Overlay windows when Media is Playing (1 Viewer)

[Dadeo]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me there are problems with Media Overlays:

1. They don't display when the facade is not in focus (i.e. when you go to a sliding menu)
2. Player.hasaudio and Player.hasvideo conditions do nothing
3. Radio plays a videooverlay (this can result in numerous problems!)

I believe these problems result from the way visualizations have been implemented. I think that is why there is a videopreview window in MusicOverlay.xml and why Radio streams play as video. Which is probably why player.hasaudio and player.hasvideo do nothing since all media are both!

You can create and import your own overlays, which work well in most cases, but not with streaming Radio (including the great RadioTime plugin.) Some skins use their own overlays with a condition on #Play.Current.Album since only Music has Albums. However, some Radio stations stream the station name as Album and some do not. When they don't a flashing video window appears in the overlay!

I have posted a bugreport https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/bugreports-74/media-overlay-bugs-68630/ about player.hasaudio and player.hasvideo conditions not working correctly in the hope we can get some developer to see if this can be fixed. Perhaps it requires a rethink of how visualizations are handled in overlays.

 

[citizenkeys]

I think the proper condition for all media is:

<visible>Player.HasMedia</visible>

 

[Dadeo]

But how do you distinguish between music and video overlays? What if you just want to display something when music is playing, or just when video is playing?

EDIT: And wouldn't you like those beautiful overlays you did for PM3sexy to display even when users go to the sldiing menu?

 

[citizenkeys]

what sliding menu?
the overlay can't slide with an animated menu because it runs on hardware acceleration.

why would you need to distinguish the overlay when either a video or music is playing?
certain pages have certain window id's.
the overlays are windows.
here's a guide to the windows and their id's:
MediaPortal1_Development/SkinArchitecture/window_id - MediaPortal Manual Documentation

if you just want an overlay for music, it goes in musicOverlay.xml .
if you just want an overlay for video, it goes in videoOverlay.xml .

 

[Dadeo]

I don't mean make the overlay slide, I mean make it stay visible even when the menu slides. At present, overlays are only visible when the facade is in focus. If you choose a diff position on the screen for overlays, then there is no reason for them not to be visible. If you create your own overlays and import them, then they are visible even when the facade is not in focus, but I don't really see why you should have to create your own overlays just to make them visible when the facade is not in focus! I would like to just edit MusicOverlay and VideoOverlay and have them display all the time, but I can't.

why would you need to distinguish the overlay when either a video or music is playing?

To make the skin better of course, by displaying different elements depending on whether video is playing or music is playing. How would you use the window ID when MP treats the current window id as visible, not the overlay window? If you have a condition on an overlay window working, please let me know what you did cuz I tried every variation I could think of and none worked.

If you add controls to Music Overlay, they will not display for streaming audio whicih uses video overlays. I'm sure you noticed in Radio in PM3sexy you have a videowindow displaying. If you add controls to videooverlaytop as well (which is where videooverlay data goes, not in videooverlay) you get double overlays in streaming audio! To give you an example, I like big overlays, they are usually too small to see on smaller screens. So I like to put the currentplaytime on top of the overlay window and I want to add currenttags in different positions for music and video. But i can't do either of these because they both display when playing radio.

I can go on and on with the problems, but i think you get the drift. I'm not sure what your point is? Are you just trying to say there are no problems with overlays? Or do you mean I should only stick to the built in overlays and not try to do anything creative? If so, then why not just stick to the default skin?

Anyway, I digress, my point is that player.hasaudio and player.hasvideo are documented conditions that don't work.

 

[tourettes]

what sliding menu?
the overlay can't slide with an animated menu because it runs on hardware acceleration.

Actually it is not an limitation of hardware acceleration (from technical point of view everything that is possible for normal DirectX texture is also possible for the video stream as it is just an texture for the skinning engine in MediaPortal).

Limitation comes from the MP1 skinning engine itself, and most likely there is not going to be any change in it to make it more flexible in that way. MPII is for the major improvements (we really need to keep the MP1 skinning engine and other parts as well as stable as possible. HTPC is not a playground ).

 

[Dadeo]

Thanks for the interest and reply Tourettes, but what "limitation" do you mean? If imported overlays can display when the facade is not in focus, then why can't the built in overlays? I'm just trying to understand so I don't do anything stupid in my skin! Are you saying that if I use imported overlays that display when the facade is not in focus that will make the MP1 skinning engine unstable?

 

[tourettes]

Thanks for the interest and reply Tourettes, but what "limitation" do you mean? If imported overlays can display when the facade is not in focus, then why can't the built in overlays? I'm just trying to understand so I don't do anything stupid in my skin! Are you saying that if I use imported overlays that display when the facade is not in focus that will make the MP1 skinning engine unstable?

I don't have that much knowledge in our skinning engine, but I would assume there are some hard coded behavior what comes to overlays (shows up as an limitation to the skinner) and changing such behavior could cause hard to spot regression issues with the application itself.

 

[Dadeo]

I do really appreciate your reply Tourettes. Thank you. And it is not that I expect the overlays will be changed in MP1, but if I don't say anything now, then they may not change/iimprove in MPII!

Who does know the skinning engine? And why were the visualizations implemented in such a way so that player.hasaudio and player.hasvideo conditions became inoperable and no player.hasvis condition was provided? There may well be a good reason, but if skinners don't know we could easily do something we shouldn't.

A number of skins have started using imported overlays, I think mainly so they will be visible all the time. Catavolt just turned them off and only displays text! It certainly is an improvement when they do not pop on and off the screen everytime you access a sliding menu! But if this is not a good thing to do then we all really need to know because a lot of 'skinners', like me (barely), are copying what other skins have done.

 

[pilehave]

For the MediaStream skin I ditched videoOverlay and musicOverlay for the same reason as you point out. I didn't find a way around them, so right now these two windows are empty and I made my own overlay with dummy-labels and other workaround stuff.