Announcement: MediaPortal II

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by karimkb

also support launching hd-dvd/blu-ray

sadly this is pretty impossible

the only way to get HD-DVDs and BR-Discs to play inside MediaPortal is that Windows would support the playback out of the box.
that we could then take use of (like DVD playback atm.)

sadly MS seems not very interested to get that implemented. not even in VISTA.

so it seems that the only "workaround" will be to launch an external player (like PowerDVD) from inside the MediaPortal GUI to play your HD-discs.
you will not have any OSD then and configuring the remotecontrol will be quite a big problem in some cases to control the 3rd party player.....

[infinityloop]

Just as addition to the "Call for WebDevelopers"
we are in an urgend need of skilled PHP developers which are willing to help us with a "bigger project" for MediaPortal 2.

pm me please if you are interested.

[GetWell]

some special reason that you choose php?

[TesterBoy]

About the SkinEngine -

As a plugin developer(!) the thing that annoys me most is the time it takes me to create/edit/update/fix the skins, even for the two that I support (BlueTwo, B2 Wide). I want to be building features, not counting pixels!

It's not obvious (to me ), but I assume that the SkinEngine allows some kind of expression evaluation, using parameters etc extracted from the run-time environment e.g.

Screen dimensions (so I don't need different files for 4x3 vs 16x9);
User's chosen colour scheme (Mepo Green vs Mepo Grey).

This should extend to e.g. numeric and string evaluation - numbers for size and position, and strings for filenames (e.g. <XXX>.png) - these are the things that I have to change mostly.

Is MPII going to make me happy?

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by GetWell

some special reason that you choose php?

allready exsisting facilities have to be "updated".

[zag2me]

Originally Posted by infinityloop

sadly this is pretty impossible

the only way to get HD-DVDs and BR-Discs to play inside MediaPortal is that Windows would support the playback out of the box.
that we could then take use of (like DVD playback atm.)

sadly MS seems not very interested to get that implemented. not even in VISTA.

so it seems that the only "workaround" will be to launch an external player (like PowerDVD) from inside the MediaPortal GUI to play your HD-discs.
you will not have any OSD then and configuring the remotecontrol will be quite a big problem in some cases to control the 3rd party player.....

This is not as hard or look as bad as some people might think. Launching a player to play .iso files of blueray or hd-dvd can work pretty seamlessly. All you need is a plugin that mounts the iso and launches the powerdvd software program. You can then use HIP to control the remote and assign buttons to shortcuts(assuming powerdvd does not read your remotes commands natively). Then just assign your back button to exit powerdvd and media portal should pop right back up.

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by zag2me

Launching a player to play .iso files of blueray or hd-dvd can work pretty seamlessly. All you need is a plugin that mounts the iso and launches the powerdvd software program.

i am not talking about ripped dics where HDCP has been removed illegaly.

Originally Posted by zag2me

You can then use HIP to control the remote and assign buttons to shortcuts(assuming powerdvd does not read your remotes commands natively). Then just assign your back button to exit powerdvd and media portal should pop right back up.

thats still not a decent solution as native support is.
there will be much problems and frustration for the average enduser who just wants to enjoy HD....
and this is the "problem". it will not work out of the box unless MS adds support to play HD-DVDs and BR-Discs to (at least) VISTA.

[Ernie-c]

Now that the surprise-wave has fade out a bit, when can we see some architectural designs of mediaportal II ? It's subsystems, boundaries, API's and different layers ? What will be the development approach ? If you speak about stability first, I assume automated testing is essential ? Curious how all this will be tackled.

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by Ernie-c

Now that the surprise-wave has fade out a bit, when can we see some architectural designs of mediaportal II ? It's subsystems, boundaries, API's and different layers ? What will be the development approach ? If you speak about stability first, I assume automated testing is essential ? Curious how all this will be tackled.

the sourcode will be available when we release the first alpha.

[Olodin]

Originally Posted by Ernie-c

Now that the surprise-wave has fade out a bit, when can we see some architectural designs of mediaportal II ? It's subsystems, boundaries, API's and different layers ? What will be the development approach ? If you speak about stability first, I assume automated testing is essential ? Curious how all this will be tackled.

I have another question that goes in the same direction:
Will you extend the use of branches in SVN while developing new features for MPII?

I always had the feeling that the quite linear development without branches for big changes made life a bit harder for developers, contributers and testers.