Controls - both live tv and recordings (2 Viewers)

[Haze]

Hi there, I have a few questions about the limitations I've discovered (so far, it's early days!) when it comes to watching a tv recording:

• cueing forward; the only options seem to be x2 and x4?
• cueing backwards; there doesn't seem to be any option to do this at all?

And with regard to watching live tv (that's been timeshifted) :

- can't cue backwards or forwards at all?

[Yes I know about doing blind jumps forwards/backwards with the <left> and <right> buttons, but it's an awkward way of doing it; whereas I'm talking about cueing; i.e. being able to keep watching the video content while you're going back or forward]

And also, when doing any of the above, it would be good if the progress bar automatically came on (even if only briefly) any time you press any of these player control buttons, so you can see where you're up to in the recording. Yes I know you can turn it on/off manually overall, but is there an 'auto' mode for it?

All the above, which I appreciate is just using everything as it comes 'out of the box', makes for a somewhat clumsy & disorientating viewing experience - is any way to get these things working better? I've tried fiddling with the available settings and players/codecs; but didn't manage to improve on anything...

Cheers!

 

[ge2301]

And also, when doing any of the above, it would be good if the progress bar automatically came on (even if only briefly) any time you press any of these player control buttons, so you can see where you're up to in the recording.

The progress bar is part of the OSD, which is intentionally not shown when buttons are pressed. It’s for mouse and touch display users or can be shown with the info button by remote (as you noticed).
I could implement that only the progress bar is shown when back/forwarding (when I’m back from vacation)

but is there an 'auto' mode for it?

No.

For other TV and recording related questions other must support. I’m not using TV much and do not record anything.

 

[joecrow]

• cueing forward; the only options seem to be x2 and x4?
• cueing backwards; there doesn't seem to be any option to do this at all?

And with regard to watching live tv (that's been timeshifted) :

- can't cue backwards or forwards at all?

I confirm this also with the exception of timeshifted TV, which although it does not display x2 etc does fast forward for me.
There does however seem to be a decided lack of functionality and/or errors with respect to the player controls. As the OP noted there does not appear to be any means of rewinding or fast reversing only a jump back, from memory this has already been under discussion in another thread with the hope it could be implemented as in MP1? I also noted that when fast forwarding x2 or x4 the on screen pause button changes to a forward arrow (see item 1 on first screenshot) which I assumed would switch the vid back to play at normal speed but in fact restarts the vid. from the beginning which does not seem to be appropriate. The only means I found to continue the vid at normal speed after reaching a cue point was to press the play/pause button on the remote to pause the vid and press it again to continue from that point at normal speed. The on screen player left facing arrow control see item 2 on the first screenshot sends the vid off I think into the background and can only be corrected by stopping playback, see screenshot 2 while pressing the rewind button on the remote seems to just breifly pause the playback.

For other TV and recording related questions other must support. I’m not using TV much and do not record anything.

As far as I can tell the above applies to playback of all video items not just TV or TV recording.

 

[ge2301]

@Brownard
Another user realized the limited functionality of fast forwarding in MP2. You mentioned it’s possible to implement a pseudo functionality as in MP1. Is the effort worth to do that?

 

[joecrow]

You mentioned it’s possible to implement a pseudo functionality as in MP1. Is the effort worth to do that?

Good point, certainly as far as I know neither VLC or MPC-BE have a rewind or fast reverse, same with the integral to Windows players and although there is a rewind control on Windows Media Player it does not work, not sure about any other free players though. As such MP2 does not seem to be out of line but of course it could be a valuable feature and particularly to avoid disapointing those transferring from MP1! A very fast forward and reverse (up to x32 forward x 16 reverse )is available on PowerDVD and I suspect other commercial players but sadly MP2 does not have an option to use an external player and consequently imo misses out on many potential features, including legal BD playback, as a result.

 

[Brownard]

which I assumed would switch the vid back to play at normal speed but in fact restarts the vid. from the beginning which does not seem to be appropriate.

This was indeed a bug that came up in another thread, I have already fixed this and it should be included in the next release.

Another user realized the limited functionality of fast forwarding in MP2. You mentioned it’s possible to implement a pseudo functionality as in MP1. Is the effort worth to do that?

I did hack together a proof of concept on this based on how MP1 does it, but I couldn't get it to work smoothly, I think because of the differences in how MP1 and MP2 render video frames, ultimately it might be better to have something that works badly rather than not working at all though.

certainly as far as I know neither VLC or MPC-BE have a rewind or fast reverse, same with the integral to Windows players and although there is a rewind control on Windows Media Player it does not work, not sure about any other free players though

Yes this is really a fundamental limitation of the Windows video playback stack and video encoding in general, most video compression formats use temporal compression where later frames only contain the differences between the current frame and the previous frame(s) so they need to be decoded in the correct/forward order and simply don't work in reverse without a significant amount of work to support it in the video filter, so most filter authors simply don't bother.

 

[joecrow]

ultimately it might be better to have something that works badly rather than not working at all though.

I would imagine an external player option as per MP1 would be much simpler to implement, then if the user is not happy with the internal player they can always find one that includes the features they need. If nothing else it would give us the opportunity to take advantage of the features of Madvr in conjunction with MPC-BE (all freeware) without all the work of integrating it in the internal player, something that anyway seems highly unlikely ever to happen.

 

[Haze]

Interesting to read everyone's thoughts - thankyou for posting.

All in all, it's a real shame; because this lack of functionality/control when it comes to easily viewing and navigating backwards/forwards through TV (both live and recordings) really is a deal-breaker and prevents MP2 from being a viable contender for running a HTPC, i.e. the "10 foot interface" concept.

It constantly amazes me that nothing beats my old WMC software, which did (and still does!) all this dead easily and seamlessly. [Which would suggest that actually there is no "fundamental limitation of the Windows video playback stack and video encoding in general", as purported above.]

And yet, as a piece of software, it hasn't been officially touched/supported for about a decade now. How can something so old still beat everything else hands down? I guess my search for a viable modern alternative continues...!

 

[ge2301]

It constantly amazes me that nothing beats my old WMC software, which did (and still does!) all this dead easily and seamlessly. And yet, as a piece of software, it mustn't have been officially touched/supported for about a decade now. How can something so old still beat everything else hands down? I guess my search for a viable modern alternative continues...

I agree, that in terms of intuitive and solid navigation, WMC is still the number one in the market. I used it with some plugins to have a real media library experience with series and movies, but some features were missing. I tried to tie the WMC skin as close as possible to WMC, but it’s mostly only a visual copy, because the technical base is different.

 

[ge2301]

I would imagine an external player option as per MP1 would be much simpler to implement, then if the user is not happy with the internal player they can always find one that includes the features they need. If nothing else it would give us the opportunity to take advantage of the features of Madvr in conjunction with MPC-BE (all freeware) without all the work of integrating it in the internal player, something that anyway seems highly unlikely ever to happen.

Of course this would be the best option, but I guess it’s not that easy to integrate external players into MP2. It was somewhere discussed, but I could not find the related thread.