On Thu, 2009-07-02 at 10:34 -0700, Michał Sawicz wrote: > Dnia 2009-07-02, czw o godzinie 09:36 -0700, Kevin Fox pisze: > --8<-- > > > See my last comment above :) > > > > I guess I didn't ask my question clearly, so I'll try again. > > > > Are we designing the Widgets that any PVR plugin will use, IE, > > Moovida's > > PVR Widget set, For example, "The EPG widget" in the same sense as > the > > Moovida Player widget, or are we designing a UI just for our PVR > > plugin? > > We're trying to design the User Experience we would like for a (any) > PVR > plugin to have.
Ok. Good. > > --8<-- > > > Sorry. didn't give enough context. From within the player, would you > > be > > able to pop up the EPG, leaving the player in LiveTV mode? > > Yeah why not. I think that's a bit too detailed for now, though :) > Some > user workflows need to be designed, of course, maybe this will get in > one of them. Ok. I was just wandering about some of the features we'd need in the Player > > --8<-- > > > K. Since we are talking about coming up with what a user would > expect > > out of the box, most people watching live tv now a days will expect > a > > full program guide because that is what their tv's give them now. If > > we're going to make the live tv experience as good as possible for > > someone that has never used a pvr before, its a requirement IMHO > > It's not necessarily like that. You don't have to implement it the > same > way others do. If you have a catchy enough idea you can present it to > the user. > And we're not talking Full-EPG _or_ Now & Next, both are > needed and should be implemented. Ok. > I thought of the Now & Next as a > replacement for Watch TV, not as a replacement for the Programme > Guide. I think Now & Next is just a different way of looking at the same EPG data. The same way as viewing the available Music as a List, as a Grid, in a Cover View wisbang 3d thingy, etc. The rest of Moovida uses that UI, why not for the EPG too? Its nice and consistent that way with the rest of Moovida. :) > > --8<-- > > > Ah. If you go to Music -> Library, in the right top corner there is > > two > > buttons, List and Grid. I see the two EPG's as this same thing. Two > > different views of the same backing store. The same button on a > remote > > that switches between those views for music (if the remote has one) > > can > > switch between the views in the EPG. > > Yeah the problem is in Music -> Library you're at most two clicks away > (one in list view, one or two in grid view) from the top bar. When you > have the full Programme Guide you'd have to go to the first available > channel to go further up. Just imagine what David said - you have six > buttons - up, down, left, right, ok, back. The first two are used to > change channels, the next two are used to move in time. OK is used to > select an entry and back is used to go out of the EPG. You're out of > buttons... Ah, I can see the problem now. Because there are a lot of channels its not exactly like that Music Grid view which you can just hit up a few times to get to the grid/list switcher. But, there is one place you can do that, the left hand side of the EPG shouldn't ever show anything before 'NOW()' so if you press left enough, usually just once or twice, that could bring you up to the mode switcher/play/stop button. Not great, but livable if trying to navigate entirely on a 6 button remote. If you have a 7+ button remote (Windows mce remotes do) then you can bind one of those for switching purposes. Or you can use the mouse too. > --8<-- > > > Its not really important I think. It is a capability that is gained > by > > having both EPG types available and easily switchable between. If I > > can > > find a bit of time I'll try to sketch it out. > > See above, difficult to solve with just 6 buttons, but could be > available optionally. I think its resolvable. > > --8<-- > > > Nice UI, but then there is another concern. Which copy are you > > deleting > > and where does it reside? (BTW, I really like this idea if the UI > > implications can be worked out) > > There's only one copy - the recording. It's just available from both > 'Recordings' and 'TV Shows' menus. > If you delete it (we don't have > deletion in TV Shows ATM so it would probably need to be deleted in > Recordings) it disappears from TV Shows as well. > Actually 'moving' the episode from Recordings to TV Shows would, in my > opinion, require at least recutting the recording, possibly > transcoded, > too, so I'd leave that for a later date. > > Say you have a copy of a TV show on your laptop PVR and on your TV > PVR > > machine. Both items are named the same since it is the same show. Is > > it > > in the list twice? If not, which one is deleted? If so, how does the > > user know which one is going to be deleted? > > I think that depends. In the ultimate UX heaven I'd like it to be like > so: > - if it is exactly the same file but 'cached' on your laptop it only > shows once with an indication where it's from and if it is available > offline with an option to have it cached > - if it is not, it shows twice with an indication where it's from and > the ability to remove any of them > - the above is subject to what I wrote below about merging media > sources > > So, here's my problem with the whole thing and maybe we can hash > this > > out... > > > > Currently there is this separation I think between Moovida the local > > instance and other machines on the "network". Say I have a UPNP > server > > MediaTomb on my network. Currently its Movies, TV Shows, Music, and > > Pictures do not show up in Moovida's Movies, TV Shows, Music, or > > Pictures menu's. They only show up when you select "Other computers" > > -> > > That UPNP servers name, then you see the movies, tv shows, music, > and > > pictures. > > > > I kind of think of the pvr stuff working the same way. In "Other > > computers", you will see, "MythBackend - FOO". It speaks the Myth > > protocol instead of the UPNP protocol for example. If there is more > > then > > one myth server on the network, you support them all using that UI, > > right? > > > > Now, the feature your wanting for PVR menu merging to TV > Shows/Movies > > also applies to UPNP too, right? I may want to store TV Shows not > only > > on my local Moovida client, but also on my big storage server using > > MediaTomb. Or Movies stored on my Laptop shared out using UPNP from > > Moovida. Or I may have a local UPNP server that I want everything > > automatically merged in. > > > > So, is the Movies/TV Shows/Music/Pictures in the Moovida menu Purely > > for > > displaying what is locally managed by Moovida only, or... > > > > Is Movies/TV Shows/Music/Pictures a meta menu of sorts that > aggregates > > all available media discovered? > > > > All PVR's TV shows on the network. All UPNP stored files. DAAP music > > shares on the network? Making it easy to just play media instead of > > hunting for it. > > > > Instead of all, maybe its just a merging of selected hosts? > > Yes, I would love that - aggregate any available media source you want > into the general library. With the added capability of caching > selected > media locally. From any source you don't want to be aggregated you > could > not cache but copy media to local storage. Separate from that you > would > still be able to access any plugins in the standard way. > > Sec, I have to wipe my face, I've started drooling at the thought... I think we're on the same page now. :) This is the kind of interface I'd love to see in a good Media app. Moovida would be one of a kind. You have a bunch of services either local or remote, and Movida aggregates them nicely and lets you not have to worry about where its at and just lets you get into finding what you want to watch and watch it. > --8<-- > > > I'm more in favor of asking the user what to do then decide that for > > them. If all tuners are busy when you start live tv, it should tell > > you > > that, tell you which tuners are busy recording what, and ask you > which > > recording you want to cancel if you want to continue going to live > tv. > > What do you think about my proposal to bother the user only when > there's > no other option? Its a good proposal, but its purely a backend specific thing, no? > > --8<-- > > > Unfortunately, there will always be some trade off between > schedualed > > recordings and live tv. For example, PiP. Unless you dedicate two > > tuners > > for watching live tv, PiP wont always work. Do you sacrifice the > live > > tv > > pip feature in exchange for more recordings? I'd say yes, but I > > believe > > way more in scheduled recordings then live tv... > > PIP? Like I don't have enough to pay attention to ;) I sit at a computer all day messing with code and server logs. I'm use to filtering out extraneous data wizzing by on the screen and lots of context switches. :) Thats why I like the full epg instead of now & next, since I have trained myself to ignore the irrelevant data. But I do understand there are others who don't like to do things that way. > > > Hmm.... Maybe what we want then is a configuration option for live > tv > > vs > > scheduled recording balance. > > > > Favor: > > Live TV - dedicates one or two tuners to live tv playback. The > > schedular > > gets the rest. > > Intermediate - dedicates just one to the live tv playback and never > > interrupts a live tv recording with a prompt to the user. the tuner > is > > dedicated to live tv. > > Scheduled recordings - Behaves much as myth does now. The scheduler > > gets > > to decide. It still prompts the user, but if he doesn't answer, the > > scheduler gets it and the live tv gets canceled. > > I still don't think there's a need to dedicate anything only we need > to > define the scheduler's preferred behavior. There's the latency problem regarding channel changing. But I'm believing more and more these sorts of things should be left up to the backend to decide. Let the user pick a backend that best fits his or her preferences for how a PVR should work. If you want good channel changing latency, use VDR as your pvr backend. If you want myth's good scheduler, use myth. > What you propose above may be > a power user choice, I would not present this level of complication in > the standard UI. I think the scheduler trying to duck as much as > possible is the best of both worlds. Only bother the user when there's > danger of missing a recording completely. > We could have the UI show a notification that there's a recording > scheduled and if the user wants he can see additional details and > decide > what to do. > I think this way we would only loose one thing - the 'not caring' > part. > On the other hand there would still be a timeout on the notification > so > we could give the user (maybe just the power one) the choice what to > do > in case of timeout - start recording or leave TV on. > > --8<-- > > > Consistent or easy? It makes it easy to never have to prompt the > user, > > but it is not necessarily better. Prompting the user is much harder > > because it involves a lot more coding/UI work. > > I don't think David does anything easy for the coding/UI part. I think > he means easy for the user. As in blonde-mode. Its easier for the user to answer a menu question then to be left wandering why the system did something automatically unexpectedly. Having the system always do something automatically instead of what the users choice is always consistent, but not easy for the user Its easier for the coder to just automatically decide for the user instead of writing code to prompt the user. Then again, I've talked to a lot of users where "deciding" is hard, and just letting the system do the "right thing" is easy for them. But, getting them to all agree on what the "right thing" is hard. ;) > > Ah, but here's my issue with it. YouTube is both a class, and an > > instance. There is ever only one YouTube in existence. You might > have > > multiple PVRs in your network of the same type. So your plugin is a > > Class, but where do the Instances reside in the UI? > > > > There is a slight UI quirk here that I'm trying to figure out. And > > thats, there is no UPNP plugin listed in the library, but there is a > > menu item "Devices & Shares" -> Other Computers that is all the UPNP > > hosts on the network. PVRs are just another type of "Other Computer" > > so > > maybe they should show up there. > > Yeah, definitely. With the added possibility of merging it in the main > menu, just as David mentioned you'll be able to put any of the plugins > as a main menu entry. Ok. I think we're in agreement here too. Lets see what David thinks. Kevin > > -- > Michał Sawicz <[email protected]> > >
