1920x1080 skins? (1 Viewer)

[Juriko]

Erm no. As a matter of fact it is true. Probably not in one year but definately in two or three.

Of course if you talk about <$100 devices yes you are correct. And <$50 we'll have some CRT still.

And were do you get this idea? There is no reason to push 1080p on smaller sized sets. To keep pushing the idea of multiple HD displays in the home a focus on smaller 720p sets will be crucial.

 

[Boilermaker]

The same thing done to create the 720p version of BlueTwo, just rescale the graphics in Photoshop just so things look nice and smooth (no pixelation). I had a look through some of the skins xml's, but didn't look at the skins doc yet, but this looks like a lot of work to figure things out. We'll see if my desire for a 1080p skin outweighs my laziness

If you were looking at my version of the 720p skin as an example, i know why you were discouraged....i make heavy use of common templates, defined tags and the references.xml file so that i can generally make a change in one place and have it take effect throughout the skin. I also did it so that if mp still used the same skinning engine when i got a 1080p tv, i could take that code and in 10 minutes alter it enough to have 95% of the xml for a 1080p skin. XML is not the problem, it's the time it would take to resize all those graphics.

Basically i agree with htpc_for_me and rocky, if you want it bad enough, you're probably going to have to do it yourself. I started skinning for my own personal use then made it available as a way of giving back to MP. Two years ago, there were no widescreen skins, now there are almost as many choices as 4x3 skins. Sure there are a handful of 1080p lcds out there, even sharp's entire new aquos line is 1080p capable, but the smallest around is 37" (and expensive). Some of the estimates of 1080p adoption i've seen in this thread are let's just say, optomistic. So if you are waiting for a level of adoption similar to that of other 16x9 resolutions, you will be waiting for a while. I'm not going to get on my soapbox about lack of content, blue ray vs. hd-dvd or the playstation3 to back up that point...but i'm generally an early adopter, and i have no plans in the near future for a 1080p capable tv.

 

[NLS]

Erm no. As a matter of fact it is true. Probably not in one year but definately in two or three.

Of course if you talk about <$100 devices yes you are correct. And <$50 we'll have some CRT still.

And were do you get this idea? There is no reason to push 1080p on smaller sized sets. To keep pushing the idea of multiple HD displays in the home a focus on smaller 720p sets will be crucial.

Sure, let me tell you where I get this idea.

- Fact 1. Real HD is 1920x1080.

- Fact 2. Having the real top HD resolution and (smart) upscaling is better than downscaling losing detail.

- Fact 3. There are already computer monitors (not ultra expensive) with enough DPI to support such resolutions. This means the panels are out there and prices are droping.

- Fact 4. (related to 3) It makes much more sense to have one production line where you would have two.

- Fact 5. There is a general tendency for displays where the "small" size is much larger than what was small 10 years ago. A "small kitchen" TV is easily a 21" panel when it was 14" CRT (or nothing), while the old "quite enough" for the living room, 29" WEGA is now becoming a 37" or a 42" panel (or more).

- Fact 6. Bandwidth (all kinds of bandwidth, be it Network, sat waves, computer speed etc.) is quickly becoming enough to support 1080.

...of course all these don't mean that we won't have CRT for quite a few more years, nor that we won't have non-1080 panels - but that would be for special market needs or special markets (poorer countries etc.) and of course at stupidly low price ranges.

Now if you don't want to see this, no problem by me.

 

[falser]

If you were looking at my version of the 720p skin as an example, i know why you were discouraged....i make heavy use of common templates, defined tags and the references.xml file so that i can generally make a change in one place and have it take effect throughout the skin.

I've only taken a quick look at the home.xml and replaced the background. But that change didn't filter to the rest of the screens. I can't remember if I went from your 720p version or not but I'll have another look.

 

[Boilermaker]

if you want an general idea of how things would look you could make the following changes:

in references.xml:
in the skin control change width to 1920 and height to 1080

in the default button control change the width and height tags, maybe to like 400 and 40. you could do this also for the sort button control.

for listcontrol, checklist control change posx to 500, width to 1360 and height to 900. Also change spinposx to 1800 and spinposy to 1020.

in both common.window.default.xml and common.window.tv.xml:
change the background image width and height to 1920 and 1080.

This will resize the background for most screens, many of the navigation buttons on the left and all listcontrols. then go into something like my music, my video or my radio and take a look. some things will seem small; for example fonts would have to be changed. Graphics are still going to look stretched. But like i said it will give you a very rough idea of how to move things around and how they would look.

 

[Juriko]

stupidly low price ranges.

That right there kind of covers it. My point was, more or less, that 1080p sets wouldn't be all that was around in 2 years with LCD's since I don't see good sub 300(hell even sub 400) models being around. It makes more sense to use cheaper 720p panels and scaling on sets under 30" inches since at a normal view distance it won't matter visually and it increases profitability.

 

[NLS]

OK but the thing is that when someone pays to make an HTPC (than settle for a $30 Chinese DVD player or $150 DVD-Recorder) PROBABLY will pay the appropriate money for a 1080 TV.

Today you can buy a 37" 1080P TV (very few models on the planet yet) for <$2000. A "once huge" 37". I am definete that next year you will be able to buy a 26" 1080P for $700.

Also see it another way. Probably someone making a $300 HTPC (if someone can do it) won't demand for that computer to be able to pay 1080 content. But the guy that WILL make a PC able to handle such content (and if you ask me I think the majority out there will demand this soon if not already) WILL ALSO demand the TV set to be able to handle it.

My point of view (and I think not only mine).

 

[marshall]

Regardless of whether everyone has a 1080i/p TV anytime soon...

Vanessa mentioned a move to SVG files in future skins. Will there also be support for image placement and width based on percents rather than pixels? In web design I know this causes as many headaches as it fixes, but it might be a nice feature, and it should allow skins with the same screen ratios (rather than pixel counts) to scale rather well.

 

[Juriko]

My point of view (and I think not only mine).

I don't disagree really. I wasn't arguing about the usefulness of a 1080 skin for a media PC, just the idea that 720p would vanish. With cheap hardware video decoding of 1080p formats now a reality and HDMI with HDCP on video cards progressing it is a given it will pick up in the HTPC realm.

 

[knutinh]

Two discussions, and I have opinions on both:
1. What resolutions will be on peoples tellys in a few years?

My opinion is 1080p. Because it is needed? No, according to a BBC study, at a 2.7 meter viewing distance, one needs ~30 inches to notice the difference between a 720x576 resolution and a 1280x720 resolution, at a 95% confidence. To see the difference between 720p and 1080p, the screen has to be ~60 inches, at the same distance! Remember to scale these results for distance/screen size (the important thing is "how many degrees of the eye is covered").

My reason is because we are rapidly moving towards digital broadcast, and eventually IP broadcast. This gives more flexibility and allows for more rapid development of new solutions. Also, in my country, all new tvs are either LCD or Plasma (more LCDs). These are available in 1366x768 or 1920x1080 today allready, and the numbers game means that bigger is always better even when its not ;-) Customers will buy the highest resolution and manufacturers wil manufacture...

How to manage skin resolutions in MP
Never having made a skin, I am talking in general terms here =)

I do understand that 2 megapixel menus will render slower than VGA menus on the same computer. I also understand that scaled graphics looks worse than native graphics, and badly scaled graphics looks even worse. Also, SVG seems the perfect solution to "synthetic" elements like text, but not necessarily detailed photographic elements?

The obvious solution would be having the user select between "Blue Two" skin and "Blue Two 1080p" skin. It woul mean more hd space (cheap) and extra work for skin developers. On the other hand, users on low-end PCs with PAL/NTSC crt tvs would get an optimum experience. And high-end buffs with projector/lcds with 1080p would get ultracrisp menus, as long as they have the hardware to run it.

I dont think any customers are running 1080p displays and VIA C3 HTPCs with minimal processing abilities, and if they are, I suspect that they wont blame MP if they cant have crispness and snappiness at the same time?

regards
knut