A new Plugin for the Music-Part! Is it possible? (2 Viewers)

[orencha]

Due to Helios61's recommendation, I gave PureAudio Plugin a try earlier today.
For some reason it doesn't work in my system (didn't have the time to look into it).

Anyway, even if it DID work, it wouldn't solve my problem, since it's just a conditional (per-extension) replacement to the build-in BASS engine.

I think that just as we can have an application-specific plugin for TV Series, Movies, DVDs and a built in "Generic" video plugin (which can also include content from the other plugins, if the users configures it so), we should at least have an option to have an application-specific plugin for multichannel music listening experience.

I would like to have a different DB for multichannel music.
Additionally, just like a TV-Series has additional properties to a "generic" video file, I think a multichannel music file should also have additional properties:
* Year album/song released, year remastered
* Source type (DTS-CD, DVD-A, SACD, DVD-V, etc...)
* Transformation made (original untouched, recode, upmix...)
* file format (DTS, AC3, WMAPro, MC-FLAC, etc...)
* number of channels (maybe even "channel map" icons...)
* bit rate
* sample rate
* standard music tags (title, artist, album... those should be taken from external files, since there's no native tagging format, such as ID3, for DTS/AC3 files).

So...
It is through you can listen to Multichannel music files through the built-in generic music plugin, just as I could view TV series through the "My Videos" plugins, but the application specific "MP-TVSeries" gives a much better experience! and not because it's better than the built-in "MyVideos", but because it is designed for a specific purpose.

 

[emphatic]

I'm gonna bump this up now, since I still think that MediaPortal's built in music section's not intuitive enough, and frankly, not much is done about it. Imagine you could just drop a folder into your music location, or import a CD and voilá it'll appear in the music lists with CD information, backdrop, cover, lyrics etc. Also, the ability to switch views intuitively with your remote instead of having to use an external tool like MPTagThat, filters for filenames like in Moving Pictures or MP TV-Series.

I can only wish I had the programming skills to work on this type of plugin myself.
Emph

 

[2BitSculptor]

I'm gonna bump this up now, since I still think that MediaPortal's built in music section's not intuitive enough, and frankly, not much is done about it. Imagine you could just drop a folder into your music location, or import a CD and voilá it'll appear in the music lists with CD information, backdrop, cover, lyrics etc. Also, the ability to switch views intuitively with your remote instead of having to use an external tool like MPTagThat, filters for filenames like in Moving Pictures or MP TV-Series.

I can only wish I had the programming skills to work on this type of plugin myself.
Emph

a BIG +1

Chuck

 

[hwahrmann]

As i said before in this thread, the way we use MyMusic currently would require a complete recoding. Basically what fforde has done with Moving Pictures, compared to My Video.
So a new plugin would be necessary, not to break everything, that we currently have within my Music.
now that we want to put all efforts into MP2, i don't think that we will invest too much time in changing the music part.

i'm still not convinced, if the same concept as Moving Pictures could be applied to Music, if we think of several thousands or even ten-thousands of songs compared to a few hundred movies.

However, you are more than welcome to present your ideas / wishes / mockups in this thread and i#m sure, we will consider them in MP2 development.
But don't expect too much to be done for mp1.

for me, with my quite huge collection of songs, it works very well. The combination with the "Search Music" plugin allows me to find every sing / album i need very quickly.
i don't see any comfort in scrolling through several pages with nice Covers to find a specific album.

 

[zilexa]

I actually agree a little bit* with hwahrmann!
Although I don't like the current MyMusic either and was a bit suprised by it...

After reading post #12 from Luke Roberts I thought I totally agreed with him. But hwahrmann has a point. The covers and artwork like MovingPictures and TVSeries isn't going to give me a better experience of listening to music in MP.

The REAL issue for me is that I don't have a good view of my musicfiles in MP, since I can only see a list of 15-25 items max during scrolling.
The second REAL issue is that after having used MP for almost 9 months I still have no clue how to create a playlist! (hence the WAF factor although I am a man).
Actually I thought the whole playlist thing wasn't built yet...
And even if I knew how to do it... I would have to scroll to a folder, enter that folder, scroll again to another folder, enter that folder, then find a nice song. Add that to the list. And go find another song (scroll scroll blabla... by this time I startup AIMP musicplayer and add the music I want via the database to the playlist and listened to 5 songs already)
*The search function is only useful if I have a specific song in my mind... wich I rarely have... I rarely use the search function on my Mintpad mp3player either.

So a very simple method to create a playlist is missing. But for both of these 2 issues... you cannot think about an improved version of MyMusic. A whole new plugin should be developed. I actually don't see how to do something about these 2 issues without showing a database-like array on the screen and a playlist simultanously.


So to focus on what CAN be done to improve the current MyMusic:
@ hwahrmann If I look at post 12 again, I actually think number 3, 4 and 5 are good improvements for the current MyMusic, without having to reinvent the wheel:
- (3) When playing music it would be nice if MP would automaticly show the NOW PLAYING screen after a certain time of non activity from me. The NOW PLAYING screen shows nice info about the current playing track and also shows what track is next.

- (4) The BASS player has the option 5.1 upmixing in the MP config. However, this does not work when you hook up your HTPC to your amp with an optical cable. It would be nice if it was possible to add a filter like AC3FILTER in the music section, so I that music played will be upmixed by AC3FILTER, for instance using the front AND back L/R speakers.

- (5) It is nice to listen to music when viewing photo slideshows and vice versa. However the control of next/previous song, next/previous photo and pausing audio and or photo is VERY confusing to me during a slide show. It would be nice if one could skip back and forth between the photo controls and music controls during a slideshow

At least number 3 and 5 I think are very useful.

Besides that, it would be nice if the current way of creating a playlist could be a little more intuitive because I actually still don't have a clue how to do this.

 

[joz]

zilexa:

Smartplaylists might be perfect for your. It's an older plugin but you can define your own queries in it, so for example you can play 30 random songs with rock genre, or not pop genre.

 

[druid9]

MPtagthat can also be used to construct playlists. It was a side feature of this excelletn plugin, designed to allow you to listen to music whilst doing the tedious job of taggin files, but they can now be saved in later versions. A bit quicker interface (not within MP I know), but is very easy to use.

 

[rtv]

/me is still waiting for ANY concept/mockup which shows how to improve the playlist building on a TV friendly GUI using a remote only...

 

[kiwijunglist]

i agree with u there, that is what is needed, and it need-not be done by someone who can code, the community can do it.

 

[zilexa]

@zilexa:

Smartplaylists might be perfect for your. It's an older plugin but you can define your own queries in it, so for example you can play 30 random songs with rock genre, or not pop genre.

Thanks but are you serious? Queries? that doesn't sound user friendly at all...