Hi Paul

the first one:-)

Whatever bitrate the stream is being broadcast at is the same bitrate I write it to your disc.

Regards,
Sörnt

Hello - great plugin by the way.  I have a few internet radio devices in the house, and it is great to enable the same stations on my media center devices.  A couple of requests:

1. Please add code to detect if your plug-in is running on an extender, and disable your background image if so.  I use all extenders, and when viewing your plug-in (and pretty much everyone else's that doesn't auto-disable on extenders) I see a border similar to this image.


2. Would it be possible to detect if a stream is already playing on another media center & use it instead of starting a new stream?  Example, I start up Station1 on my extenderA.  I move to extenderB and want to play Station1 as well.  Instead of starting a new stream download (thus not being in sync with extenderA) is it possible to play the same stream being downloaded on extenderA, thus playing Station1 on both extenders in perfect sync?  This is how media center handles the tuners, but not sure if you would be able t mimic.

bledsoe:

2. Would it be possible to detect if a stream is already playing on another media center & use it instead of starting a new stream?  Example, I start up Station1 on my extenderA.  I move to extenderB and want to play Station1 as well.  Instead of starting a new stream download (thus not being in sync with extenderA) is it possible to play the same stream being downloaded on extenderA, thus playing Station1 on both extenders in perfect sync?  This is how media center handles the tuners, but not sure if you would be able t mimic.

I have a feeling this would be very tough to do (though I would love it if it could be done).  Also, currently Media Center doesn't keep streams from the tuner in perfect sync with the extender.

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Just my $0.02.

Hi bledsoe,

I am sorry - but I don't own an extender. I have no way to test that. If you want that feature, I should start charging for the plug in, so I can offer an extender :)

But the background is transparent, Paul wanted that feature because he themed somehow media center. I don't use an image or something like that.

It's basicly not a that big deal to write code to synchonize the extenders. That can I even test without an extender.

If I go out an buy an extender, which one should I buy? Xbox 360, Linksys, D-Link?
Behave they all identically?

Regards,
Sörnt

 

ryan.tollefson:

Also, currently Media Center doesn't keep streams from the tuner in perfect sync with the extender.

If I am watch Live TV on one extener and tune to the same channel on another channel it is in perfect sync.  Now,  if one of the users pauses / rewinds / fast forwards / etc it is out of sync, but with live TV it is definitely in sync, as I do this a lot in my house.

Sörnt:

Hi bledsoe,

But the background is transparent, Paul wanted that feature because he themed somehow media center. I don't use an image or something like that.

If I go out an buy an extender, which one should I buy? Xbox 360, Linksys, D-Link?
Behave they all identically?

I can post a screenshot this evening.  I belive your plug-in is placing a moving overlay over the generic VMC background.  This overlay is partially transparent, but doesn't reach the edge of the screen on extenders (thus looks like the screenshot I posted).  As far as I know, this is the case with all plug-ins created for VMC - it is unavoidable unless the plug-in detects an extender and disables the background.  There shouldn't be a reason to test this, as the code is already available in the SDK, I believe, to detect extenders.  I can possibly provide that information if you can't find it. 

I would definitely suggest the Linksys DMA-2100 / 2200 as they support xvid/divx/264 files natively within media center.  Yes, they are less powerful and rely on the host machine to power such things as fluid transitions in the media center menu, but with a powerful machine I don't notice it.

EDIT: My request is to disable the transparent moving background on extenders, not the generic Vista static background.

Can please send me a screenshot and mark somehow what you mean.

Thank you

Sörnt

Sörnt:

Can please send me a screenshot and mark somehow what you mean.

Thank you

Sörnt

I will update to the latest vs first, then post a screenshot tonight.

hi Sörnt, had a couple more thoughts on some features/bugs for your app:-

• remember sort order choosen on exit - currently defaults back to "user def asc"
• when app starts jump straight to favorites streams list - currently only jumps to favorites sub menu
• options menu, turn into second layer - to prevent exit of the app when pressing back button - i know you mentioned earlier about this being a flat app, dont know how difficult this is to code and add in a second layer?

i hope your still developing the app, as its def one of my fav plugins.

paul.

Hi Paul,

thank you for your features/bugs list.

I am not sure what you have in mind with your third point.
Do you want an option menu at the second layer and there should be a checkbox which controlls the behaviour of the back button?

Be sure I will continue to develop the plug in. My plan is to release an new version by the end of this month.

Regards,

Sörnt

Sörnt:

Hi Paul,

thank you for your features/bugs list.

I am not sure what you have in mind with your third point.
Do you want an option menu at the second layer and there should be a checkbox which controlls the behaviour of the back button?

Be sure I will continue to develop the plug in. My plan is to release an new version by the end of this month.

Regards,

Sörnt

hi Sörnt, great news your carrying on dev!, was a little concerned you'd gone quiet :-).

ok just to clarify my point 3, when you click on a radio station you get the "options" menu come up where you can do such things as start/stop recording, add/remove from favorites etc, currently if you then press the back button it doesnt go back to the previous screen but instead exits out of the app completely and dumps you back to vmc.

it would be great if the "options" screen could be made as another layer, so that if you were in the options window and you press back then it closes the options window, i think it would just make it easier to use, as opposed to having to go to  "close" each time, and most users will naturally try pressing the back button as this is a normal operation in vmc.

if the above was done, then you could remove "close" from the "options" menu and just use the back button as normal.

p

The layer approach could be used throughout the interface. For example, when drilling into shoutcast stations by genre: Press "Jazz" and push a new layer with all the Jazz stations, select a station and push a new layer to "play, record, add as fav, etc." -- then hit the back button to return to the previous layer, the list of Jazz stations. At that point you could either select another jazz station or hit the back button to return to the list of genres.

Personally, I like the pop up menu approach for selecting the "action" you want to apply to a station, but it would be nice to use the back button to return to the main screen rather than selecting close from the menu items. As for poping and pushing filter selections like genre, I would prefer a completely new screen with the back button taking me back to the previous (full) screen.

I dunno just how much work that would be Sornt, but it would make your app behave more consistently with respect to other parts of the VMC.

Lee

Hello Paul and Lee,

I got the idea. For the pop up menu I can handle the back button that will not be a problem. But I can't remove the close button otherwise the user can't close the pop up by using a mouse.

Handling the back button in other situations will be more work and for me it is not clear how to handle it.

Imagine the following use case: 

1. A user starts mcShoutCast, he will be at the favorites.

2. then the user navigates to genres to look around (without selecting a genre)

3. then the user navigates to the Top 500 stations and play a station.

4. If the user hits now the back button, to which menu should mcShoutCast navigate now?

The question is what is a "navigation point" which I should remember when the user uses the back button? Every "menu" entry like "Favorites, ShoutCast, Genres, Top500..". How often should the user hit the back button to leave mcShoutCast? Must he walk back the complete history of "navigation points" Meaning every menu he ever selected so far within this session?

Within the genres it is clear. Whenever the user navigates into a genre, the back button should take him a level up to the "all" genres. But where should I take him if he presses the back button a second time?

Regards,

Sörnt

Sörnt:

Imagine the following use case: 

1. A user starts mcShoutCast, he will be at the favorites.

2. then the user navigates to genres to look around (without selecting a genre)

3. then the user navigates to the Top 500 stations and play a station.

4. If the user hits now the back button, to which menu should mcShoutCast navigate now?

The question is what is a "navigation point" which I should remember when the user uses the back button? Every "menu" entry like "Favorites, ShoutCast, Genres, Top500..". How often should the user hit the back button to leave mcShoutCast? Must he walk back the complete history of "navigation points" Meaning every menu he ever selected so far within this session?

Yes, the user should go through the complete history - this is how almost everything else in Media Center works (and what people are used to from web browsing).  If the user wants to get out more quickly, they can always just use the Green Button to get to the Media Center main menu.

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Just my $0.02.

Sörnt,

I think you hit on why I said 'I dunno how much work it will be...'. Your UI is now very 'flat' and I think there are some clear areas where if it where 'hierarchical', the back button would work more like expected (based on other VMC applicaitons).  I have a sneaky suspicion that to do this would require a fairly big 'rethink' of your UI.

However, once you get the heirachy of layers set up, the 'back' button should always takes you one step closer to the root of your heirachy. It typically does not take you over all of your navigation points, just the current path back to the root.

Also, a mouse user can always hit the 'back' button that shows up in the VMC interface (top left, arrow glyph) whenever you use the mouse -- not so convenient perhaps but it would work.

You may be well enough advised to work on features first and then, possibly, re-think and re-write the UI once you have a complete list of features and you want to invest the, quite likely large, amount of effort to polish the UI.

Been down this rabbit hole myself. Please don't think we under-appreciate what you have done so far. In my experience, getting the functions you desire is 90% of the work-- and getting the UI polished is the other 90%, if you follow my meaning ;-)

cheers,

Lee