MLPanel Screen Saver

[DuncanCW]

Great work! I suggest adding a sample screen in the rotation that doesn't use the muted text colors. On an LCD TV they look great, but on an old fashion TV, they become unreadable. I like this program as a NOW PLAYING plugin more than a Screen Saver for the MVP.

Each time the screen updates, the album art is rotated through 6 versions. One screen looks exceptional, but the next is obviously a thumbnail or something stretched to fill the screen and looks very fuzzy. They don't seem to be in order, so specifying the first image may not select the best image.

How do I tell MLPanel to only display the BEST version, I'm guessing the one with the highest resolution?

I know I could change the update frequency to that of the longest song, but then I loose the movement and approximately where we are in the track.

[ACTCMS]

Great work! I suggest adding a sample screen in the rotation that doesn't use the muted text colors. On an LCD TV they look great, but on an old fashion TV, they become unreadable. I like this program as a NOW PLAYING plugin more than a Screen Saver for the MVP.

Each time the screen updates, the album art is rotated through 6 versions. One screen looks exceptional, but the next is obviously a thumbnail or something stretched to fill the screen and looks very fuzzy. They don't seem to be in order, so specifying the first image may not select the best image.

How do I tell MLPanel to only display the BEST version, I'm guessing the one with the highest resolution?

I know I could change the update frequency to that of the longest song, but then I loose the movement and approximately where we are in the track.

We're glad you like the plugin.

I'll leave it to Jaggy to respond to your skin suggestion.



As to your problem with fuzzy images, for the currently playing track, MLPanel builds a list of images from various sources:

• It starts by looking for AA embedded in the MP3 itself.
  
• It then adds all jpg, gif and png files found in the MP3's containing folder to the list.
  
• It then looks for a file called Artist - Album.jpg in Media\MusicArt\Album and adds that to the list.
  
• Finally it cycles through the list while the track is playing.
  

I did it this way to try and find something for everyone, no matter how they got their album art. Some folks also like to keep Front and Back cover AA. At the moment there is no way to be more specific but, given your feedback, it looks like it's now time to think about making the AA source(s) a bit more user definable so, added to wish list.


In the meantime, I'd be very interested to have a copy of the images you are seeing (apart from the embedded one) - could you use the rules above to find and build a zip file of the 5 (or 6) images involved and post them here (or PM me and I'll give you an email address).

[Jaggy]

Great work! I suggest adding a sample screen in the rotation that doesn't use the muted text colors. On an LCD TV they look great, but on an old fashion TV, they become unreadable. I like this program as a NOW PLAYING plugin more than a Screen Saver for the MVP.

Interesting enough both ACTCMS & I only had old CRT TVs at the time of doing MLP & it's easy to see on all my 3 TVs (33", 20" & 14"). There is no problem changing it to display non muted text, or adding a sample view (which view would you suggest?) I think it will probably be best to have a sample view as you suggest & instructions on how to change the display colours for the text. Maybe ACTCMS has some idea of how we could do this within the plugin?

[gazoo]

Having some troubles with the plugin. I installed it and change the config.xml file to make it use it. Also, I didn't change anything in the configuration so it's fairly 'stock'. All I want it to do is show the album art and name of the song when I'm playing it. However, I go to music library and it never goes to screen saver mode - just stays at video library. Any advice?

[7ore]

Have you enabled screensaver in config.exe, the Misc tab?

[Jaggy]

Along the lines of 7ores question did the built in screensaver work before you installed MLP? Did MLP show in config after you installed it & did you enable it? Can you see it on the main menu & if so when you select it does it work either when playing music or not playing music?

ACTCMS should be along shortly & he may have some other ideas that I can't think of at the moment but I would suspect he will ask for the logs

[gazoo]

yes, screensaver worked before. It shows up in the config and is checked, but not when pvrx2 is running on the main menu.

[ACTCMS]

yes, screensaver worked before. It shows up in the config and is checked, but not when pvrx2 is running on the main menu.

Could you start pvrx2 then, once the main menu appears, stop it and post your pvrx2.exe.log and interfaces.dll.log files please.

Depending on whether or not you use MusicLibrary2, you will find the interfaces.dll.log file in Plugins\MLPanel or Plugins\MusicLibrary2 or Plugins\Common. If you find more than one, just post them all.

Alex

[ryanmc]

ACTCMS,Jaggy
I really like the screen saver, looks good. Would you consider adding 2 bits more functionality. I like the REC msg when somethings recording was wondering if you might ever add the title of whats recording too like the vascreensaver did also the weather plugin used to show current temp and weather that was neat too. but eitherway thanks nice job.

[ACTCMS]

ACTCMS,Jaggy
I really like the screen saver, looks good. Would you consider adding 2 bits more functionality. I like the REC msg when somethings recording was wondering if you might ever add the title of whats recording too like the vascreensaver did also the weather plugin used to show current temp and weather that was neat too. but eitherway thanks nice job.

It's great that you like it. We would be interested to know how you use it - playing now, slideshow or both?

FYI the REC indicator currently shows if any tuner is active (watching live TV as well as recording). We've considered displaying some detail, but it becomes a bit more complicated (screen estate wise) with multiple tuners - I've got four. We figured that at some time we would extend the Yellow key (^Y) functionality to include other 'modes' like current tuner status, but there are other ways of doing it. Since you've requested it, consider it moved upwards in the todo list.

Thanks for the feedback...