Hi Folks,

Charlie Owen of the Windows Media Center team here. We'd like to get your thoughts on the Start Menu:

Likes?

Dislikes?

Thanks in advance...!

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Charlie Owen
Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
http://blog.retrosight.com

Hey Charlie, glad to be able to provide feedback and glad that there's someone out there willing to listen.

Likes:
rows of icons,
transitions,
translucency when media is playing.
use of widescreen real-estate

Dislikes:
agglomerated categories! This has been brough up may times even during the beta.
For example; Why are things like pictures and videos lumped together?
The menu heirarchy of 2005 was much more...rational...

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Likes:

• Very Polished feel
• The subtle animations/effects
• Smooth transitions
• Sound effects
• The way you move up/down between categories, and left/right for the sub categories
• How the Green Button will always get you back to the menu

Dislikes

• Pictures and videos lumped together
• How inconsistant the quality of the "Online Media" is
• That we can't get rid of unnecessary/unwanted icons
• That recorded Movies can't be seperated out for extenders (they just show up on Recorded TV)
• No categories for recorded TV/Movies
• That transistions aren't as smooth on the Linksys extenders

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Just my $0.02.

Hi Charlie,

I really like the look and feel of the start menu.  The horizontal scrolling is great.  It's very smooth.  Love the sports options.


My only complaints (and I suppose these have more to do with Recorded TV than Start) is that 1) I really liked the screen in MCE 2005 that showed the last 4 or 5 recorded shows and the next 4 or 5 shows to be recorded.  I'd prefer not to have to click on Recorded TV, then click the up button twice, then enter to view what's going to record next.  It was great to have it all on one screen.  2) The Search function is only on the start menu and it's all the way to the right.  Why can't you have another search link under, say, Scheduled Recordings?

Otherwise, looks great.  Thanks.

Hi Charlie,

In general I really like the start menu.  This is only vaguely related to it but my pet hate is that it's somehow possible to open the guide, return to TV, open the guide, return to TV, etc. and each time you open the guide VMC opens a new instance rather than just reverting to the instance you opened last time.  I know that there are multiple instances open because if I hit the back button on the remote they keep appearing and then shutting down.  I don't think this is limited to the guide either (i.e. you can do the same thing with recordings and other windows).

Sorry I can't give you any more info.  My girlfriend seems to be able to do this (she has this un-feminine fascination with surfing through the guide) but I can't reproduce it now.

Cheers, Jake.

In general I like the sleeker look of Vista media center. I can second the hate of grouping certain items together pic/videos tv/movies/internet tv.

Me and my Wife both think xp had a simpler menu to navigate.

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Dell xps420 w/ dual ATI cable cards
Hdhomerun for QAM
Panasonic 50" Plasma fed by xbox 360
Panasonic 42" plama fed by xbox 360
3TB in storage and counting

I want to be able to customize it to my tastes.  I dont watch sports, I dont watch online media, now playing seems a little dumb to me, I dont download movies, internet tv is just too poor quality to watch, I want to remove these.

And why do I have to do a registry hack to add a dvd library for ripped dvds?

-dickm

It would be nice if we could turn off any functions that we don't use.  Something where we could go to tasks and have check box list of items we could mark to display or not.  Or a set up wizard to do it. 

dmagerl:

I want to be able to customize it to my tastes.

This is my only complaint/suggestion.  I LOVE the design... I just need the option to customize it.  I even started a thread about this a couple days ago and it seems many share my desire.

As this product matures my interface to this platform must customize to my tastes.  It needs the ability for me to choose what is on the Start Menu.  I don't even really need the ability to choose where things are on the Start Menu (although that would be really nice as well)... at a bare minumum I need the ability to show/hide certain strips & tiles.

No registry hacks please!  Give me a simple UI that shows the current layout of whats on the Start Menu with a show/hide checkbox right next to each element.  You already have a small start to this under the Settings options.

FirstSalvo, do you have a pointer to that thread?

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Charlie Owen
Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
http://blog.retrosight.com

Charlie Owen:

FirstSalvo, do you have a pointer to that thread?

   http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/240912/ShowThread.aspx

Here are a couple other threads on the subject that I came across before posting the other day...

   http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/207333.aspx

   http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/185493/ShowThread.aspx

   http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/150792.aspx

The interface is a great improvement over MCE 2005 but I would like to see the ability to re-arrange the tiles to how I want them to be instead of having it dictated that Microsoft feels these should be in the same row because they want it there....

 

 

How about an ability to change the theme of it?  Background picture or color.

Tight_Wad:

How about an ability to change the theme of it?  Background picture or color.

Third parties have already begun work in this area.  Blizo's done some great theme work already...

   http://www.mediacenterthemes.com/

His application is in the later stages of beta now.  I'd rather have MS work on an area that no one has conquered yet... complete customization control of the Start Menu!

Re-posting stuff I posted earlier last year:

Moving forward could MS consider allowing the start menu to be customizable where we can shuffle around the tiles, add more than 1 tile per strip, or at least reconsider the layout? I realize this is subjective but some of the placement of stuff in the stat menu doesn't 'feel' right to me.

Pictures  + Videos

• These items should be separated (see below). Is this menu item intended to group the user's own pictures and home videos?
• How come there isn't a search feature? We have so many photos that it becomes annoying trying to pivot by tags then doing the number pad thing.
• The search command should be available inside the picture gallery

Music

• Same deal, add search command here. It's dumb to have to go back out to the main to do a search
• Tile for Zune market place or whatever music service the user is using.

TV + Movies

• Consider placing a search command inside the guide view itself. Yes, it's little tight in there it just seems more sensible than having to go back out then in
• Make the TV strip just about TV: More TV, Recorded TV, Live TV, Guide, Movies Guide. (see below)

New "Movies + Videos" strip

• Create new strip for all video-related stuff. Tiles could be: DVD Library, Video Library, and "Movies on TV". The "Movies On TV" could be a duplicate of the Movies Guide above that shows the movies currently on TV.
• A YouTube/MSNVideo plug-in would be a good thing here. "Internet Video" instead of "Internet TV beta"?
• Take the Movie Trailers, Coming Soon, DVD Releases stuff from Internet TV beta and put them in a "More Videos" section or something like that. This seems more intuitive and useful to me. 

New Favourites Strip (or "PlugIns" or "Add-Ins")

• Create new strip where the developer can add plug-ins.
• Allow the user to go to Tasks | Settings to check/uncheck the available installed plug-ins that she wants to be displayed in this strip

Online Media

• Several of these items are outdated, ugly, and very sluggish. Also, they seem like stubs to launch a separate installer. Do these things get much use?
• There is a big 'disconnect' here between "online media" and "internet tv". Why are they separate? Messy.