MP2.2 Pre-Release Discussions (3 Viewers)

[Digsy]

Depends on your settings. If you deactivate online scrapping for audio it will use the local tags and covers only.
If you activate online scrapping it might use the newly downloaded data.

Hmmm. I just realised I have got "download nothing" selected for Audio, so now I am even more confused why I could not initially get the sorting and grouping to work.

No matter. So far MP2.2 is behaving like 2.1.3 did when I first installed it. It seems to be taking a few days but things are settling down, and I am liking the improvements, especially on the WMC skin

 

[Digsy]

OK, I've been using 2.2 Pre Release for a few days with the WMC skin. Here's a few issues I have spotted.

Requests:

• Up / down / left / right on screen arrows in WMC skin home menu are useful (to me anyway) but should retain focus after clicking them (currently have to wiggle the mouse to get focus back).
• It would be useful to have these arrows added to all media libraries and the EPG.
• To save having to set up each client for each user individually, it would be useful to apply user settings for view mode / filters / sorting / menu setups across clients based on user name using user management.
• Could you add "Home menu", next chapter, previous chapter buttons in DVD player on screen controls?
• Change colour / style of MP service system tray icon when a recording is in progress even if MP2 client is not running (like WMC does)
  
• Bigger "restore" and "close" icons in top right corner of screen (WMC skin). Done
  
• "Save" button (or auto save changes on exit) in WMC skin home menu editor. Currently exiting the wrong way (i.e. using the orange MP2 icon) loses all changes.
• Enable "scrubbing" in the scroll bar after paused live TV (i.e, to catch up during ad breaks)
• Add configurable file names / formats for cover art / fan art / poster art / .nfo files etc (to allow use of third party scrapers with MP)
• In all lists / libraries, automatically give focus to first item.

 

[ge2301]

Up / down / left / right on screen arrows in WMC skin home menu are useful (to me anyway) but should retain focus after clicking them (currently have to wiggle the mouse to get focus back).

I also realized, but hesitated to "annoy" @Brownard with this As you also realized now, let's see, if he can easiliy fix it. It's nothing I can do in xaml.

It would be useful to have these arrows added to all media libraries and the EPG.

that won't be possible or is very complicated, because it would mess up the complete focus handling of MP2. In media libraries you can scroll easily by just putting the mouse into the side margins of the targeted scroll direction. In EPG the cell where the mouse is positioned has focus. If we would place scroll buttons, the EPG grid would directly loose focus, when a scroll button get's focus. Accordingly MP2 would not know which EPG cell to focus and where to scroll.

To save having to set up each client for each user individually, it would be useful to apply user settings for view mode / filters / sorting / menu setups across clients based on user name using user management.

I agree here also for media related settings. @henso can better make a statement here how feasible the change is.

Could you add "Home menu", next chapter, previous chapter buttons in DVD player on screen controls?

They are existing. If you can not see them, MP2 can not detect the chapters. Please try with other DVD's and if you never can get them, but with other players you can rise a bug report.

Change colour / style of MP service system tray icon when a recording is in progress even if MP2 client is not running (like WMC does)

Was discussed also in the past, but never integrated. Maybe somebody else knows better. I'm not recording anything.

Bigger "restore" and "close" icons in top right corner of screen (WMC skin).

I think there was an overlapping problem with some elements. Need to check that, but I'm 1 month off from today.

"Save" button (or auto save changes on exit) in WMC skin home menu editor. Currently exiting the wrong way (i.e. using the orange MP2 icon) loses all changes.

@Brownard can check this. I also lost settings sometimes due to wrong clicks, so I can confirm it happens.

Enable "scrubbing" in the scroll bar after paused live TV (i.e, to catch up during ad breaks)

Was requested several times, but I'm not sure why we couldn't/didn't implement. @morpheus_xx can answer this.

Add configurable file names / formats for cover art / fan art / poster art / .nfo files etc (to allow use of third party scrapers with MP)

I think that is not really needed and would make it very complicated. Every HTPC software supports certain formats. Several tagging softwares support the MP2 naming scheme.

In all lists / libraries, automatically give focus to first item.

Agree here. There is often still a focus problem. I'll see what I can do on skin side to improve this. But I think it should be generally happening even without any "tweaks" on skin side. I'm not sure why MP2 is loosing the focus so often.

Possible bugs:

• WMC skin customised home menu does not always load. About 1 in 5 launches starts up with the default home menu. Restarting MP fixes this.
  
• Player skip steps modification doesn't take effect until MP client is closed and relaunched.
• Cannot stop video effect from defaulting to "sharpen (complex)" even when video effect changer option is disabled.
  
• Disabling "home content" in WMC skin only works for current session. It comes back again on next launch even though setting is still disabled.

Others also reported, that settings are not saved correctly. @morpheus_xx or @Brownard can hopefully take a look and fix that.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

- Reminder -

Please do not post bug reports here, but use the dedicated thread for this.

 

[henso]

I agree here also for media related settings. @henso can better make a statement here how feasible the change is.

Some user settings are still stored in xml files on disk. If or whether any/some of them should be stored in the database, I will leave up to @morpheus_xx. I haven't really worked that much with the settings system.

 

[Digsy]

- Reminder -

Bugs moved to bug report thread. Apologies

 

[Digsy]

Agree here. There is often still a focus problem. I'll see what I can do on skin side to improve this. But I think it should be generally happening even without any "tweaks" on skin side. I'm not sure why MP2 is loosing the focus so often.

I think this is the reason why I find the clickable arrows so helpful. My HTPC is also my main PC so when I am using it I have the keyboard and mouse to hand. If the wrong item has focus then its just easier to use the mouse - and then keep using it - rather than trying to get to the correct item using the arrow keys. A lot of this also stems from me coming from a WMC background, but I appreciate that MP was never really designed to be used just with a mouse.

I am planning on buying a couple of HTPC remotes in the near future. Maybe my opinion will change after that.

 

[morpheus_xx]

Was requested several times, but I'm not sure why we couldn't/didn't implement. @morpheus_xx can answer this.

The problem is about calculation of absolute offsets vs. program time (OSD Scale) vs. avaible timeshift buffer vs. pause duration.
So at the moment there is only relative skipping by +/- steps.

 

[Digsy]

They are existing. If you can not see them, MP2 can not detect the chapters. Please try with other DVD's and if you never can get them, but with other players you can rise a bug report.

I have watched a few DVDs (actual disks) since mentioning this. I have not seen next / previous chapter controls on any of them. Also, the DVD menu doesn't seem to work on anything other than the main menu (i.e. I can click on "setup" to get to the sub menu for languages and subtitles, but I cannot click on anything in this sub menu.

Finally, when pausing a DVD, the audio seems to go out of sync with the video. Sometimes skipping around the timeline fixes it but tonight I had to restart MP2 to get the audio to re-sync. This issue seems to be limited to physical disks. Ripped images are OK.

Should I raise this as a bug report?

 

[Digsy]

I have watched a few DVDs (actual disks) since mentioning this. I have not seen next / previous chapter controls on any of them.

OK, I feel really stupid now Chapters are working, but I just didn't recognise the icons for them.I was expecting icons more like "FWD and REV" ie:
|<< and >>| instead of - and +

Also, the DVD menu doesn't seem to work on anything other than the main menu (i.e. I can click on "setup" to get to the sub menu for languages and subtitles, but I cannot click on anything in this sub menu.

This seems to be very hit and miss. Sometimes I can navigate DVD sub menus, sometimes not. The main menu is usually easy but the sub menus are much more difficult. Usually the "pointer" or "highlight" the selected menu option does not appear. Its maybe not so much of an issue because (now that I can find them) the new player controls for chapters, languages and subtitles work really well

I am also having some stability issues with the player if I resize the screen while the video is playing (this happens both on actual discs and ripped discs). After resizing the window, the video usually disappears. Sometimes pausing and restarting, or a chapter skip will bring it back, but when it does the audio is then usually out of sync. Sometimes even after just pausing the audio goes out of sync. It seems like the video player really likes to be just left alone while playing.