Ideas Collection Thread

[Hildebrandt]

My 5 cents...

Williths idea with banners at bottom of screen for navigation through EPG while watching TV on the rest of the screen is really good...

The suggestions re: fullscreen - set an option in configuration to either

1: start with TV fullscreen when mediaportal starts up - last channel shown displayed again (option for default startup channel included??)

or

2: When selecting TV within a running mediaportal, start TV fullscreen (here an option for default startup channel would also be nice)

or

3: start as now

Finally the recording options window as outlined by jaeger would be really nice...

[Roberdin]

We should avoid using the red button for anything in Live TV in case support for "Press Red" interactive features are added in the future. As far as I'm aware, the other colours are fine, and using them for "quick navigation" type features isn't a terrible idea.

I second the comments made above: If you enter Live TV immediately by default there should be an OSD that says how to get to the TV Guide, recordings and other features.

[Spragleknas]

Perhaps I misunderstood; I posted mine here:
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/my...on-t26053.html

[Noelix]

Here's some organization ideas I thought of: (couldnt really get bulleted lists to work so I improvised)

--My TV--

What's on Right Now
- Reads tv programs from most-watched channels
- Defaults to new shows (non-reruns)
- Displays logo for each show, fades in and out of selections or you can go up and down using the remote or keyboard

What's New Tonight
- i.e. What shows playing tonight are new
- Prioritizes series premieres
- Same as what's playing right now, displays logo for each show, fades in and out of selections or you can go up and down using the remote or keyboard

TV Guide
- Takes you to the full electronic programming guide
- Search Guide available here
::::Type in the show, actor, episode title, genre, etc. you are looking for from your tv listings using an SMS-like system on your remote or just using a keyboard
::::Click ok, it searches your tv guide and gives results

Recorded TV
- Goes to its own screen
- Shows most recent recordings (defaults to 5), with logo or screencapture of the show next to it
::::Recent recordings
::::All Recordings
()()()Sort by date recorded
()()()Sort by name
>>>>by default, within each series/folder, shows are arranged by date, with the newest episode shown first
::::Edit recordings
()()()Delete all older than a week or set time (excluding locked episodes or series)
()()()Auto-delete settings based on oldest recordings
()()()Compression settings, auto compress settings
:::: Search recordings
()()()Type in the show, actor, episode title, genre, etc. you are looking for from your own recordings using an SMS-like system on your remote or just using a keyboard
()()()Click ok, it searches your recorded tv database and gives results

Also I attached a mock-up of what the my-tv screen would look like on the "now playing" tab. Let me know if you would care to see more.

[Nicodemuz]

I agree with Willith. He mentions additional STB features that seems missing.
And STB:s has been on the market for a long time so most of the have pretty similar and intelligent menu/osd/functionality access layout which means wifes, kids, friends, babysitters and etc could easily feel at home if Mediaportal adopted this functionality.

So as Willith mentioned:
* A "banner" at the bottom or the top with configurable show time after channel switch is wanted - displaying channel name, current and next show, receiver info (SNR/BER) and what the red/green/yellow/blue buttons do.
* Pressing OK when on a future show during browsing the EPG should add a timer/schedule for automatic channel switch to that show. And this should be indicated in the EPG.

I have attached a few screenshots from my Dreambox showing the "banner" and a EPG with a schedule:

There will of course be people of other opinions, they don't use Mediaportal in full screen mode on their TV set or they only record what they want to see and watch them later which means they have few users of their system.
This means that some of the interface/functionality must be configurable by the user.

However, I hope enough people would want (some already implemented in MP):
* Autostart MP at computer bootup
* Fullscreen at MP startup
* TV displayed directly with "banner" row for configurable time (say 0-15s) IF their is a TV card, otherwise as todays design
* Pressing OK brings up a EPG which allows quick tv-show overview, easy adding of recording and channel switch schedules (I prefer multichannel EPG like the attached snapshot from my Dreambox)
* Pressing Menu brings up for example MP Main menu but TV still full screen as a background (a sub menu for TV handling of schedules, TV specific settings and etc could be in order)
* CD:s/DVD:s autoplays and when they stop one is returned to TV

[roosterx]

I don't have any solutions myself, but what i have been thinking from time to time is especially two things with the MP gui design:

1. The first screen gets really 'crowded' with lots to choose from - My tv, my videos, my weather, my tv series and so on', i've even try to minimize by choosing the least important things for me to be under 'plugins', what about more General choises with subcategories like Just My Videos(movies or whatever), and below there we have Both My tv and Videos - or maybe just a stupid nonpractical idea

2. Sometimes MP feels not so very Remote control friendly(especially if you are new to MP), probably everyone from time to time clicks the remotes navigation button, and the all of the sudden a menu pops up at top(with FForward, skip etc), or you just click and dont quite know where the 'pointer' went(a lack of better word early in the moring).

I liked the simplicity of SageTV(plus some of its features), at the same time, now that i'm used to MP,my old SageTV scr shots look old in a way, so.. go figure

[Nicodemuz]

I should mention that the Dreambox neither looks good or in any way is perfect with regards to menus/EPG and stuff, but the overalll layout idea is a good start.

This might be slightly off-topic but:

Do you people ever got in contact with "myHTPC".
I long time since I used it but from what I remember it had one powerful feature for advanced users - you could edit about everything with regards to menus and add/remove anything you wanted. So at top level you could have say "My TV" and "My EPG" or you could just have "My TV" and move the"My EPG" into a submenu of "My TV".
Or one could create a "My video storage" at main menu level with several submenus like "My DVD:s", "My XVIDs", "My TS Recordings", "Rent online" and start all these with different players if not built in player managed it all.
The tough part was getting the remote control to control both the myHTPC frontend as well as all externally called applications.

But making MP as flexible wouldn't hurt
Is this possible with MP (well , "everything" is possible give enough amount of CPU, diskspace, RAM and man hours...)?

If only my TT premium card would be supported so I could try current TV design...

[MadDuke]

Another thing that has been irritation me is the 'volume indicator', it looks clumsy and a bit strange - I would love something like in Vista MCE with a number indicating the volume level (and it sould be visible in 'all of MP's menus' not just fullscreen video!

/MadDuke

[Willith]

I agree that TV should be started in fullscreen mode (or at least let us have the option!)

Ive noticed the main issue here is to make it wife/girlfrend whatever friendly. With a simple setup consisting of a TV and STB (or even built in tuner) its a matter of turning it on and getting a picture. this is how TV has worked for decades - when you turn it on you simply expect a channel to appear. The main idea is to keep it dead simple yet in a way powerful that it doesnt annoy advanced users like us (people who at least know how to program a VCR). While we like to toggle with things, tweak them to death and get them working as we like, you need to remember other users who could simply not give a s**t about any of the technical babble! they just want to watch TV. Computers are only properly worked by users who have great knowledge, the TV has always been an extremely simple device to operate. We are running on a computer here but we're implementing a feature that pretty much everyone knows how to work on dedicated equipment (like STB's and all that jazz).
Im not saying we should dumb down MyTV to a featureless bit of software. If done well there is a way of creating something capable of doing what we want yet so easy to use. The on screen displays and menu layouts that most STB's use (Sky for example, with 10 million customers in the UK its one of the most understood systems) are really easy to navigate with clear presentation. As i mentioned previously they use EPG banners which are clean and quick. There is also a dedicated button on the remote labeled 'Tv Guide' that presents the user with a full screen menu showing program genres. With the arrows or numberpad even they can go to the specific genre (i.e. News) where the page then changes to an epg grid view of all the news channels. Selecting a channel/current program will view it, selecting a future program will set a reminder and pressing the info button will give a brief program synopsis. Another thing here is consistency on how the user can highlight a program and get info or set a reminder - these functions are similar on the EPG banner.
Mediaportal is great software, i moved from MCE 2005 and i will never look back due to the dedicated Satellite support and user community. I like a lot of the ideas here, keep it up.

[Thrakath]

Hi all,

I think the Option: "Disable TV in Homescreen" would be nice. So i have not to stop TV before shut down my MP.

Thrakath