My Music Videos - V0.41 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter metalla_nz
- Start date
Canada
First off, great job. The configuration is fantastic and finds ALL my music videos (avi, mpg, mpeg, flv, etc) which the previous version did not.
Found more images too! The parsing worked really well for me, and I love that the scan asks you to match manually when it does not find an exact match. FANTASTIC!
I have a weird performance issue however. Sometimes, the plugin halts for about 10 seconds when scrolling through the list. Sometimes it also sticks when I open the plugin. CPU usage goes up a lot! I can't figure out what is causing it as it is not consistent. It happens in my skin file as well as in your Blue3wide skin file so I don't think it is a skin issue. I don't get any error message, or any message in MediaPortal.log. I've attached my MusicVids.log. I hope that helps.
I assume you know about the error: No translation found for id 100880. Hope you get the window id added to strings file at some point.
I have a few skinning questions:
1. Are the following old tags not supported by new tags: #mvids.artvideocount, #mvids.arttags, #mvids.videoimage (not needed since artist image seems to display video image as well), #mvids.videotitle , #mvids.videoplaycount, #mvids.videolength, #mvids.videoscore, #mvids.videorank. IMO video title is necessary, videolength would be nice.
2. MostPlayedArtist and MostPlayedVideo thumbs do not display in Blue3Wide
3. How do you control what data appears on Artist vs Video Layouts? I tried using #MusicVids.ArtistView for artist view only, but it doesn't work. Then I tried !#MusicVids.ArtistView for just videos view, but that didn't work either! I don't think you can use a Yes/No field for visibility conditions.
I know it's early stages, but when you get a chance, a simple list of supported tags/fields and View condtions would be really helpful, either a Wiki on your google code site, or a txt file in the download zip.
Last question, for now (LOL), what current file tags are supported for the currently playing file? It looks like only #Play.Current.File is supported, but it would be really great if #Play.Current.Artist was also supported. Any chance of that?
Thanks again for your superb work!
Found more images too! The parsing worked really well for me, and I love that the scan asks you to match manually when it does not find an exact match. FANTASTIC!
I have a weird performance issue however. Sometimes, the plugin halts for about 10 seconds when scrolling through the list. Sometimes it also sticks when I open the plugin. CPU usage goes up a lot! I can't figure out what is causing it as it is not consistent. It happens in my skin file as well as in your Blue3wide skin file so I don't think it is a skin issue. I don't get any error message, or any message in MediaPortal.log. I've attached my MusicVids.log. I hope that helps.
I assume you know about the error: No translation found for id 100880. Hope you get the window id added to strings file at some point.
I have a few skinning questions:
1. Are the following old tags not supported by new tags: #mvids.artvideocount, #mvids.arttags, #mvids.videoimage (not needed since artist image seems to display video image as well), #mvids.videotitle , #mvids.videoplaycount, #mvids.videolength, #mvids.videoscore, #mvids.videorank. IMO video title is necessary, videolength would be nice.
2. MostPlayedArtist and MostPlayedVideo thumbs do not display in Blue3Wide
3. How do you control what data appears on Artist vs Video Layouts? I tried using #MusicVids.ArtistView for artist view only, but it doesn't work. Then I tried !#MusicVids.ArtistView for just videos view, but that didn't work either! I don't think you can use a Yes/No field for visibility conditions.
I know it's early stages, but when you get a chance, a simple list of supported tags/fields and View condtions would be really helpful, either a Wiki on your google code site, or a txt file in the download zip.
Last question, for now (LOL), what current file tags are supported for the currently playing file? It looks like only #Play.Current.File is supported, but it would be really great if #Play.Current.Artist was also supported. Any chance of that?
Thanks again for your superb work!
- Thread starter
- #33
The skinning stuff that is currently present is just a skeleton to enable the plugin to work.
Im learning about the skinning stuff as I go, so im probably going to miss a lot of things, so I appreciate you pointing out what Ive missed, more posts like this would be great. There doesnt seem to be a lot around in the docs in terms of working with the MP skinning stuff.
Im looking at getting back onto the next version on the weekend, so will hopefully have something new and better out next week.
And yeah, I dont know whats up with the thumbnails not showing for favourite artist and favourite vid.
All the mvid.##### tags are leftovers from the old plugin, as Ive borrowed the some bits from there to get used to the skinning engine
Things will improve, thanks again for the tips
Im learning about the skinning stuff as I go, so im probably going to miss a lot of things, so I appreciate you pointing out what Ive missed, more posts like this would be great. There doesnt seem to be a lot around in the docs in terms of working with the MP skinning stuff.
Im looking at getting back onto the next version on the weekend, so will hopefully have something new and better out next week.
And yeah, I dont know whats up with the thumbnails not showing for favourite artist and favourite vid.
All the mvid.##### tags are leftovers from the old plugin, as Ive borrowed the some bits from there to get used to the skinning engine
Things will improve, thanks again for the tips
No kidding! Now you know what us 'skinners' go through! Trial and error baby, many, many hours! There are even some undocumented features I've found scrounging through other skins. So no worries, take your time. If my limited experience is any help, don't hesitate to PM me!
I hope you can figure out why it is sticking on me all the time. It's driving me nuts! (LOL - as if skinning hasn't made me nuts already!)
One more tip - you could add an option in configuration to select the user's local fanart folder. Most often Music fanart is in the Skin\Media\Fanart\Music folder, but the previous version of MVids used[UserData]\thumbs\Mvids\fanart folder. You can check out how Dukus did it in his latest version of Youtube.fm (which is a great plugin now!)
Lastly, I don't have any label on the View button, you probably noticed that already!
Just let me know if you want me to post Issues on any of these things on Google Code.
EDIT: BTW I am using Vista 32bit Ultimate if that is relevant to the sticking issue.
- Thread starter
- #35
Yeah... I havent run into the sticking problem.... Ill look into it though
I've been watching the sticking and I think I got some clues. When scanning Angelique Kidjo the plugin asked me for a match. I selected the proper name with an accent on Angélique (though my filename does not have the accent) and it appeared to stick on this file most often. So I rescanned the database and selected Angelique without the accent and now I haven't got the errors or sticking yet. Then I renamed the file with the accent and rescanned the db and it got a match automatically, and sitll no sticking! Well, it still sticks a bit on Bertine Zetlitz I don't know why. And it never stuck on other aritsts with accented characters like Björk or Sinéad Lohan so I don't know why it did on Angélique, but it seems to be fine now anyway.
In the process, I realized it would be nice to be able to rescan just one file. Also, the plugin could have a Refresh option which only downloads data if it does not exist. It doesn't have to download artist images if they already exist in the thumbs folder. However, each time I scan I get different images, which is kinda cool. If you want to get really fancy, you could let users specify how many artist images they want to download for each artist, and then have the artist image cycle among them when it displays them in the GUI. But these are certainly not essential additions.
In the process, I realized it would be nice to be able to rescan just one file. Also, the plugin could have a Refresh option which only downloads data if it does not exist. It doesn't have to download artist images if they already exist in the thumbs folder. However, each time I scan I get different images, which is kinda cool. If you want to get really fancy, you could let users specify how many artist images they want to download for each artist, and then have the artist image cycle among them when it displays them in the GUI. But these are certainly not essential additions.
- Thread starter
- #37
Ill be adding rescan at artist level to fix some other issues, so i can extend that to file level as well possibly...
The sticking issue seems weird. Is there an artist image for the artist its sticking on? And a biography? Possibly when you get it sticking you could send me your database so i can test on my machine and try and narrow it down?
The sticking issue seems weird. Is there an artist image for the artist its sticking on? And a biography? Possibly when you get it sticking you could send me your database so i can test on my machine and try and narrow it down?
Yes, there is an artist image. The one for Angelique Kidjo is still the same image that I had before when it was sticking. That db record also has a Bio. All I changed was the accent on the name and it stopped sticking, so it may have to do with unicode character support.
The other two that stick a little bit have very large artist images! So I think it is just the couple of seconds loading them into memory. I just resized mine and it stopped sticking (one was 2258x3365 and over 400KB), Actutally I always resize all my images to 702x405 as it increases performance in MP a lot - smaller the file size, the less it has to load in memory.
So if you have any way to limit artist images to a max resolution, that might be a great idea for performance.
BTW I was thinking about your View conditions. If you eventually support VideoTitles, which only appear on the video screen, then I can use a condition like <visible>Control.isvisible(20)</visible> where (20) is the Id for #MusicVids.VideoTitle. Then you won't even need the#MusicVids.ArtistView control. Or, you can just set a control id for Artist View and another for Video View (like the TVSeries plugin does)
Sorry for all the hassle about the sticking, but it is always good to know, in case other users run into it as well.
The other two that stick a little bit have very large artist images! So I think it is just the couple of seconds loading them into memory. I just resized mine and it stopped sticking (one was 2258x3365 and over 400KB), Actutally I always resize all my images to 702x405 as it increases performance in MP a lot - smaller the file size, the less it has to load in memory.
So if you have any way to limit artist images to a max resolution, that might be a great idea for performance.
BTW I was thinking about your View conditions. If you eventually support VideoTitles, which only appear on the video screen, then I can use a condition like <visible>Control.isvisible(20)</visible> where (20) is the Id for #MusicVids.VideoTitle. Then you won't even need the#MusicVids.ArtistView control. Or, you can just set a control id for Artist View and another for Video View (like the TVSeries plugin does)
Sorry for all the hassle about the sticking, but it is always good to know, in case other users run into it as well.
Found another problem. After playing a video using this plugin, my music plays as fullscreen video! They go to a black fullscreen. Once you press escape (or back) it does go back to the screen with the proper overlay. This does not happen in the previous plugin. To test, just play a music video, then go and play music.
BTW I figured out why MostPlayedArtist or Video were not displaying. You actually have to play at least one all the way through. I was testing so I did not finish playing any of them. DUH! They display fine now!
BTW I figured out why MostPlayedArtist or Video were not displaying. You actually have to play at least one all the way through. I was testing so I did not finish playing any of them. DUH! They display fine now!
Hi metalla_nz,
First of all, great effort in getting this working so far.
If I could make one requests. Could there be an option that the default action on selecting a video be to add it to the playlist rather than stopping the current track and playing new one.
Thanks
Darro
First of all, great effort in getting this working so far.
If I could make one requests. Could there be an option that the default action on selecting a video be to add it to the playlist rather than stopping the current track and playing new one.
Thanks
Darro