- June 16, 2006
- 1
- 0
Hi,
Someone pointed me to this project mentioning that my codecs for ogg cause a severe hang in media portal, i installed it to try and check it out. I haven't sorted that yet, but i thought i'd give some initial impressions and bugs i found in the install, setup and my first play with it. I'm not being picky or critical or anything (i hope!), but i do have a bit of a list (what can i say, i like to break stuff!). The program is very cool, i've been looking for something like this.
OK, to avoid repeating the template over and over, i'll do the template info once, and then a list of synopsis.
Area: Media Portal Program
MP Version: 2.0 RC4
Skin: Blue something? (the top one)
Windows Version: XP SP2 all latest updates
CPU Type: AMD64 3500+ in 32 bit mode
Memory: 2GB
Motherboard Chipset: ASUS A8V Deluxe
Video Card: GeForce 6600GT 128MB
Video Card Driver: driver version you used for testing
Video Card Resolution: Dual screens 1600x1200 + 1280x1024
TV Card: Fusion DVB-T lite
(i can't rememeber a few of the details, i did start a list in notepad, but when it blue screened i lost it)
1)
Ok, the most serious one was a blue screen/reboot. I was testing an .ogg file with my codecs, mediaportal hung when i pressed stop, so i killed it in task manager and the pc booted (no log in event log unfortunately)
2)
During the install, whatever the bottom checkbox of options is, i didn't understand what it was an option for, i left it selected, but since it's the most ominous (says it needs a reboot) it could be clear what that option actually is.
3)
The force focus thing, i think i remember selecting an option to do that. It's not intuitive how it actually works. When i used it on a desktop type pc (not a dedicated media centre) it "felt wrong" the way it behaved. I probably shouldn't have enabled that option.
4)
Re: the force focus. If you have that on, click a window underneath, the focus forces mack to media portal, now if you enter the media portal window from the top (where the title bar is), the cursor can actually highlight things (like the min/max buttons) but it's invisible and hidden under the media portal window. If you enter the window from the side and then move up, it correctly stays on top of the title bar.
5)
First Run.
When you run it first time, it instead runs a setup program. I expected it would run media portal at the end of the setup. But i had to manually start it again. Not a big deal, just not what i expected.
6)
Timezone adjustment in install.
When i said in the previous step i was in AU for my station scan, on the tv guide page, it asked me to adjust my timezone. It wasn't clear whether i should put my GMT time zone in here regardless, or whether it was some kind of offset from whatever tv guide i might be getting (i guess in large countries the actual times are offset by up to 1-3 hours)
7)
Same page in install as above.
The language part. It's not clear if i need to select english, or is that assumed? Could i have not selected anything?
8)
Starting wizards with focus-thing on.
If you start a wizard, other dialog in the program while the focus-force is on, it keeps forcing the focus away from it's own dialog windows. You have to minimise the main window to be able to access any dialog.
9)
Music wizard would close.
I ran the music wizard to add a directory, i had the problem decribed above in (8). Then at the end i hit OK, and it said "You have to restart media portal" i click ok to that, and the music wizard didn't close. it just remained there. Everytim i pressed OK, it restarted media portal. I figured it would close when i pressed ok. I had to close that windows from the red X on the title bar.
10)
During install weather city search didn't seem right.
This is kind of subjective, but the pop up widnow seemed inconsistent. When you pressed search that window kind of expanded to show more info, also instead of being able to go search-add-search-add, you had to restart that dialog for each city.
11)
Mini video window - can't click/double click.
It seemed intuitive to me to be able to click/double-click the little mini video in the bottom left and get to "Now playing" but nothing happened.
12)
Seeking?
I know it's intended for media pc's, but should i be able to seek by clicking on the seek bar?
13)
It detected my USB key as a "share". Maybe that's right, it just seemed unintuitive.
14)
At install it was going to offer to scan my disks for media. I dare not say yes, as it would probably take it forver to scan 1+TB. I know this is probably a more advanced/for later feature, but it seemed to me it was going to sit in the installer until it finished that. Might be nice to be able to have something like that run later in the background. I just wanted to get started, i was too impatient to wait for it to do that while i just wanted to see if i like the program. Telling the user how they could trigger this later might be useful.
15)
Since i didn't do the scan, it took me a bit of guessing to figure out how to add a specific folder after the fact. Maybe i'm a bit slow, but i couldn't figure it out straight away.
Don't want to make this too long, so that will do for now. Like i said, i'm not trying to be picky, just trying to give good feedback. I know from my own experience i'd much rather people swamp me in an orgy of bug reports rather than just go "meh, didn't work right, delete"
Someone pointed me to this project mentioning that my codecs for ogg cause a severe hang in media portal, i installed it to try and check it out. I haven't sorted that yet, but i thought i'd give some initial impressions and bugs i found in the install, setup and my first play with it. I'm not being picky or critical or anything (i hope!), but i do have a bit of a list (what can i say, i like to break stuff!). The program is very cool, i've been looking for something like this.
OK, to avoid repeating the template over and over, i'll do the template info once, and then a list of synopsis.
Area: Media Portal Program
MP Version: 2.0 RC4
Skin: Blue something? (the top one)
Windows Version: XP SP2 all latest updates
CPU Type: AMD64 3500+ in 32 bit mode
Memory: 2GB
Motherboard Chipset: ASUS A8V Deluxe
Video Card: GeForce 6600GT 128MB
Video Card Driver: driver version you used for testing
Video Card Resolution: Dual screens 1600x1200 + 1280x1024
TV Card: Fusion DVB-T lite
(i can't rememeber a few of the details, i did start a list in notepad, but when it blue screened i lost it)
1)
Ok, the most serious one was a blue screen/reboot. I was testing an .ogg file with my codecs, mediaportal hung when i pressed stop, so i killed it in task manager and the pc booted (no log in event log unfortunately)
2)
During the install, whatever the bottom checkbox of options is, i didn't understand what it was an option for, i left it selected, but since it's the most ominous (says it needs a reboot) it could be clear what that option actually is.
3)
The force focus thing, i think i remember selecting an option to do that. It's not intuitive how it actually works. When i used it on a desktop type pc (not a dedicated media centre) it "felt wrong" the way it behaved. I probably shouldn't have enabled that option.
4)
Re: the force focus. If you have that on, click a window underneath, the focus forces mack to media portal, now if you enter the media portal window from the top (where the title bar is), the cursor can actually highlight things (like the min/max buttons) but it's invisible and hidden under the media portal window. If you enter the window from the side and then move up, it correctly stays on top of the title bar.
5)
First Run.
When you run it first time, it instead runs a setup program. I expected it would run media portal at the end of the setup. But i had to manually start it again. Not a big deal, just not what i expected.
6)
Timezone adjustment in install.
When i said in the previous step i was in AU for my station scan, on the tv guide page, it asked me to adjust my timezone. It wasn't clear whether i should put my GMT time zone in here regardless, or whether it was some kind of offset from whatever tv guide i might be getting (i guess in large countries the actual times are offset by up to 1-3 hours)
7)
Same page in install as above.
The language part. It's not clear if i need to select english, or is that assumed? Could i have not selected anything?
8)
Starting wizards with focus-thing on.
If you start a wizard, other dialog in the program while the focus-force is on, it keeps forcing the focus away from it's own dialog windows. You have to minimise the main window to be able to access any dialog.
9)
Music wizard would close.
I ran the music wizard to add a directory, i had the problem decribed above in (8). Then at the end i hit OK, and it said "You have to restart media portal" i click ok to that, and the music wizard didn't close. it just remained there. Everytim i pressed OK, it restarted media portal. I figured it would close when i pressed ok. I had to close that windows from the red X on the title bar.
10)
During install weather city search didn't seem right.
This is kind of subjective, but the pop up widnow seemed inconsistent. When you pressed search that window kind of expanded to show more info, also instead of being able to go search-add-search-add, you had to restart that dialog for each city.
11)
Mini video window - can't click/double click.
It seemed intuitive to me to be able to click/double-click the little mini video in the bottom left and get to "Now playing" but nothing happened.
12)
Seeking?
I know it's intended for media pc's, but should i be able to seek by clicking on the seek bar?
13)
It detected my USB key as a "share". Maybe that's right, it just seemed unintuitive.
14)
At install it was going to offer to scan my disks for media. I dare not say yes, as it would probably take it forver to scan 1+TB. I know this is probably a more advanced/for later feature, but it seemed to me it was going to sit in the installer until it finished that. Might be nice to be able to have something like that run later in the background. I just wanted to get started, i was too impatient to wait for it to do that while i just wanted to see if i like the program. Telling the user how they could trigger this later might be useful.
15)
Since i didn't do the scan, it took me a bit of guessing to figure out how to add a specific folder after the fact. Maybe i'm a bit slow, but i couldn't figure it out straight away.
Don't want to make this too long, so that will do for now. Like i said, i'm not trying to be picky, just trying to give good feedback. I know from my own experience i'd much rather people swamp me in an orgy of bug reports rather than just go "meh, didn't work right, delete"
Germany
