[Blog] Music Section gets some TLC (1 Viewer)

[sajberman]

This is great news, because the music plugin section was the main reason for me to change from MP to XBMC.
I am really looking forward to test the new music features and maybe switching back to MP again.

 

[schuess]

Is there an updated scheduled release date?

Thanks
schuess

 

[sique]

First, I'm a big fan of Mediaportal, the only full featured media center software out there.

Now to the music section; or rather, the music player. I may be out of order here, but aren't there a couple of fundamental problems with the music player that should be solved before starting playing with the cosmetics? By all means, I also appreciate the eye candy, but basic functions, like being able to play a ripped CD the same way as a CD player (gapless), without loss of bits (ASIO or WASAPI), should be addressed first.

Yes, I know there is a gapless option in configuration, but we all know that it doesn't really make playback gapless. And yes I know it has an ASIO option, but I've never been able to use it on any PC. And last, I know of the PureAudio plugin (I'm using it), but that's a workaround, not a solution.

I don't mean to sound negative, I'm still a big fan (I've four installations in my house), but it would be nice if the music player could do the basic things any player should be able to do.

 

[jameson_uk]

I don't mean to sound negative, I'm still a big fan (I've four installations in my house), but it would be nice if the music player could do the basic things any player should be able to do.

I don't think things like ASIO, WASAPI and true gapless playback are basic things (indeed look at most players, Foobar, MediaMonkey.... and you generally have to install extra plugins to enable these features.)

That said I do agree that these things should still work but we have gone back to a much more basic level than that. We have had to rewrite a massive amount of code to do things like selecting files to play and controlling playlists and tere is still some work to do at this fundamental level to get MP to do this well.

Given time these things will probably get sorted but because PureAudio addressed many of these features (and the sole dev who has been looking after music for the last few years did not have a working ASIO setup) they have not been incorporated into MP. The fact PureAudio does this pretty well means there is less pressure to add these features to MP

I use PureAudio and I think most people who want these features will do so too (and in that respect it is not massively different to say Foobar where you need to download an ASIO plugin)

 

[sique]

Well... A couple of slogans from the web site: 'MediaPortal: everything else is just a Media Center', 'Listen to Music: the ultimate experience'.

MP's mission is to replace the TV-tuner, photo album, DVD- and CD players. With that in mind, technical things set aside, one would expect it to be able to do the most basic things an CD player can do.

Also, if you truly want to create the ultimate media center, I don't think it's a good idea to use other player's shortcomings as excuses.

Keep up the good work

 

[kiwijunglist]

Bump: for option to use skip steps +15,+30,+60 sec in music ; this would make the music section so much better, and is the only major flaw/problem i have with the current music setup.

 

[pilehave]

I just wanted to let you know that I have been fiddling with some improvements (IMHO) to the music section.

Use folder.jpg (if existing) as coverart in DialogAlbumInfo.xml
At the moment, only the small thumbnail from Amazon is used, and it is 1. badly scaled, 2. impossible to animate and use mask, reflections etc. on, because of the way it is rendered. So, use folder.jpg (if existing) or use the one from Amazon. As it is now,users often sees two different covers, depending on whether you are browsing shares/albums or viewing album info.

Allow user to update data from Allmusic and cover-art from folder.jpg or Amazon
My plan is to rewrite the code to use two update buttons, one for description of the album from the Allmusic scraper, and one to fetch the cover from Amazon (I believe). At the moment I don't think there is a way to change neither description or cover, if you by accident chose the wrong album or cover when running the scrapers the first time...

At some point it would also be nice to change the tracklist to avoid the text fading in the right side...

 

[jameson_uk]

I just wanted to let you know that I have been fiddling with some improvements (IMHO) to the music section.

Use folder.jpg (if existing) as coverart in DialogAlbumInfo.xml
At the moment, only the small thumbnail from Amazon is used, and it is 1. badly scaled, 2. impossible to animate and use mask, reflections etc. on, because of the way it is rendered. So, use folder.jpg (if existing) or use the one from Amazon. As it is now,users often sees two different covers, depending on whether you are browsing shares/albums or viewing album info.

Allow user to update data from Allmusic and cover-art from folder.jpg or Amazon
My plan is to rewrite the code to use two update buttons, one for description of the album from the Allmusic scraper, and one to fetch the cover from Amazon (I believe). At the moment I don't think there is a way to change neither description or cover, if you by accident chose the wrong album or cover when running the scrapers the first time...

At some point it would also be nice to change the tracklist to avoid the text fading in the right side...

Indeed these are things that I never got round to looking at for 1.2 but need bringing up to speed.

The whole artist/album info scraping is fairly weak at the minute and I think we can improve this a lot (if I get my way I would like to see artist bio info and other scraped from last.fm, in a chosen language, and others)

I think thumbs need a little care and attention across the whole of music section too (the other big one I never got chance to look at)

Still it gives us something to keep for 1.3 (and if you code it all up I will be happy )

 

[Mike Lowrey]

jameson_uk
I've a question regarding the music library. I'm currently playing with some ASP.Net stuff and thought it would be nice to look at the media databases of MP as a source of information... While the most databases are easy to use the music database layout is not that nice Will there be any change in the upcoming 1.x releases?

 

[TiboTv]

Re : Music Section gets some TLC

Hi,

New question about the last improvements :

With some skins (like streamedmp) you get the last added albums into the basic home screen. Is there a way (like movingpictures) to sort albums by last added date into the music database?

Thank you again for your good work!