dark_slayer 103 Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Greetings all, First a large amount of obligatory thanks are in order to the great group of devs here. If you haven't already read @@xnappo's blog entry then you should http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/blog/1/entry-124-one-year-of-developing-xbmb3c/ On to business, what (I think) XBMB3C provides for MB3 First group Mediabrowser - here on this particular forum, there will be a plethora of fanatical fans of mediabrowser. Many of them very long term. Mediabrowser 2.6.2 (Atlas) and before was nothing more than a plugin for WMC. It was very necessary as well, because while Microsoft went and nailed several parts of being a DVR Pros extremely efficient DTV-DVD decoder quick channel changes The ultimate-necessity ~ cablelabs certification for their wtv-playready-drm mechanism to allow watching all forms of digital cable within WMC Extenders for WMC Cons Sucks after going so long without any real updates to supported containers and codecs No supported theming engine Inability to sort/modify it's default music/video/recordedtv libraries Mediabrowser alongside a good codec setup (shark, lav, etc) took care of all the cons letting WMC users rejoice. For those long-term diehard fans, MBC will always serve all of their needs as they really love cable and their cable provider marks their subscriptions as copy-once so they are stuck with WMC. For most of them DVR is the priority and their media libraries are an afterthought, and XBMB3C is of no importance whatsoever Second Group There is a much smaller group of diehard mediabrowser fans who were only concerned with their media libraries and enjoyed mediabrowser because of it's look and feel over other solutions like mediaportal, xbmc, or plex. This group still considered DVR a second priority at best (or didn't use their HTPC for DVR at all) but enjoyed the added windows support of the mediabrowser community (since windows was a requirement for it to work at all) Most of this group's MB3 needs will be served by MBT when it's fully finished or they enjoy MBC for nostalgia, but I think it's safe to say most of this group is not interested in XBMC and hasn't been for quite some time. Had they been they would have switched to it long before MB3 came into fruition. There will always be some kind of reason that XBMC isn't a good solution for them (too hard to install, too hard to setup, not mediabrowser-y enough, etc) Third Group Essentially this is everyone else in my mind, and should be the target audience for XBMB3C as they are the most likely to use it Many fall into here Those who favor a non-windows HTPC (OpenELEC) Those who want a centrally managed dedicated-htpc/mobile experience Those who consider MB3 the best/easiest way to centrally manage their media library Anyone curious and wanting to try XBMC alongside MBT or MBC, etc RPi, FireTV, ARM-HTPC enthusiasts XBMC fans looking for a better library experience Any Group Interested in XBMB3C I think mostly these are those who fall in the third group, but I'm really just thinking out loud ~ opinions only of course At the point where someone is willing to run XBMB3C for their 24/7 HTPC experience (usually in their living room, theater room, bedroom, etc) I think they require the following things to continue using it Stability Eye candy Fluidity, fast eperience, etc To tackle the stability, there are a couple things that aren't quite sorted Why is there an SMB/HTTP option? Does it need to be selectable? Does a beginner know why they might want to use it? How often are users inundated with false errors?Any small restart of the server is relayed through to the add-on and a popup is generated I see these frequently even though my server runs on a UPS and physically restarts very rarely Sometimes these errors popup when library loading times out Other times aren't yet understood fully http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/10125-ignoresuppress-error-output/ Should some options be removed after they are deprecated by skins? (Show Info XBMB3C dialog vs built-in, Include People, Include Overviews, etc) To tackle the eye candy there are a number of completions that you guys finished already Actors Disc Art Clear Art/Logos Overviews Backdrops/Posters/Thumbnails Trailers On the fluidity front I really don't have much to point out, clearly you guys have improved this often. I haven't checked recently, but for a while the process_background_loader was creating somewhat of an XBMC_log spew that should have been removed unless XBMB3C logging was set to something other than 0. Null_pointer's new image caching is a cool improvement also. I'm also sure xnappo's RPi testing as well as conversations you guys have that I know nothing about undoubtedly have improved the add-ons fluidity over the past year (it really has come a long way, but a few tweaks can take it all the way to primetime as far as I'm concerned) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xnappo 1593 Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) Thanks for the comments - interesting to hear from a long time MB user. Just some comments on the changes you suggest: Why is there an SMB/HTTP option? Does it need to be selectable? Does a beginner know why they might want to use it? Well, in a perfect world it would not be needed. But we still get people with incorrect server setups, and weird network permission problems. Since we are supporting more OSs, it isn't as simple as Window only. I don't see why we would remove this, it the user doesn't know what it is they shouldn't touch it. I don't mind moving it to the 'Advanced' tab though. How often are users inundated with false errors?Any small restart of the server is relayed through to the add-on and a popup is generated I see these frequently even though my server runs on a UPS and physically restarts very rarely Sometimes these errors popup when library loading times out Other times aren't yet understood fully http://mediabrowser....s-error-output/ Well, those are not false errors - but I agree they are annoying when they are not fatal errors. We will add a re-try in and see how that goes, but it would be easy to make it an option. If you don't mind doing some testing with this... Simple open up plugin.video.xbmc\lib\resources\DownloadUtils.py, go to 'def downloadUrl' and change 'supress=False' to 'supress=True'. This should hide the errors most of the time. Should some options be removed after they are deprecated by skins? (Show Info XBMB3C dialog vs built-in, Include People, Include Overviews, etc) Perhaps we should move the setting into the skin - but these are needed somewhere. Just one more comment - obviously I am more into using XBMB3C than most, but I have it very tightly integrated with WMC using my remote. Using AutoHotKey, my remote switches to WMC when I press 'List' or 'Guide'. There is another button to switch back to XBMC. I have WTV files set up with WMC as the XBMC external player. Non CCI files get renamed to MPG nightly so the XBMC player will be used instead. In all, this end up very similar to my old MBC setup - but I like the speed of XBMC on my aging HTPC. This does not work with extenders, so in my Home Theatre I just use native WMC on the XBOX360 for the few times I watch TV in there (aka GoT ) . Anyway, I don't expect anyone else to do this, just thought it might be interesting. xnappo Edited November 15, 2014 by xnappo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark_slayer 103 Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) Thanks for the reply, I'm definitely going to test that out when I'm home later tonight Looking at things on tapatalk, I realize it hides my snazzy formatting where I did a strikethrough for the entire eye candy list except trailers Trailers Where are they specifically? I can see a youtube link to every movie in my library on the server web page, but I guess that's not how they are supposed to work So far I think they've been added to Eminence 1080XF Titan However, I can't get any of them to play in Titan or Eminence. The "trailer" button at least shows up in Eminence, but it doesn't play anything. Are these only supposed to support the concept of downloading a trailer to your media library? I'm not sure what the target is, and by that same token I'm not sure what the "local trailers" plugin does for the server vs the "trailers" plugin. I really don't want to download 1800 trailers, but I was really accustomed to the good 'ol XBMC way of just pointing to youtube and playing it's best-guess result similar to the way @@Luke made the server work through the web client Edited November 15, 2014 by dark_slayer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37063 Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 the local trailers plugin has been removed from the catalog. it's features will be merged into the trailer channel plugin. this should help clear up any confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark_slayer 103 Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 What does the Local Trailers plugin that's still installed on my server do? I was hoping XBMB3C could simply support Youtube trailers the way XBMC always has ~ really hate the idea of downloading trailers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macburp 109 Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I'm not so sure your second group (of which I am one I think) will automatically be windows users. I believe that MB should have a client for a low cost box running linux or android. This could be XBMB3C but is is just as likely to be the 10ft version of the android app running on Fire TV or a Nexus Player. I love the look and feel of Mediabrowser, which IMHO is far superior than any skin I've seen so far for XBMC. I also love to use the web client and android / ipad apps when on the road. I find XBMC a bit complicated to set up use, which doesn't fit well with other clients which are easier to set up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark_slayer 103 Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 Well, those are not false errors - but I agree they are annoying when they are not fatal errors. We will add a re-try in and see how that goes, but it would be easy to make it an option. If you don't mind doing some testing with this... Simple open up plugin.video.xbmc\lib\resources\DownloadUtils.py, go to 'def downloadUrl' and change 'supress=False' to 'supress=True'. This should hide the errors most of the time. Cool, I changed it up so I'll have to see if it pops and error when I resume from sleep tomorrow For anyone wanting to change that in OpenELEC you need a terminal of some sort (terminal emulator on android phone, terminal in any unix based computer, or putty in windows) Make sure SSH is enabled in OpenELEC settings and then type these into your terminal ssh root@ip.address.of.openelecbox root@ip.address.of.openelecbox's password:openelec ############################################## # OpenELEC - The living room PC for everyone # # ...... visit http://www.openelec.tv ...... # ############################################## OpenELEC Version: 4.0.6 OpenELEC:~ # nano .xbmc/addons/plugin.video.xbmb3c/resources/lib/DownloadUtils.py after typing "nano .xbmc/addons/plugin.video.xbmb3c/resources/lib/DownloadUtils.py" the DownloadUtils.py file should open for editing, and in nano you can search with control-W Then just search for "def downloadURL" and edit the 'suppress=False' to 'suppress=True' Afterwards hit control-X to exit and it will ask you to save, then you can type exit to close your SSH session Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts