"10 feet user interface" (1 Viewer)

[Remko]

Hello,

I recently started testing MediaPortal as a candidate to replace the MCE user interface that we already use for over 2 years.. This because continuous problems with the EPG in my area (Belgium), lack of HDTV support and lack of new functions in Vista. The new tv server option also looks very promising.

First impressions:

I was quite impressed with the ease to set up tuners and epg.

Although I tested most of the 16:9 skins, I could use none of them because the text is unreadable from a 10ft distance on a 26" screen. There is also way too much information, especially on the mytv and epg screens. My wife will get lost in seconds...
I wonder why there are buttons to swith tv and timeshift on since they are also in the setup ?

Is there any way to change this easily without the need to design a new skin ?


Remko

 

[VdR]

Welcome to MP. Coming from MCE you will love it. I changed about a year ago and never looked back.

I agree with your remark on about the screens. Did you check the MP Gold skin? It has a reworked EPG screen with only 5 channels on the display and bigger characters, and ...

About the switch TV and timeshift buttons, if you do not want them they are very easily removed. It takes changing one xml skin file. Tell me what skin you use, I'll make you a personal mod.

VdR

 

[Remko]

Hi VdR,

Am I correct that your skin does not support the new tv 0.3 engine yet ? Since I am testing this as well now, I was not able to test the TV related screens from your skin, I got an error message. Do you have plans to adjust the text size of the other MR modules as well ?

Anyway, I like you skin and will certainly invest time to give you feedback to make it even better, especially for the potential users coming from MCE.

Just imagine, earlier this week I was able to watch live tv on my laptop that has quite an impressive 20" screen, with not a single cable connected to it !!

To me that's pretty pretty cool and the ultimate showcase for MP...

So to all you guys working on MP: You do an amazing job here and MP is in many areas ahaed of the competition!

 

[VdR]

You are right, it does not support the new TV engine yet.

I'm looking at improving layout and readability, but I'm not planning to systematically increase font sizes.

There is work being done on a big font screen by Darkwader (can't find the right thread just like that now)

VdR