Help make new default skin

[nkh]

nkh - NTSC and PAL do have the same aspect ratio, so the image shouldn't be squashed - the error in your test was that you used a PAL resolution of 720x576 rather than 768x576 (unless you live in South America of course, where PAL-D is used, which gets a bit confusing).

Hmm, GBpvr records in "NTSC 720x480 / PAL 720x576" with the Hauppauge cards according to the config app?

anyways, the picture looks "right" on my PAL tv with a gbpvr skin in 720x576 and it looks "wrong" with a skin in 720x480. I guess it could be my computer that's doing strange things....

[nkh]

Windows will scale the image to fullscreen. The reason you are getting distortion on your example is that a 480line picture needs 640pixels horizontal to give the correct aspect ratio (4:3) for square pixels. for 576 lines you need 768pixels. 720 is quite close to this so you get pretty good circles. 640 is not very close to 720 so you get distortion.

All you need for a 4:3 display is a horizontal to vertical ratio of 4:3. If you draw a circle on a picture with this aspect ratio it will be a circle. 800x600 will work. etc.

Kev

In that case the default skin should be 800x600 or something like that then?

[tieke]

I find one of the greatest problems with the skinning is the amount of time it takes to actually create the skin - basically every time you make a change you have to save your skin.xml file, restart GB-PVR, navigate to the plug-in page to check your results, estimate any skin.xml adjustments still needed then exit GB-PVR and return to step one.

Of course a WYSIWYG skin-creation GUI would be nice , but more realistically is there any possibility of running GB-PVR in a skin-creation mode so that after you have saved the changes you could push a refresh button (F5?) and force GB-PVR to reload the skin without having to physically close and restart?

Also, if there the available skin functions were listed somewhere that would be cool too - I use drawRect and drawRoundedRect to create any squares/circles etc needed within the xml file without having to use external images, but was a bit stumped the other day when I tried to create a triangle - DrawPolygon may be available, but I had a few stabs at what I thought the parameters would be before giving up and just inserting a png.

[Kevl]

The point nkh makes is a good one though. There are two common TV display aspect ratios. 4:3 and the newer 16:9.

Sub is wanting to know how to improve the appearance of GBPVR. It seems to me that having skins that can give optimal resulats on both display types would help appearance.

I would also argue that increasing the resolution of the skin will also help those with large display devices and also improve the appearance of the GBPVR front end for all users.

Kev

[Kevl]

In that case the default skin should be 800x600 or something like that then?

I would favour 1280 x 720 for 16:9 and 960 x 720 for 4:3 as these are supported as native resolutions for the newer high res TVs that we will end up buying in a year or two.

Kev

[ShiningDragon]

I would favour 1280 x 720 for 16:9 and 960 x 720 for 4:3 as these are supported as native resolutions for the newer high res TVs that we will end up buying in a year or two.

Kev

The Idea is good; perfect for pictures und wallpapers. But i see one Problem: The Fontsize! If you create a background with this size and make buttons with optimal fontsize, what do you think how it's look on actually tv's?

After i resized from the standard-size to 768 x 576 i had to raise the fontsize too.

[Kevl]

pls see my orignal statement about me having no clue about skinning. (maybe I should add it my sig :-) )

I had presumed that windows resizes the fonts when it rescales the window. Damn that makes it really difficult. Is there no way to make the fonts scale with window size?

Kev

[nkh]

I would favour 1280 x 720 for 16:9 and 960 x 720 for 4:3 as these are supported as native resolutions for the newer high res TVs that we will end up buying in a year or two.

That sounds like a nice solution, I'll try to remember that the next time I try to make a skin

[groover km]

You know, after reading 12 pages of posts regarding a default skin, you know what I think would be nice?

Just a simple skin, rendered in xml with only one or two png files, that was quick to load and responsive, worked on pc and mvp, focused on core components, maybe predominantly one colour that would be easy to refer to, we could even call it 'blue' or somethi... oh wait.

I'll get me coat.

[humpty]

For what it is worth...

I think we are getting a bit off topic here when discussing the finer details of aspect ratios... etc. <no offence intended>

The majority of the input that I have read so far is that we are looking for a skin that highlights the functions that we all use most without becoming too combersome for the MVP users and too unwowing for the PC users.

I believe that the simpler the better. Simple does not have to be ugly - but putting a bunch of graphics all over the place isnt neccessary either.

I like the XMEDIA look on my TV through MVP PVR and the BlueMCE2 is excellent on the LCD panel TV as well as the PC - but it is a bit slow.

Adding the groups will allow for a sub-main screen (showing the group) that will keep it very simple to display 4 or so things on a screen at a time, BIG and bright on a dark background. Offer a simple way for people to change the few colours that are used in some sort of config panel if they want to (something like cascading style sheets).

I love the performance when using Blue - I dont think it is that far off of what we need.

Keep the bottom of the screen to show what each of the coloured buttons does so that it is always in the same spot.

Ok... now I think I am just blabbing... it's pretty late here and gbpvr has kept me up too many nights in a row... love this thing.