Replacing MP with Win 8 modern UI (1 Viewer)

zicoz

MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 3, 2006
    896
    63
    Home Country
    Norway Norway
    Yeah, the Netflix app is a good example of this, you can browse and start the moves that are one the main page with a remote, but if you want to go into genres or watch a TV-series you will have to bring out a mouse. This is really disappointing, and I sent them a mail on what would make sense for a remote control.

    It's kinda crazy that it doesn't work perfectly with a remote considering how many remote only devices they have apps for.
     

    scott_mckenzie

    Portal Pro
    April 3, 2012
    69
    14
    Home Country
    Australia Australia
    Hi hulkhaugen,

    I see what you mean, but I think most people use MP as a part of a dedicated HTPC and therefore MP being an all-in-one app provides the greatest user experience for that setup.
    My personal view is I like the look of Win 8 from a tablet & TV perspective, but I am not sure how the usability compares to Win 7 (haven't tried it any longer than 2 mins).

    What I reckon could be possible is a Win 8 MP metro skin - something like this http://elan.plexapp.com/2012/12/04/announcing-plex-for-windows-8/
    Or this http://cetoncorp.com/blog/welcome-to-my-media-center/ looks pretty good.
     
    Last edited:

    octessence

    Portal Pro
    May 8, 2012
    76
    10
    Germany
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Yeah, the Netflix app is a good example of this, you can browse and start the moves that are one the main page with a remote, but if you want to go into genres or watch a TV-series you will have to bring out a mouse. This is really disappointing, and I sent them a mail on what would make sense for a remote control.

    It's kinda crazy that it doesn't work perfectly with a remote considering how many remote only devices they have apps for.

    I have also complained on their blog about the usability with a remote- It's crazy. They seriously need to make backspace go "up" a menu and Esc to go back to the main menu to reflect the standard usage of those keys on Windows.

    Back onto the original topic, I think that the Windows 8 platform is very good for a HTPC. The big chunky buttons are no good for a desktop but well suited to a TV with remote control setup. It still needs some work though and there are some major annoyances. For example if you launch a non-metro application, it switches to the desktop view which is fine. But then when you exit said application it stays on the desktop and does not switch to the main UI again. This sort of this just requires you to keep a mouse handy and that really annoys me.

    At the moment I have a dual boot and am still using Windows 7 on my HTPC with lots of windows shortcuts for launching MP/Netflix/VPN connections etc. I try Windows 8 every so often but its just not ready IMO. I don't think I would use it anywhere else. My home desktop runs Windows 7, my tablet runs Android as does my phone and my work development machine runs SuSE Enterprise Linux.

    So I think a MediaPortal with a metro interface would work well. I don't think it would be necessary to run Moving Pictures / TV Series etc from the main menu, but these would work very well in a MP sub-widget thingy. The ability to seamlessly exit and then switch to a (useable) netflix or YouTube/Wimp app would be great.


    Sorry, maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand the relevance of that link.
     
    Last edited:

    hulkhaugen

    Portal Pro
    November 9, 2008
    450
    58
    Arendal
    Home Country
    Norway Norway
    To be honest, i've started to use Plex for Windows 8, and it's pretty nice. But on the other hand, i don't use local media that much. Mostly Netflix, Spotify (When will they make a metro app?) and TV 2 Sumo (Norwegian TV channel), and also some Viaplay. I don't mind using keyboard and mouse in my living room, but it would be nice to navigate it with a remote as one would navigate a xbox360 with the controller. Main reason i used MP was for Live TV, but now i don't have a satellite dish anymore, and internet streaming covers my needs. As you can see in my signautre, i once tried to initiate a Metro UI skin for MP, still think it's a cool layout.
     

    craige1

    Portal Pro
    February 1, 2008
    187
    48
    Alice Springs
    Home Country
    Australia Australia
    I think this is a great idea. Windows 8 has gone through its trial by fire and has come out doing better then windows 7 did. Its doing well on the consumer side and enterprises are picking up windows 8 much faster then most other windows versions due to the massive growth in demand of byod, the cloud, multi format support and ecosystem support all which windows 8 adds massive support for.

    The biggest "issues" for the MP team to consider is the Microsoft blue updates due on most of the ms products soonish. The blue updates are a ms company wide project that has been in longer development then windows 8 was and ms have recruited vast teams to work on it. Even tho the ms products have tight integration with each other now, the blue updates will bring a host of changes to their products, including gui, features, and capability changes all orientated to make the entire ms product line have even tighter integration. An example of this is currently windows 8 apps and windows phone 8 apps take about 10 minutes of work to port between both systems. After the blue update, the apps will become the "same" and work on both platforms natively. Consider that the blue update goes to all ms products, and then think about the new XBOX system due out this year. Any app written for windows 8 would work straight on any tv connected to an xbox, and any htpc, and be able to use tablets that hook up the the tv.

    MS have been talking about their 3 screens and the cloud goal for about 5 years now. Windows 8, skydrive, outlook.com(Hotmail), windows phone 8, and xbox are all the biggest growing in their fields, most are the biggest in usage as well and MS is combining them all to be "one" platform. They're only months away from completing this. The MP team should be looking at the advantages this brings to being able to support so many form factors in one go, as well as the treats of leaving it alone. Threats include projects like XBMC getting the same idea and jumping on first, windows 8 and xbox left to dominate the HTPC market with their native support, 3rd party windows apps that fill the roll of plugins like moving pictures or tv series, 3rd party "ports" open source mp code onto a windows app (if the last one is a "treat" or not would be up to debate but it would a best split the development of mediaportal).

    I recommend MP 2 have a windows 8 client as part of its initial release. The client side of mp would be "fairly" easy to port to a windows 8 app due to them both using the same ms technologies. Most of the heavy lifting in mp2 happens server side with the client acting only as a gui. That would fit perfectly as a windows 8 app.
     
    Last edited:

    tourettes

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 7, 2005
    17,301
    4,800
    I recommend MP 2 have a windows 8 client as part of its initial release. The client side of mp would be "fairly" easy to port to a windows 8 app due to them both using the same ms technologies. Most of the heavy lifting in mp2 happens server side with the client acting only as a gui. That would fit perfectly as a windows 8 app.

    *cough* *cough* - newer say easy when you aren't 100% sure. Porting the Directshow based components will be a huge task. Any volunteers for converting all the Directshow filters into MediaFoundation filters? Remember to port LAV splitter, video and audio decoders as well ;)
     
    Last edited:

    Arturas1976

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 5, 2008
    246
    40
    Vilnius
    Home Country
    Lithuania Lithuania
    Who said the life is easy?[DOUBLEPOST=1362467228][/DOUBLEPOST]If MP is technically limited to MS platform I think this mean that it should be the best option to have on MS platform to choose.
    If in some way this will not happen - this will lead to some very niche.

    BYOD came to enterprise (how load IT guys tried to reject it) and the same multi device usage happen at home.

    Maybe UPnP could help, but this is just for connected devices. Not standalone or offline client.
     

    onelegend

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • July 16, 2010
    351
    42
    39
    Bournemouth
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Byod is really working? I struggle to find companies that let you plug a USB drive in to their network let alone a full blown computer lol
     

    hafblade

    Portal Pro
    January 19, 2011
    675
    290
    Trier, Germany
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    I'm sure that in the future there is large development in the direction of tv integrations.
    Look at the new Steam Big Picture Mode. It is such a cool feature where you have your whole Steam as a TV GUI version controllable by remote or gamepad. Then there is Windows 8 Modern UI which is usable with the remote (and the gamepad with tools like JoyToKey). Ok there are many apps not working with the remote at the moment but perhaps many developers will change it when the global direction changes to TV environments. A developer which only creates touch gui control features is an idiot because the idea is to use Windows 8 on the desktop, laptop, tablet and on the tv and and and...

    With a little bit of luck the future will be cross plattform which is a really good change. Even as total enemy of gamepad control in computer games in the past, I see that it is becoming better and better on the pc with platforms like steam which have a large influence on the market and which bring changes (especially cross platform ones) to the whole market. Same is with Microsoft and Windows 8. There are so many people complaining about the modern ui without even having used it in every days use. It isn't as bad as everybody says.

    Due to this I also thought about the idea of having some MediaPortal Apps which are split up and setup as different apps. I don't think that this idea is silly. Yes you have much work coming to this point and yes it excludes Windows XP / Vista / 7 users but it gives you so many possibilities because you don't have to implement so many plugins. When sites like Netflix, YouTube, ... give you great apps which are controllable by remote why should someone implement some own plugin which works around webservices and these apps by parsing html sites or something like this.

    Install the app and go is much better / easier than implementing some functionalitites into every single mediacenter like application in the world.

    I love MP and I will use it in the future but we all should think about the future and perhaps some ideas could be brought to MP2.
    At least the development should know that there are people which would love such integrations. Perhaps it would be enough to keep MP2 so modular (which it is I suppose) that small parts could be used for ModernUI implementations in some later versions.

    I would love to have some TV app, some Movie database app, some music app, some series app, some OnlineVideos app, ....
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom