Feedback on useability (various)

[peely]

Hi,

I had a quick scoot around, and have the following feedback:

1) The UI is very slow (jerky), my PC is a Core2 Duo E6700 processor with Intel G33 Graphics & 2gb RAM running XP & latest proprietary graphics drivers, it even ran Aero when I was stupid enough to install Vista! I get about 5FPS in menu transitions.

2) The refresh rate control is welcomed, I currently use the MP1 refresh rate plugin with Powerstrip and this works very well but I like the way you can explicitly map refresh rates in MPII. However, the UI is confusing as it seems to offer all colour depths but omits the colour depth from the menu options, so for example you get 1280x720@60hz offered twice, once for 16bpp and once for 32bpp but have no idea which option is which as the colout depth is omitted. Also, there is no 50hz as this isn't a Windows default depth. Could you possibly interface with powerstrip to offer more discreet refresh rates than Windows offers, as the author of the existing MP1 plugin did?

3) There are no options to use FFDShow as the h.264 or Mpeg-2 decoders, can this be offered? I have the FFDShow Mpeg-2 decoder currently running as the decoder in MP1 by allowing multiple instances in the graph and it works better than any of the others because it can resize video and deinterlace properly. By working to support ffdshow as a reliable mpeg-2 and h.264 decoder it will not only allow free support for these codecs to all users, but also greatly simplify the set-up by having less conflicting directshow codecs lying around on each system.

4) When changing from one video to another, it seemed hell-bent on playing each selected video at the same time rather than changing video, I assume this is defaulting to attempting to play picture in picture by default rather than change video? Either way it crashed MPII. The default I believe should be to change video rather than PIP.

5) Everything seemed to have a settings, rather than offer all settings in one place. This is possibly something to do with the way the various "Plugins" are arranged, but it gives the impression of a product that needs constant tweaking, having settings offered at the same level as features in the UI. In my opinion, each plugin should offer it's settings up to a closed off settings sub-option, which can be disabled / enabled to hide the configuration away once the user is happy with the operation of the product. This will give the immpression of a much more professional HTPC product.

6) The graphics seem to low-res, I assume this will be fixed in a future version? It looks more tuned to standard definition displays rather than high definition displays.

7) Media locations seem to insist on local folders, I couldn't find any way to add a UNC path as a media folder. I use a shared folder on a network storage device to hold video, and I'm sure others will too. I would prefer to be able to type in a \\servername\sharename\folder than have to browse for it.


As far as the general look and feel is concerned, I can't say I preferred it to MP1, I guess the key reason for most people wanting this product is stability, and an early previews won't demonstrate that.

Regarding point 3 and codecs in general, have you discussed and ruled-out a VLC-type approach where you manage all codecs in your product rather than use Directshow? I find in MP1 I'm constantly having to juggle directshow codec priorities to get MP working properly, as I need to use CoreAVC for TV H.264 playback and FFDSHow for Video with subtitles and various MPEG-2 codes etc, VLC simply works out of the box and this is a benefit of MythTV also, which seems to handle video playback without issue by using mplayer. I guess there's many that would disagree with this approach too, but it works elsewhere.


Thanks for all your efforts so far.



Regards,



Neil.

[frodo]

The UI is very slow (jerky), my PC .. with Intel G33 Graphics & 2gb RAM running XP

MP-II requires a graphics card with at least 128MB memory and pixel/vertex shader model 2 support
Anything less will make it very slow
We will add a check for this in the next release so MP-II wont run on under-spec system
About the CPU requirements, if you have a graphics card like above, then it runs very smooth & fast even on a 1.4GHz Pentium with 1GB ram

2) The refresh rate control is welcomed but omits the colour depth from the menu options

We will fix this

2b) Could you possibly interface with powerstrip to offer more discreet refresh rates than Windows offer

This could be done by some 3th party plugin. The basic MP-II package wont include support for interfacing with
powerstrip

3) There are no options to use FFDShow as the h.264 or Mpeg-2 decoders, can this be offered?

Yes we can add those

4) The default I believe should be to change video rather than PIP.

We noticed this too and it will get changed

5) Everything seemed to have a settings, rather than offer all settings in one place.

Everything has settings yes, where these settings are presented is up the to skin-designer
He/she can put them all in 1 place, or place them in those screens where they are needed

6) The graphics seem to low-res

The current skin is optimized for PAL TV (720x576)
I hope that we can deliver a HDTV skin also with the next release

7) Media locations seem to insist on local folders

Yep network folders are supported if you map those as local folder, but UNC paths are (not yet) supported

>As far as the general look and feel is concerned, I can't say I preferred it to MP1

That was not the intention. Its a alpha-preview release and certainly not meant to replace MP-1
at this stage

>Regarding point 3 and codecs in general, have you discussed and ruled-out a VLC-type approach

Yes we have.
The VLC approach is ruled out simply because it does not use h/w accelerated video decoding
That said, MP-II is opensource so anyone can make a 3th party VLC-plugin if he/she desires

Frodo

[peely]

Thanks for your response.

Regarding "VLC", that's not quite what I mean, I merely used VLC as a good example of an all in one install which decodes and renders the media in its own UI. I guess that if every part of MPII supports something like ffdshow for rendering all media "TV, Films, music, etc" then the task for someone to get a HTPC up and running would be as easy as install OS, Install ffdshow, install MP then MP will benefit from being easy to install & support. Currently it's not so easy due to the limited ffdshow support in TV.

Regarding the video support, my choice for using the motherboard I have is that it supports video with passive cooling to avoid fan noise, hopefully the video card requirements for MPII will still be suportable on video cards that are passively cooled? My integrated video does perfectly well at rendering decoded video and does this quietly.

Neil.

[Inker]

Originally Posted by peely

Regarding the video support, my choice for using the motherboard I have is that it supports video with passive cooling to avoid fan noise, hopefully the video card requirements for MPII will still be suportable on video cards that are passively cooled? My integrated video does perfectly well at rendering decoded video and does this quietly.

Neil.

Well, you can pick up a passivly cooled HD2400/600 for something like 40-80 €, you even get AVC HW decoding and full hdmi output (including sound). Just saying...

[frodo]

All MP-II need is a VGA card which has

- 128MB memory
- shader model 2.0a support
- passively cooled
- supports directx9.0c

Now if we look at the market, these are really low-specs !!
example
1) almost all notebooks you buy today easily meet these specs even though they use integrated gpus
2) all (passive OR active) vga cards you buy today (starting at 40€) meets these specs

Some examples of really low-specs cards which are ok
(Note that you probably cannot even buy these cards anymore today)

- NVidia Gefore Fx 5200
- ati Radeon Xpress X1200
- ati 1250

I myself have a passive cooled nvidia 6600 card which i bought for around 60 euro

Frodo

[THDBASED]

I have an ATI X1250 and I think the interface should be a bit more snappy, it lags a bit I think, but that can/will probably change once it will be further developed, I hope

I think speed should be the most important thing right after stability, MP1 is not what I call slow but it would be very nice if the new MP2 would be even faster...

[mofux]

i own a AMD 1,6 GHz Athlon XP+ and a Radeon 9600 (pretty old) and it all runs smoothly!

[THDBASED]

I there anyone who has it running smoothly out there who has the ability to put a screen cast on line while browsing through MP2, just to compare...

[TheBatfink]

Hmm I tried it using a Core2Duo 4400 and a Fi90-HD abit motherboard which has onboard ATI Xpress 1250 integrated graphics with 256MB ram assigned to it in the bios and it does seem a little un-snappy / Laggy, especially when changing screens.. But is this how its been programed to respond? I can play HDDVD / BLU RAY and 1080p h264 content without any problems and this was a reasonably spec'd HTPC 6 months ago..

I assume theres loads of tweaking and performance improvements due over the months, and maybe its a little early to jump on this right now! but I'd be dissapointed if my shiney new HTPC couldnt even handle the GUI after I specced it to the highest content I ever expected to have to play on it.

I like it and with all the planned features, I think its going to be a worthy sequal to MPI. Just hope I'll be able to use it!!

"With more than twice the minimum required bandwidth for Vista’s graphically intense new Aero™ user interface, ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 handles Aero with ease, and stands up to even the most demanding multitasking environments. Regardless of the number of open windows, playing videos, or application switches, users have a smooth Vista premium experience."

3D Texture support, including projective 3D textures.
Complete 3D primitive support: points, lines, triangles, lists, strips and quadrilaterals and BLTs with Z compare.
Anti-aliasing using multi-sampling algorithm with support for 2, 4, and 6 samples.
New generation rendering engine provides top 3D performance.
Support for OpenGL format for Indirect Vertices in Vertex Walker.
Full DirectX® 9.0 support (Vertex Shader version 2.0 and Pixel Shader version 2.0)
Support for up to 512b per pixel formats (4 color case).

This not going to cut it??

[THDBASED]

I have the exact same system but an AMD CPU/MOBO (but also dual-core). There isn't a difference between shader model 2.0 and 2.0a isn't there, I hope not...