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[DocLotus]

Some things that I think still need addressing...

DVD...
* There are no basic hot key controls.
* Does not seem to be an associate DVD disc under Options/File Associations.

PROPERTIES...
* Why does Properties not follow the currently playing file? It is very irritating to have to keep clicking on the currently playing file to update Properties.  This should be totally automatic.

TV...
There are a few basic features in ATI's A-I-W TV tuner software that are totally lacking in Media Center.  These are features that make the tuner software much more enjoyable & easier to use then Media Center's TV.

* The ability to have several fixed TV screen sizes which can be selected with the CTRL & Up or Down Arrow keys.  This makes it easy to quickly select a screen size to fit the available space on your desktop when working on other documents.

* The ability to zoom in on any part of the TV image by drawing a box around the selected object with the mouse.  Will also need a CTRL + Z to un-zoom or reset back to 1:1 ratio.

* Another thing missing from the TV is Maintain Aspect Ratio.  I find this to be very handy in ATI's A-I-W cards as I drag the screen to various sizes it automatically adjusts the frame size in relation to the aspect ratio so there is never any blank spaces outside of the actual viewing area.

* NEW Jul-25-03... Ctrl + Shift + Tab brings up all basic TV controls except Gamma.  This works on the ATI A-I-W cards & should work on MC 9 also.

Windows...
* NEW Jul-25-03... The top right window does not remember where I left off at when I go back to it.  It should remember the last Artist & selection I made.  This is useful for going back to another album for the same Artists.  The old Explorer tree view of 9.0 did not have this problem.  I could go back & forth between Playing Now & return to the tree & the Artist/Album I had selected was still showing.

[nila]

PROPERTIES

This NEEDS to be adressed in this version. It was fine for when MC was MJ but now that MC is designed for all media types and we can create our own fields to represent this, as well as the fact that the properties window is now a LOT shorter having been moved to the left and therefore lost around half it's height, it's just not suitable anymore.

The number of fields is now overwhelming and are badly grouped to suit our needs for different media types.

Opening more than one group at a time is nearly impossible as they just dont fit on the screen and just  appear overwhelming. This means that tagging is a case of: opening first group - changing fields, closing group, opening next field, changing fields, closing group and moving onto the next etc. etc. Instead of just having all the relivant fields in one group or onscreen at once.


PROPERTIES NEEDS THE FOLLOWING:
- Total control over what groups there are with the ability to:

• create new groups
  
• delete/rename ANY old groups
  
• move ANY items (especially already existant ones) to different groups
  
  - Customised per view scheme
  
• Preferably the ability to totally customise the properties pane and remove/add fields/groups to it per view scheme.
  
• Ability to  re-order the fields so they are in an order we feel is suited to the media in question rather than just alphabetical - preferably by dragging and dropping.
  
• At the VERY least it needs to just remember what group was open per view scheme if it's not going to allow us to customise what groups are showing so we can leave open the appropriate group for each view scheme.
  
  
  We also need to able to, when customising the properties panel, choose to apply the customisation to all child schemes as once I set it for audio - I want to be able to then automatically have this customisation apply to all the child view schemes without setting them manually for each of the 10 child schemes.
  
  
  Some kind of 'View Scheme Manager' would save a LOT of time and effort if all seperate view schemes were saved with a name so we could instantly apply them to any other view scheme
  When creating a new view scheme one of the attributes we could chose would simply be: 'Layout' or something and we chose which previous layout we want to use or to create a new one.
  
  
  
  
  Properties NEEDS an overhaul and I really hope it is adressed this version as I dont want to need to be waiting/paying for v10 just to have this working in a useable manner.
  
  Hopefully I'm going to be enticed to v10 with new features like split screen etc that are additional new changes that I want, not fixes to problems in v9.1

[MachineHead]

Properties NEEDS an overhaul and I really hope it is adressed this version as I dont want to need to be waiting/paying for v10 just to have this working in a useable manner.

Couldn't agree more. Current state of propeties window is terrible.

[Doof]

I agree with Nila as well. Except I'm not sure I'd make fields and groups match up to a view scheme. I'd rather see it just set to be media type dependent. There's only 3. 3 checkboxes in the Configure Library Field box where we choose which media types to bind the data field to. And don't lock the default data types in this regard. It makes more sense to have Photographer instead of Artist when deaing with photos, but in cases like digital images of paintings, Artist makes more sense, so it makes sense to leave this flexible.

Also, videos may get fields like Director, Producer, etc and these make NO sense for images or music.

I really don't think trying to shoehorn images and video into an audio paradigm works. They are completely different mediums and should be treated as such.

[nila]

Doof - doing it per media type is fine for audio but for video's or images it can cause problems - especially with video's.


Take for example the gropus of video's I have:

TV Series - need:  Series Name, Series Number, Episode Number

Dance Troupe's Choreography: - Choreographer, Troupe Name, Performance Date, Location etc.

Home Video's:    People, Location, Time,


Music Video's:   Artist, Song, Date



video's span such a huge range - it's hard to definitively say what fields they need. Audio is easier because most people just use audio for songs - if again it was used for like lectures or anything it'd make it more complex but luckily it's not.


I know what your saying though - Just make it simple/easy! and I agree.

[NoCodeUK]

Definitely agree this needs sorting.  A suggestion tho...rather than linking to view schemes why not linking to media type but use groups within media type for specific items?  So within Video type you could have a series group, a dance troupe group etc.  like the current general, extended etc fields...

Another thing I think needs sorting is the windows integration features.  The shell menus have not worked for a very long time...to not be able to click a bunch of files in MC and start them playing is frustrating to the point that more often than not if I am in explorer I will use WMP instead...

Apart from that most things work fine for me.  DVD playback is ropey but I have a DVD player so very rarely view DVDs on PC anyway so that is not a big issue for me.  Picture tagging works well for me now.  I have not noticed this bug that ahs been mentioned in another thread I have to say...

Adam