[Blog] On the Couch: fforde (1 Viewer)

[Lyfesaver74]

On the Couch: fforde

#2 (11/7/2011)​

This week we have John Conrad (fforde) on the couch. Most of you already know him, or his awesome work on the MovingPictures plugin, but today we get a chance to take a closer peek at Mr. Conrad.

 

[Sh4nn0w]

Keep them coming, I'm enjoying these on a monday morning.

Thanks FForde & everyone for Moving Pictures as well; I remember using MPTVSeries which is what really set MP apart for me at the time and wishing there was a Movies plugin that was similar. I've been using Moving Pictures since it was first released and never looked back - I didn't have to muck around managing my movies myself anymore - it just worked. It was at this point where the wife could finally use MP on her own without me having to interfere at all

 

[el_gato]

AW: On the Couch: fforde

nice blog, very detailed and interesting to read. you made me curious about this channel plugin idea so +1 for this one to develop next

 

[jdoo]

Re: AW: On the Couch: fforde

nice blog, very detailed and interesting to read. you made me curious about this channel plugin idea so +1 for this one to develop next

The "channels" plugin is something I have been dreaming about for years! Like you said, it would be perfect to have your own syndicated channels for "vegging out". I hope somebody ends up running with this idea!

 

[fforde]

Wanted to clarify, in the post when talking about Avalon I mentioned it could use a bit of polish in a few places. What I was really trying to convey was that the skin is young but getting rapid updates that add further polish (which is kind of exciting because it already looks so great). I think in editing I cut some important text from there or something because rereading now that's not how it comes across to me. ><

So my apologies to the Avalon guys, you'r skin rocks. I can't recommend it enough.

 

[techchad]

Defiantly a +1 for the Channels plug in, I've been hoping for something like that for years! Especially with my little one getting closer to the point to actually watching TV, having a Cartoon channels plug in with his movies and cartoons on a random schedule would be amazing, less work for me haha.

Keep up the good work!

 

[mpsam]

Very coherent and informative. Helps to explain the quality of Moving Pictures. Mr Conrad is clearly a thinker. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. And that channels plugin is a brilliant idea. Imagine the kids get to choose what to to watch (from what has been chosen for them. Real parental control)

 

[Msidney]

I have also tossed around an idea for a new Channels style plug-in. Basically a plug-in that generates TV channels for you from your local media. Something that generates a schedule with both movie and TV series content built upon a set of rules and learning algorithms. Imagine something like the normal MediaPortal TV Client, but 100% backed by local media. The channels could be theme based and schedules could be automatically adjusted based on viewing habits. I realize this would really only be useful for people with fairly large movie and TV series collections but I think users like this are becoming more and more common. And I also think a lot of people sometimes just want to sit down and “veg out” in front of the TV. This is something that Moving Pictures and MPTV-Series do not really offer and is something that may not be possible at all for people who have “cut the cord”.

This sounds like the greatest plugin of all time! def a +1 from me

 

[MrCrabs]

Yeah, great plugin idea. Sometimes when wanting to watch a movie it is very enoying that you have to choose one. I only got 300 movies, there are people having a thousand and more, before they chose a movie to watch the night must be over. So +1 for that great idea!

 

[Lyfesaver74]

Yeah, great plugin idea. Sometimes when wanting to watch a movie it is very enoying that you have to choose one. I only got 300 movies, there are people having a thousand and more, before they chose a movie to watch the night must be over. So +1 for that great idea!

As a collector and someone who has over 2500 movies..... I can say that MovPic can make it VERY easy to browse your large movie collection. It just takes time. What I have done is make custom categories in the MovPic config and it breaks down like so:

Recently Added (not custom)
Actors (custom as the built in actors will present ALL actors, I have the top 200 listed instead)
Characters (custom in here have the name of a character to represent a series ie R2D2 for Star Wars movies, Jason Bourne..etc)
Alphabetical (custom)
Genre (not custom)
Year (custom list of movies by decade)
Hi-Def (custom only HD movies separated by 720p or 1080p)
All Movies (not custom)

With a setup somewhat like this one, u can find what u want went u want it =)