INTERACT FORUM

I have just loaded a demo of Intervideo's new Home Theater and, like ShowShifter, it has an interface that IMO is far superior to Hairstyle.

The fact is that none of these HTPC front ends use the cursor keys to drill in and out of menu's - only to navigate. This works! I have learnt both these programs a hundred times quicker than Hairstyle. I still don't 'get' HS.

I'm sorry but I don't think HS is half as intuitive as it should be with only some slight changes. This has become all the more irritating now that Intervideo have just popped up with a simple interface in one attempt (not as good as ShowShifter, but still better than HS.)

Important note - I'm not knocking the whole MC10. As a media database and organizer it has no equal.

My girlfriend has just had a baby boy and is now at home all day. I sat her down in front of the TV and gave her the remote and showed her HS. When I got home her comment was "I scrapped that and used the main program with the mouse instead!"
Basically she couldn't easily (read: Intuitively) navigate both music selections and play controls. She also couldn't easily tell what she had choosen to play.

It is not very easy for me to get accross what my point is, but all I can say is that I work for a software company and the majority of my colleagues agree with the following principles that both SS and HT have but HS does not:

1) Simple Interface to Full Screen toggle with one press (right mouse click in SS and HT's case.

2) More buttons on screen - Play controls, Back button, Page Up & Page Down Button etc

3) A tag key for selecting.  Get over the 'five key' thing. Nothing uses five keys. Sure, use as few as possible, 6 or 7 at a stretch. 5 keys is unrealistic for what you want to achieve.

AND MOST IMPORTANT:

4) No drilling with cursors. You want to move somewhere have a button for it (see 2). This is the single most important rule of a 5(6) button interface.

Thanks for your time. I hope as a purchaser/beta tester of MC10, a programmer and a HTPC builder you will listen to my constructive criticisms and maybe even look at ShowShifter and give your reasons why you think this is not the way to go for a HTPC interface.

Regards

Vic