[Blog] MP2 development progress (2 Viewers)

[hulkhaugen]

I guess it's being programmed as a 32-bit application, but i ask anyway; is it?

what would be the pros/cons of using 64-bit instead of 32-bit. As this is focused towards Win7, 64-bit might be a better solution, but i guess it will complicate a whole lot of things as well...

 

[elliottmc]

Will there be the ability to mix and match video and sound? Example would be watching a movie but listening to music. Same for watching TV but listening to radio (or music). For things like sports, the radio often has superior commentary to TV sound. Or sometimes, when friends are over, I like to put the game on but listen to music. Also, did you know the Wizard of Oz syncs up with Pink Floyd's The Wall (or so I've heard)?

Actually Dark Side of the Moon, although you have to play it through twice!

Mark

 

[Albert]

I guess it's being programmed as a 32-bit application, but i ask anyway; is it?

what would be the pros/cons of using 64-bit instead of 32-bit. As this is focused towards Win7, 64-bit might be a better solution, but i guess it will complicate a whole lot of things as well...

We don't have any code which depends on 32 or 64 bit, so MP-II itself is able to be compiled in both configurations. But the drivers and system components are a big problem; it seems that in the CURRENT situation, we need to build a 32 bit application. But more and more components are available in 64 bit, so we can switch to 64 as soon as possible.

 

[tourettes]

I guess it's being programmed as a 32-bit application, but i ask anyway; is it?

what would be the pros/cons of using 64-bit instead of 32-bit. As this is focused towards Win7, 64-bit might be a better solution, but i guess it will complicate a whole lot of things as well...

We don't have any code which depends on 32 or 64 bit, so MP-II itself is able to be compiled in both configurations. But the drivers and system components are a big problem; it seems that in the CURRENT situation, we need to build a 32 bit application. But more and more components are available in 64 bit, so we can switch to 64 as soon as possible.

And as soon as someone refactors all the directshow filters and other C++ (dshowhelper, or was the name changed in MPII?) to compile and work as 64 bit

 

[zicoz]

Will there be the ability to mix and match video and sound?

Yepp, MP-II will have the ability to have up to two players open - two video players in PIP or a video and an audio player. When two players are open, one of them provides the audio signal.
I've put much work into this feature to get it work in a sensible way and to show multiple player controls it in the GUI.

That sounds awsome, is this "normal" PiP like on BluRays, or will you add stuff like split screen for 2 TV channels, and perhaps the option to have text-tv on half the screen while you have the TV on the other?

 

[Albert]

Will there be the ability to mix and match video and sound?

Yepp, MP-II will have the ability to have up to two players open - two video players in PIP or a video and an audio player. When two players are open, one of them provides the audio signal.
I've put much work into this feature to get it work in a sensible way and to show multiple player controls it in the GUI.

That sounds awsome, is this "normal" PiP like on BluRays, or will you add stuff like split screen for 2 TV channels, and perhaps the option to have text-tv on half the screen while you have the TV on the other?

Well, the MediaPortal-II UI component simply provides two players, with the restriction that they aren't two audio players. How the skin shows them to the user is completely up to the skin developer.
The default skin "only" provides a PiP image, which gets displayed in the fullscreen content screen as well as in all normal navigation screens (we always show the currently playing video as background behind all navigation controls).

 

[zicoz]

Cool, thank you.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I hope MPII has support for more extenders too?

Is it going to incorporate any of the new MS Media Foundation bits?

 

[Hetfield]

After using Windows 7 x64 about 1.5 months with MediaPortal 1, supporting only Windows 7 seems to be a wise solution.

Only thing I am worried about is the TV-card drivers. For Windows 7 some manufacturers don't yet have very good drivers, especially for x64, which would be good because of supporting more than 4GB of RAM for a TV/Torrent/DC++/File server I am planning.

In a bad economic situation, and uncertainty and changes related to upcoming technologies (HDTV, DVB-T2, CI+, etc...) many manufacturers probably won't put much effort for the drivers of the old cards. For this reason (if possible and sensible) support for XP/Vista in server solution would be good. So if the benefits of Windows 7 are only related to video playback / etc, please think about supporting a server only solution for other OS. It may be hard to find well working cards for DVB-T/C/S and also thinking the PCI/PCI-Express restrictions when you need many cards. About USB-cards I don't know so much.

Is there any good thread or recommendations for selecting TV-card for Windows 7 x64?

 

[SpudR]

Don't forget we are talking perhaps 10-12 months down the line...
Windows 7 will be a much more mature product by then.