Blue 3 (2 Viewers)

[kszabo]

1st thanx for your efforts, great skin, Harley.

My critics: I find the font (Franklin gothic) a bit boring. I would like something more exciting or unique. But it´s easy to replace it myself.

And why 1280x720 resolution? Why not directly fullHD? (I am happy with it with my 1280x720 TV).

PS: I like your XFace skin also

 

[Harley]

I like everything about the new skin except for the MEPO Weather icon on the start page - took me a while to work out what this even was! Looks like a nest full of chicken eggs with a golden egg at the back!

SO ... not wanting to call anybody's "baby ugly" without doing some work myself, I made a replacement (in the MEPO vein) based upon the more standard (and thus, I think, more obvious) raincloud-sun icon's similar to those used on TV weather reports etc., as follows:

If you wish to take this (I can always hope then I have a Photoshop version(s) (real-size and larger) with the cloud/sun as a separate layer. I can send these upon request.

..please load it up here, so we can test it

Harley

 

[Harley]

1st thanx for your efforts, great skin, Harley.

My critics: I find the font (Franklin gothic) a bit boring. I would like something more exciting or unique. But it´s easy to replace it myself.

And why 1280x720 resolution? Why not directly fullHD? (I am happy with it with my 1280x720 TV).

PS: I like your XFace skin also

..with the font, if you have something better, so please upload it here for testing.

..because the resolution of 1280 *720, we have do it because with bigger resolution, we need to use high resolution gfx and with that mp runs very slow and stuttering on htpc´s what have not so much power.
Because htpc´s should be always lownoise, i think we have not the biggest pc´s in the livingrooms.
So many users will have then problems with MP with a full hd skin.

I have had the same problem with xface on the first versions, after doing the gfx smaler, it was much better for most of the users.

Greetings Harley

 

[kkendall]

...
And why 1280x720 resolution? Why not directly fullHD? (I am happy with it with my 1280x720 TV).
...

..because the resolution of 1280 *720, we have do it because with bigger resolution, we need to use high resolution gfx and with that mp runs very slow and stuttering on htpc´s what have not so much power.
Because htpc´s should be always lownoise, i think we have not the biggest pc´s in the livingrooms.
So many users will have then problems with MP with a full hd skin.

I have had the same problem with xface on the first versions, after doing the gfx smaler, it was much better for most of the users.

It would be great if a fullHD version will also be made!!

Nowadays, I think people with a fullHD screen can handle a fullHD skin with their htpc.

 

[gloomyandy]

But why do you want a fullHD skin? What would be the advantage over a skin with the same aspect ratio? I'm not criticizing here just trying to undertsand why having a skin that uses the higher resolution would be "better"?

Andy

 

[revs]

In my opinion an upscaled 720p skin looks just as good at 1080p as a native 1080p one. So I'm all for a 720p skin!

 

[kkendall]

In my opinion an upscaled 720p skin looks just as good at 1080p as a native 1080p one. So I'm all for a 720p skin!

You're right actually :sorry:

 

[kszabo]

As I see I started a big snowball of discussion about resolution

as I wrote I am happy with 720, as my TV is "only" HDready and I use 1280x720px. downscaled 1080 skins does not look so good on 720 screen, I have tried that.

As I guess upscaled 720 skin looks better on 1080 screen as a downscaled 1080 skin on a 720 TV.

But future is 1080, no doubt. I just wanted that you save your precious freetime. My photoshop experiences say downscale is simple, but upscale later without quality loss is not possible. So if you want to make a 1080 version also you should do that first.

..with the font, if you have something better, so please upload it here for testing.

I think wee need a sans serif font, as you already use with Franklin. But there is not too many good quality free font out there. So this is a copyright issue also, I guess. So wee must stick to Windows onboard fonts. Maybe the Calibri of MS Office 2007 or Segoe of Vista could be used (but XP users without Office 2007 would not have them).

 

[Mike_S]

Just like to say that I really like Blue3. Thanks.

My only comment is that the white font on the lighter blue is harder to read than on the darker parts. I only really noticed this after I contracted an eye infection. The text on the darker sections was fine but on the lighter parts it was a real struggle to read. My wife agrees.

It occurs to me that not everyone has perfect sight and maybe a little tweak could get the on-screen balance right.

Which has just prompted me... Is there any future in creating a skin where some values can be changed from the Settings menu? Maybe offer a small choice of colours and font size?

 

[sleepycol]

Hi Harley,

Any news on a "universal" MEPO so that we can have a MEPO character for the various plugins? Even if its the same MEPO for each plugin until others can be created.....

Just like to say that I really like Blue3. Thanks.

My only comment is that the white font on the lighter blue is harder to read than on the darker parts. I only really noticed this after I contracted an eye infection. The text on the darker sections was fine but on the lighter parts it was a real struggle to read. My wife agrees.

It occurs to me that not everyone has perfect sight and maybe a little tweak could get the on-screen balance right.

Which has just prompted me... Is there any future in creating a skin where some values can be changed from the Settings menu? Maybe offer a small choice of colours and font size?

Hi Mike,

Does this darker version help?

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...93/mod-blue3-darker-version-46707/#post315496

Cheers,
Colin