive speakers and input sensitivity on your amps, it's okay. I used to own the DAC1 from Benchmark and was able to compensate for RG with the pots; when your try to do this in software your risk clipping, but overall it seems you might be safe using the Fixed adjustment +3-4db and enabling Clip Protection. Clipping risk because: the songs that only need under -3db of reduction are given an increase in amplitude; I guess this is only a danger if the peaks are really high in the file.
Some recommend the Album setting in RG but it's really like having RG off in my opinion as you are clumping together tracks of similar amplitude but the next batch (album) will be different.
btw - you have a PM from me.
DC
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DC: Thanks for the info.
I don't think extreme peaks are likely or even possible in commercially recorded music. Peaks are a problem in the original recording session, in mixing, in mastering, in the final delivery medium -- all down the line. Peaks have to be dynamically limited (rapid reduction then release) or allowed to be clipped (yikes) or something will get overloaded with even more distortion. So there are multiple stages of limiting and compression. Therefore, MC should not encounter extreme peaks. So, I'll experiment with raising the overall level a tad. (Even human ears will clip on extreme peaks.)
But I still wonder why the overall level is so low when applied across tracks -- easily noted by turning DSP Volume Leveling on/off. What is it sensing?
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Issue: Custom library fields not usable for podcast tagging
I have a custom library field called [yearmo] . It is a calculated field in the form yyyy-mm . It works fine in most places.
However, when I set up a podcast, I want to be able use it in the "podcast tag and file renaming rules" to override the podcast's default Album tag. I want to put in the Album tag something like
[yearmo] Podcast Overall Title
and then the downloaded files would be automatically put into albums specific to eachyear and month. Reason: for some podcasts I save many back eps and I don't want the contents of any one album to get too long.
Unfortunately this doesn't work. What I get in the "album" is literally
[yearmo] Podcast Overall Title
...square brackets and all.
Using the built in library fields [Date (year)] and [Date (month)] has analagous results. They don't get substituted.
The [Date] field works, but I don't want an album per date! This does give a clue that "computed" library fields aren't available until too late.
Oddly, my [yearmo] field works in the "directory" rule, where I have, for example
Podcast artist\[yearmo] Podcast Overall Title
and so the files get stored in directories grouped the way I want. (This does give a clue that "computed" library fields aren't available until too late, after the MP3 tag is stored in the temp file but before the target file is created.) But for mp3 browsers that follow the actual tags this isn't enough. I want the year and month info in the album tag as well.
Can this be considered a bug to be fixed? Is there a workaround?
(edited: removed tt tags, as they didn't help readability one bit)
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I meant to replay sooner but I remember a few years ago when I discovered some sub-par mp3s were throwing off the RG reduction. Maybe your playing large lists of files at once (like I do) on shuffle; in that case those mp3s needed almost 25db reductions and affected the entire calculation.
View your entire library in one scheme and add the RG column and sort by it to weed any nasties out.
I do remember seeing EMU patchmix get in the red commonly when receiving music from JRiver if I upped the RG to much; you can watch the Peak Meter in the RG window while playing a tune to get a sense of what the peak is, or you could just take a look by adding the tag Peak as a column.
DC
DC: Thanks for the info.
I don't think extreme peaks are likely or even possible in commercially recorded music. Peaks are a problem in the original recording session, in mixing, in mastering, in the final delivery medium -- all down the line. Peaks have to be dynamically limited (rapid reduction then release) or allowed to be clipped (yikes) or something will get overloaded with even more distortion. So there are multiple stages of limiting and compression. Therefore, MC should not encounter extreme peaks. So, I'll experiment with raising the overall level a tad. (Even human ears will clip on extreme peaks.)
But I still wonder why the overall level is so low when applied across tracks -- easily noted by turning DSP Volume Leveling on/off. What is it sensing?
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This one would be useful and really easy:
When using Panes, long fields are re-listed with the first item e.g. All Artists.
For long fields, this causing a major waste of screen real estate because the auto size function expands the pane. We already have the Pane titles; maybe just use "All..."
DC
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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add karaoke support!
By this, I mean the ability to play CDG+MP3 pairs and zip files of the same! I'd then be able to use Media Center for everything and not need a seperate program to play my karaoke files :)
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A new variant of "Locate On Disc (inside Media Center)" which opens in a new tab would be very useful.
Analogous to ctl-clicking a link in IE8.
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A new variant of "Locate On Disc (inside Media Center)" which opens in a new tab would be very useful.
Analogous to ctl-clicking a link in IE8.
Yep, I've thought this would be great..SECONDED!!!!
DC
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Under MC Tools/Options/General(?)/Advanced/Features, you may be able to remove some of the things you don't want.
I have trouble understanding why a program that runs in 50 to 60MB of memory playing audio is a problem when memory is so inexpensive. If you're having any performance issues, please start a new thread.
I haven't tested very much with MC13 yest, but wwith 12, the working set gets pretty big after a week or se when i have a pretty large library (200k songs) and having a lot of files in "playing now". I am not that familiar with memory managment, the amount of memery used showed in task manager is much less then the working set, but if i quit the program the amount of extra free memory seem to be the working set (wich kan be 300-400MB)
AS to my wishes:
1. RG working the same way as in foobar, with trackgain and albumgain.
2. As it has been mentioned a lot of times, a better theater view, and better skinning ability, some of the oter media centers have rellay nice skins. I know, function of form and all that, but a cool look does help :) (an example of a nice skin can be seen here: http://www.meedios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3387), other examples have been posted earlier in the thread
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I haven't tested very much with MC13 yest, but wwith 12, the working set gets pretty big after a week or se when i have a pretty large library (200k songs) and having a lot of files in "playing now". I am not that familiar with memory managment, the amount of memery used showed in task manager is much less then the working set, but if i quit the program the amount of extra free memory seem to be the working set (wich kan be 300-400MB)
This is pretty close. Some of the working set - usually a fairly small portion - is pages also in the working sets of other processes and these don't get released to "available". But the rest (what task manager in Vista reports as "Private Working Set") is indeed RAM allocated privately to the process, and is released to "available" when the process ends.
This should be a subset of task manager's "Commit size" (process-private virtual address space).
It's important to remember though that the working set size of a process is pretty "opportunistic." If nothing else needs the RAM then Windows will allow the WS to grow. If something else shows up that needs the RAM, then Windows will trim the WSs of larger processes to make room. So just because RAM is in the working sets of various processes doesn't mean it's there forever. The same is true of course of the Windows file cache, and of nearly every other process too.
So just because you currently have, say, only 700 MB free RAM does not mean you can't run a process that typically needs 1 GB to perform well. The only reason all that RAM was allocated to your current workload is that it was available to be allocated at the time. When something else needs the RAM it can be "unallocated" from its current processes and put to other uses. This can even be done to the RAM shared by multiple processes if they all drop it from their working sets.
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Hi All,
Here are a few things that I'd love to see in MC13 (sorry if these have already been mentioned):
Quick access drop-down box for Zones
Easier renaming (I don't understand this bit at all)
cheers
Mark
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Hi All,
Here are a few things that I'd love to see in MC13 (sorry if these have already been mentioned):
Quick access drop-down box for Zones
Easier renaming (I don't understand this bit at all)
cheers
Mark
You can:
1. Add the Zones icon to the top or bottom toolbar; it's a drop down.
2. Use a keyboard command (Ctrl + T ?) to switch zones; I have this programmed to my Gyration remote.
DC
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Very often I accidentally quit TheaterView by pressing the wrong buttons - playing now to fullscreen mode etc.
There should be a possibility to lock MC into TheaterView - just like the Party Mode - with TheaterView its not possibly to delete the library and other people could use it without worrying me.
Example: Exit TheaterView only through the top menu (Audio, Images, Video, ... Exit) and entering password. The Esc button and other shortcuts should be disabled then.
thx
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Add a 'own' display plug-in in theatre view.
like:
<Item Name="MCPlugin.PluginName" Base="ViewBackground" Placement="Bottom" Size="10%" />
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Please consider adding Twones support.
http://www.twones.com/
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Now that the text display is limited to 2 lines in Theater View, would it be possible to make it so that when an item with more than 2 lines of text is highlighted, the display converts to three lines or scrolls so that the remaining is shown at least once?
Not a functional thing, but a nice to have for wives and friends...
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Hi, I see that you say v13 has new view capabilities, I was wondering if you could give a way of customizing the view as seen through the TiVo plugin, I'd like to customize it (as was asked in the thread with v12 -> http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44778.0 )
Thanks!
Ron
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Excuse me whilst I exhume this thread once more... ;D
Web Scheduling.
The ability to log in from the web, see a GUI of the TV EPG and schedule a recording the same way I would in MC Standard View.
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OK, I'll throw one in. Often a rock artist puts out two versions of their CD: explicit and edited. Sometimes I buy both, hence I have to tag the album differently usually throwing (Explicit) at the end of the name. The problem is when I do the Get From Internet for the cover art it looks for the exact album string. I then have to strip off that text, find the cover, and then put the text back in. Of course this is also true for other types of albums. It would be nice if in the Get From Internet for the cover art, that it would allow some kind of typing of the artist and/or album so it could globally search the database to find the cover.
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Hi,
Native support for Apple Lossless (ALAC), both encoding and decoding would be awesome. Then iTunes would be gone, gone, gone. Right now I can do encoding with dBpoweramp and decoding with a Foobar plug-in. It would be nice to have one program do it all.
Thanks!
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I started a separate thread for this, but there are some features that would really be awesome (and some of them quite easy to implement) for DJs:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51551.0
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For me, one word (you might have guessed) - Re-Rip. But to clarify, I have a good sized (7000 tracks or so) library imported from MusicMatch, and I'm slowly converting them with MC using LAME with new and better bitrates and mp3 quality options. The current suggested techniques are workable but time-consuming. For me it's usually easier to simply rip the disc again and delete the old tracks. I'm personally less concerned about the usage stats, so that much is generally OK to lose. However, I'm particular about the way they're tagged, so I tend to edit the tags before re-ripping even if they're found in YADB, and I have a fair number of obscure old CDs that aren't found in the media database.
What I'd like to see is an alert that pops up when I press the Rip button (or at Auto-Rip time. etc.) asking me if I want to Re-Rip one of the albums in my current library. If there are multiple matches, you could present them in a manner precisely like you present options from YADB. In fact, you could present matches from the local library in the same dialog with any online matches. How difficult would it be to scan the current Library for matching albums before hitting the online YADB? That's not a rhetorical question - I realize there might be some difficulties in assembling album candidates, especially if the local Library database is based on tracks. If Media Center is multi-threaded, you could start that process as soon as you detect that a disc is inserted.
Anyways, that's my request! Otherwise I'm really happy with MC. Thanks..