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[justsomeguy]

I just wanted to expand on what I was thinking about in a reply to a thread that's been closed.

Currently I use WMC on my htpc and MC as a DLNA renderer in the background.  Everytime I've tried theater view I always find my self going back to WMC. 
For one I've never been able to get the picture from my ATI tuner card to look right.  There was obvious interlacing problems that I could not get rid of no matter what filters I used.  In WMC the video was getting deinterlaced by the Vcard.  In MC I couldn't that to happen at all and the video was much more blurry as well.  As well the program guide for the channels just wasn't as good.

When I tried using it for viewing my movie and saved tv episode collection, the playback was just fine.  The lack of detailed info on my files also made me go back to WMC.  Now WMC itself isn't the best at that either, but there are many free/paid plugins by 3rd parties that greatly expand WMC features.  Using a plugin named MediaBrowser, my movie and tv collection provides me far more detail and a nicer interface(obviously that's up to your own opinion).  This isn't my video but gives an idea, it can be configured and look even nicer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6QKd4AkK7s&feature=related  All of that movie and tv episode info is all automatic, I don't have to do anything but name the file so that it can find it and download everything, description, actors, director, rating, genre.  So if I name say a tv episode lost ss,ee.mkv, where ss=season and ee=episode number, that's all I have to do to get all that detail.  Same thing with a movie, just put it in a folder named say "Ironman" and if it happens to be a remake you add the year to it and that's all.  I don't have to tag anything.

WMC seems to have the largest user base of any full htpc program.  There are alot of 3rd party plugins to expand it.  Where for me it kind of lacks is in the music area.  I could envision jriver creating an audio plugin for WMC that used MC as the back-end for that interface.  As it is now you are trying to convert users of other htpc programs to MC.  If jriver made a plugin that was part of MC or maybe as an additional paid feature (in case someone didn't want it).  I think you may get a lot more WMC users to purchase your software because alot of them are happy with WMC. However if you could just improve say its music handling capabilities they wouldn't be faced with the decision of completely ditching what they are for the most part happy and comfortable with.

just my .02

[gappie]

you do know that there are some 3party plugs to give you all your video info, including moving it in some folder. and mc now also has its own lookup system using the wiki, for movies?, rightclick on one see the menu.

 
gab

[glynor]

I agree that automated metadata "fetching" is an area where MC has LOTS of room to improve, and is something where it is sorely lacking currently.  The movie info from Wikipedia feature is nice, but it is still awfully manual, and doesn't help at all with TV Shows.  MC really needs a feature equivalent to BMT for SageTV.

I don't think that has much of anything to do with Theater View though.  Theater View is just a "window" on the data in the database.  One way, of many, to look at your library.

Getting appropriate info into your library in the first place is a different story...

[glynor]

Gab... What 3rd Party tools are there?  Are there any that are TV Focused that will do what he's asking for in regards to automated metadata lookup for TV Shows?

[gappie]

Gab... What 3rd Party tools are there?  Are there any that are TV Focused that will do what he's asking for in regards to automated metadata lookup for TV Shows?

for tv especially i dont know, tv went 20 years ago, and mc did not change that for me.. but i think llafriels plugin was doing something in that direction. the op was also reffering to 3rd party plugs for movies and there are some nice ones for mc. how much they do for tv.. i dont know.

i think llafriels is the easiest to use. no extra things to setup except a searchlist. but for people who want to get really everything from imdb and other sources the plug  from alaskatu and ofcource raldos plug that works with pvd together could be better choices.
i forget one.. hmm

 
gab

BTW, i dont want to dispute what the op says. and especially the autometadata thing, since that is hot for some around here these days, but just show that there are some 3rd party things that at least do the same as the 3rd party things in wmc. not everybody know theyt excists

[justsomeguy]

Thanks, I wasn't aware of those tools.  I may check them out later.
The metadata thing is a big reason I've stuck with what I'm using, it works very well.

Part of my point too was that jriver could bring in more customers from the htpc community by embracing the community that is already out there.  Which for WMC is fairly large and for now larger than the htpc crowd here.  jriver charges the same price whether you use theater view or not so I don't think they'd be really loosing anything by providing an addon to say WMC to expand on its features.  That way you can still get the people that want MC for the theater view and the potential to bring in people that would otherwise not switch to MC at all.

[gappie]

Thanks, I wasn't aware of those tools.  I may check them out later.
The metadata thing is a big reason I've stuck with what I'm using, it works very well.

the reason i found mc some years ago was because i was tired of all the autometa thingies programs like itunes and wmp did to my files. so im still very skeptical to those things.  but who knows.

Part of my point too was that jriver could bring in more customers from the htpc community by embracing the community that is already out there.  Which for WMC is fairly large and for now larger than the htpc crowd here.  jriver charges the same price whether you use theater view or not so I don't think they'd be really loosing anything by providing an addon to say WMC to expand on its features.  That way you can still get the people that want MC for the theater view and the potential to bring in people that would otherwise not switch to MC at all.

i think this is interesting.. but not totally clear to me. the addon would use wmc for getting data and part of the playback and especially the theater but uses the mc database? or the other way around. and only for movies? wmc is not really nice for audioplayback.. imo.

i like the idea of getting an other interface for the information of my movies, they playback fine though, but not for my audio, im really vey happy with thv for that part atm.. so im just really curious.

 
gab

[rick.ca]

The lack of detailed info on my files also made me go back to WMC.  Now WMC itself isn't the best at that either, but there are many free/paid plugins by 3rd parties that greatly expand WMC features.  Using a plugin named MediaBrowser, my movie and tv collection provides me far more detail and a nicer interface (obviously that's up to your own opinion).

I suppose you could call it opinion, but this goes way beyond appearances and preferences. WMC doesn't come close to doing what I do with Theatre View, so it's really not an option. I appreciate many users "just want it to work," but that's not really what MC is about. Most of us use MC because of it's vastly superior flexibility, capability and performance. Dumbing it down so it's appealing to those who don't care about these things is not going to serve anyone.

MediaBrowser relies on other plugins to obtain meta data. Some of those rely on sources that may not have as complete a database as you might expect (e.g., recent American titles, no problem; otherwise, hit and miss at best). But that's beside the point. MC plugins are available for most of the same sources. The most powerful option is to use Personal Video Database to collect the data (it can gather data very efficiently from a variety of different sources—for both movies and TV series). Raldo's PvdImport plugin is then used to automatically put the data directly from the PVD database. This, of course, it too much work for those who "just want it to work." They will prefer one of the other plugins. Those are probably even easier to configure than MediaBrower (plus whatever plugins it's going to use).

MC has lots of room to grow in the realm of obtaining, managing and displaying video meta data. But the apparent advantages of WMC (and other managers) are largely superficial. In some cases, the "eye candy" aspect is appealing, but not worth trading the MC advantages for. I think a fair analogy is the comparison of MC to iTunes. There will always be those who say, "Why bother with MC? What's wrong with iTunes?" The only correct answer to that is, "Nothing. Use iTunes." It is a matter of personal preference. And, clearly, MC does very well not being iTunes.

[justsomeguy]

the reason i found mc some years ago was because i was tired of all the autometa thingies programs like itunes and wmp did to my files. so im still very skeptical to those things.  but who knows.
i think this is interesting.. but not totally clear to me. the addon would use wmc for getting data and part of the playback and especially the theater but uses the mc database? or the other way around. and only for movies? wmc is not really nice for audioplayback.. imo.

i like the idea of getting an other interface for the information of my movies, they playback fine though, but not for my audio, im really vey happy with Theater View for that part atm.. so im just really curious.

 
gab

I guess what i was getting at was having a MC add-on for WMC for audio specifically.  Like you I think WMC is not good for music.  This is  a hole that could be plugged in WMC by MC.  Use MC database and write a new interface as an add-on to WMC.  You could administer your collection through MC itself but then have a front-end as part of WMC.  Let the other 3rd party add-ons handle things like movies since there are many that do the job well already.

[justsomeguy]

I suppose you could call it opinion, but this goes way beyond appearances and preferences. WMC doesn't come close to doing what I do with Theatre View, so it's really not an option. I appreciate many users "just want it to work," but that's not really what MC is about. Most of us use MC because of it's vastly superior flexibility, capability and performance. Dumbing it down so it's appealing to those who don't care about these things is not going to serve anyone.

MC is already extremely flexible and in-depth.  You don't have to dumb that down, keep that how it is.  Writing an add-on additional to what is already there that would bring additional customers ($$$) to jriver seems like it would be a good thing.  Obviously this isn't a passing hobby for the programmers so it seem like they'd want to expand their base.

[rick.ca]

Writing an add-on additional to what is already there that would bring additional customers ($$$) to jriver seems like it would be a good thing.

Sorry—my comments were only in response to the part of your message I quoted, not this suggestion. I'm not sure what to make of it. I think WMC is lacking in all areas, so I don't really understand the logic of providing a plugin that fixes one area. Perhaps the only effective plugin would be one that uninstalls WMC and installs MC.

[justsomeguy]

I agree, yes WMC on its own is lacking in pretty much everything.  With the available addons for it however it is more than capable and enough for must "average users", and average users far out weigh the more technical of us.  For the moment music is the biggest area of WMC that doesn't have a good addon.  If I wasn't already a customer of jriver I would consider purchasing a license if it provided MC's excellent database management with a way for me to access through WMC.  Could mean many new customers, of which some may decide they like MC theater view better, but would have never of tried it otherwise.

[rick.ca]

MC in a WMC skin! A trojan horse sort of thing...

Now that I think of it...I'm using marko's excellent iCopy 9 skin—and I'm sure I'm much happier than any iTunes user.

[justsomeguy]

I like the trojan horse analogy   Infiltrate WMC then destroy it by ultimately converting its users to MC fully.  Which would be good for everyone here, the more licenses jriver sells the more financially it would make since to tackle even more of the stuff people have been asking for.

[rick.ca]

...and with Microsoft slipping behind Apple and Google, it's probably a more viable reverse takeover target anyway.