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[sbsp2]

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.

[gingellr]

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 




 

[CadErik]

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.

[m1abrams]

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.

[m1abrams]

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.

[zxsix]

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.

[Vali Mihai]

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.

[rjm]

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.

[Phydeaux]

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.

[p7389]

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.

[vkostas]

• Nestable fields for dynamic fields.
• Full support for all standard id3v2 fields.

Thank you for this great program.

[Thunderbird1]

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. 

[4BYE]

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

[sub-24]

The ability to change zones whe usign the web interface.

Some better controls and screen info on zones.

[quirtep]

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.

[thurston]

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.

[GreggP]

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.

[WeeHappyPixie]

Hi Guy's,

Well done on MC13.

Any chance of supporting Windows Media Audio PRO (WMA Pro).

Cheers,

John

[thurston]

(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.

[davros]

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.

[rjm]

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.

[ThoBar]

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.

[T2Mac]

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

[Marra]

Agree With Ludo's comments about "Group By' options.

[jplandry]

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.

[bil1010105]

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.

[AoXoMoXoA]

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).

[Spafe]

• 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



Before I saw your screenshots from this thread. 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.

[rjm]

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.

[Spafe]

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

[MrHaugen]

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.

[fitbrit]

1, 2, 4, 8, .... 30??? Sorry, that does not compute.

j

1x ((-2) + (4x8)) = 30

[sithlord0338]

Sorry if this has been requested, but the ability to stream FLAC thru a uPnP server is a must!

[Marra]

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!

[quirtep]

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

[JimH]

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. 

[rjm]

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.

[drc]

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..

[JONCAT]

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  (what a huge loss for JRiver users)

DC

[steveklein]

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.

[rjm]

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.

[raldo]

[...]
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...

[Absurrrd]

With all these MC 13 improvements focusing in on video.  How about extending DSP studio support to include video.   

[bugmenot]

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

[fitbrit]

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

[Peter_T]

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...

[MrHaugen]

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!
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.

[gappie]

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.

i think that there is also place for a fourth button. something like 'radio always on'   

 
gab

[mabes]

It sure looks beautifull. I like the way it seems to look up IMDB movie descriptions. Iiiha!
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.

[RedJ]

Custom field drop downs for list selection and flyouts (for multi-selects, just like new custom Tab-Fields-Also Show functionality)