Release plans for Beta 2 (0.2) (3 Viewers)

[samuel337]

as for the configuration, I think a password protected configuration might be most suitable to keep pb&j covered hands out

I do agree that keeping the brunt of the config external is perfectly acceptable. ui adjustments, skin changes, adding and removing folders for music and video and playlists are examples of things that really should be internal aswell.
Things like configuring cards and codecs are very rarely done (or should be on a stable system / software) and can be left external, which is great because those would be the hardest to add into the menus, imho.
Maybe somebody should create a list of the most used config options?

My suggestion for configuration would be to possibly support a web based interface for the device. I use Media Portal purely as an HTPC with no keyboard or monitor and hooked directly to my tv. I own three Tivos and have been using them for a bout 5 years and using a remote for anything more than simple navigation is a chore.

I would be interested in working on one if interest exists.

Well a web interface exists (for tv scheduling) but there isn't an web interface for configuration yet. Its not currently planned to be incorporated into the tv scheduling web interface, so if you want to work on a seperate web interface, go for it. I can do the interfacing with MP stuff (like i have done for the tv scheduling web interface) if you need it - it can help with things like re-organising the music database or get capture card settings, which is not just a simple xml file write.

Sam

 

[jdiffend]

Useability:
Make modifying the user interface for the visually impared easier.
(sorry, my mom needs fonts twice the size of that in the normal mce skin to read them and changing the fonts isn't for the timid)

 

[SePPiE]

I have to say that 0.1.0.5.1 is already quite more CPU "friendlier". I find it more smoothly. So that's good! That was one of the things that I thought needed improvements.

Other suggestions would be:

1. (like already mentioned) less techy talk, (for instant when you press the button to get the playing media as background in the main window and when you're not running any media it says: Make sure you are running VMR9). A dumb end-user will never know what this means.

2. Other point indeed, also like mentioned before, is the satellite image that defaults to germany... You may better just say that there's no sat image defined...

3. Automatic hardware detection (which shouldn't be hard in my opinion).

4. Theme selection in frontend itself. Also, like mentioned, adding media.. But keep the rest (techie stuff) in sep app...

5. Better OSD system in Live TV... Channel info, EPG info etc when zapping to channel...

6. Other thing mentioned, but very needed in my opinion.. one button for ONE function! I think you can narrow down a lot of key shortcuts or make it more efficient.. hard to explain, but I get a feeling this could be simpler..

7. Integrate entire winlirc into mediaportal instead of needing seperate winlirc running. (winlirc plugin for ATI remote control does this for instant), IDEAL.. (mediaportal is my only running app anyways).. (you could always make this a seperate functionality you can switch on or off for people wanting more complex configs using girder etc.) This makes it easier for non techie users, in my opinion. Just learn your remote, select your config and of you go.. It's also GPL so no prob there.

8. Somewhere in very near feature, stop implementing new functionality and start stabilizing all the existing stuff and improving user experience... A lot of stuff have been added recently (DVB-s through SDK, DVB-T through BDA, web guide) etc, and I think we need to concentrate on stabilizing and working only on these existing plugins/extensions and wait with implementing new features till we get at the beta 2... I get the feeling, (maybe wrong), that the whole 0.1.0.4, 0.1.0.5 and 0.1.0.5.1 release chaos has been do to the fact that a lot of people added stuff and were working "against" eachother..
I could be seeing this wrong, but just a feeling i had imediatly after seeing this all happen. Even then, with the activity on this project, you guys can afford to have a little breather on features and spend some time on efficiency and stability. We can wait, cause we know that you guys are working on it on a daily basis.. That's not something that can be said for a lot of other projects out there (mythtv?, meedio?, sceenio?) It's always MONTHS before you hear something back and every update it's always dissapointing to see what they managed to accomplish in such a long time...

9. For agree, make MDwrapper menu easy accessible from livetv or somewhere in front-end when you're in fullscreen... Teletext, cc and MHW epg data is another thing I would like to see native support for instead through Mdwrapper dll's.

10. keep this up! Cause MP kicks ass since dvb-s is supported, this is the only program I use now and it keeps getting better at a really nice pace.. And I would also like to mention that i already find user useability a whole lot easier and nicer then myhtpc and meedio ever were (actually, i thought that config system sucked mayor butt)...

Hoped this helped..

 

[gds]

TV module

I don't know if these features are already planned in the new TV module, anyway here are my thoughts on the shortcomings of the current one:
1 - the TV mode should be channel-centric, hiding when possible the presence of various cards in the PC. This could be obtained by:
a - hiding the choice of card for channels being broadcasted only on one card (the program could select automatically the correct card for each possible channel);
b - automatically grouping TV channels broadcasted on different cards / different kind of cards (Analog + DVB-T/C/S), giving on request the possibility to change the selected card (this would be useful if you have different viewing quality for some channels or if some shows are encrypted on some cards while free-to-air on some others);
c - automatically setting the preferred card for each channel broadcasted on different cards and allowing change of the preferred card if needed;
2 - allow reorder / grouping of channels under subcategories (useful when you have thousands of channels);
3 - teletext / EPG / PiP buttons in the interface;
4 - provide meaningful names for the different cards, e.g. "Terrestrial TV", "Satellite TV" or "Digital Terrestrial TV" when you have one card for each kind of transmission.
Hope it helps.
GDS

 

[Mr.Mitchell]

I think that MP is on a good way with Usability. The wizards are not finished yet, but it really helps to setup MP fast. There are more things that could be improved I think and that is mainly more eye for details, this will make MP more polished and easier to use. MOst of the things mentioned are things you can get used to but are small annoyances and makes it a bit harder for newbees to get started I think.

Edit: Note that all of this is ofcourse IMHO.

• I like the new checking on that all fields are filled like the playlist folders. But it is quite annoying to have to set a Recording folder for TV if you are not using it. It would be better to have good defaults. I think all paths can point to the folder where MP was installed (or create subfolders like "Playlists" where playlists are stored ). The user can still change them afterwards.
  
• Having the CD drives added by default is nice, but you can not remove the drives. They will come back every time. This is unlogical and will confuse people
  
• The layout of some screens in the configuration application could be improved. Lots of stuff has been added over time and it shows.
  [list:b1d1a88c21]
• First of all it would be a good idea to use the same style buttons everywhere (either rounded or square, but just one style). It makes the screen look more clean.
  
• Daemon tools doesn't belong on the general screen I think. It would better have it's own section, maybe in a Misc category
  
• The xmltv screen looks messy. I think all info belongs on the screen so maybe it is possible to combine the number of days fields for Basic and Advanced grab to gain some space.
  
• The movies section is also too crowded. The database search results list is unreadable. I think the OSD timeout is a general setting (I assume it applies to all OSD's) so this setting could move somewhere else (general section?) now the up/down buttons + the combobox can be placed to the right side of the listview and the listview can be bigger so no scrollbars are seen anymore.
  
• On the TV > Channels the tabbed pages don't need to be in a frame since they are already grouped by themselves. This will give some extra space in the width.
  
• On the TV > Channels > Map channels tab for moving the channels between the listboxes the symbols << and >> are used. This should be < and > because normally in this type of screens the << and >> symbols mean move all left/right, the < and > symbols are used for moving the selected items.
  
• Remote screen, the image with the MCE remote is stretched. Just looks bad.
  
• MyWeather has a strange way to configure a city with its images. There is an Add button which does something completely different than the Edit button. It is very unlogical that you can Edit different settings than you can Add. The normal behaviour is that Add and Edit are almost the same, the only difference is that Add adds a new entry to the list and then opens the Edit window. So basically the current Add and Edit window for MyWeather should be combined.

[*]The versionnumbers for the skins are a good idea, but I think it might confuse users since the skin version is not equal to the MP version, but they have the same format and the numbers are close together. I think it might be a good idea to just show a text like "Up-to-date" when a skin is OK and "OUTDATED" in a red font or so when the skin is outdated. Also it would be nice to be able to choose another skin when the "Outdated skin" message is displayed when starting MP with an outdated skin. Now I have to continue starting MP, close it, start Configuration, select other skin and start MP again.

[*]The missing codecs screen is one of the first screens that a user sees when starting MP. I think it could use a nicer layout and better wording. Right now the screen looks very empty (I only have the Vobsub text since ffdshow is installed) and the word Mediaportal is not even mentioned in the screen, new users might need some time to figure out that this screen belongs to mediaportal (at least a frien of my did ). The following could be improved in this window

• The title of the window should be something like "Media Portal - Recommended codecs". Sounds better than missing codecs (which is also not true, since you don't need those codecs to run MP, other codecs can also be used).
  
• Maybe a white bar at the top of the window with the MP logo in it (like the wizards have) to clearly show that this window belongs to MP.
  
• Make the window as smaller if only one recommended codec is missing so there is not such a big gray area.
  
• Use frames around the messages to seperate the messages more clearly

[/list:u:b1d1a88c21]

Hmm, some of the stuff might have belonged in the bugs or feature forums. But I hope it makes my point that having a clear interface that has consistent behaviour is important.

BTW: The reason that I didn't talk about the normal MP interface is that I am quite happy with it

 

[Anonymous]

yup

[req] resume music from back video was nice ...

thx for your work ^^

 

[Anonymous]

Sup.. about the performance issue. Im not a programer, but what if you had a 64bit version that used full 64 bit wide registers. Mabey a module that converts the 32 bit calls to 64 on the fly? would be nice for the new XP 64bit edition or better yet Longhorn... just a thought.later

 

[ktg]

usability

myTV section

for those with remote it would be a great improvement, if the right - left buttons for channel switching remained focused, dependig on which one was last used. Currently after switching one channel up or down the focus moves to the channel entry between the buttons and you have to refocus on one of the buttons with right/left arrow first before switching further. Not to mention a drop down list, which would be perfect.

The recording time in manual mode (instant recording) is currently limited to 2 hrs, what often does not meet the requirements. A user definable value in the TV settings would be fine - even better an increment of the record time of - let us say 30 mins - each time you press the record button, starting with 30 mins, as many VCRs behave.

Many thanks for your great work - even at this state it outperforms many others I got to know

 

[htpcNoob]

!!!Native WinLIRC support!!

Like for the middle-man (girder, ir-assistant) to be cut out. Sometimes they cause problems

 

[Quint]

Usability:

Make the TV-Guide separate from My TV. I often would like to check the tv guide without wanting to watch tv. But the guide is integrated in my tv and as soon as I enter my tv the music from my music or my radio stops playing.