What are your skin preferences?

[steeb]

Good ask Hairy!

1. b
2. b
3. a
4. a
5. b
6. a
7. b
8. b

Keep up the great work

Steeb

[smajor]

1. b
2. b
3. a
4. a
5. a
6. b
7. b
8. a

Info: Our two primary TVs are a 32" and 42". My personal opinion is that text can be smaller if it is "bolder" in order to read it or a suitable faux bold font is used.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I'm surprised most people don't want an overscan area. If you're using an NMT, a skin without overscan is useless in my opinion. Most TV's have overscan turned on. I can turn it off, but than my recordings have a very nervous line on top of the screen. Or can I do some sort of trick to make my recording watchable without overscan?

Chris

[mulletback]

1 b
2 b
3 b
4 a - 3 & 4 need to coordinate
5 a
6 b - I edit xmltv to promote subtitles anyway
7 b
8 b - but, see 3 & 4

running on a 40" 16x10 lcd

[sub]

I'm surprised most people don't want an overscan area. If you're using an NMT, a skin without overscan is useless in my opinion. Most TV's have overscan turned on. I can turn it off, but than my recordings have a very nervous line on top of the screen. Or can I do some sort of trick to make my recording watchable without overscan?

Remember the skin having some overscan space around the edge has nothing to do with how big the video ends up on the screen during playback. It only affects the application menus, and you can tweak the <MVPSpecificSettings> settings in config.xml to make sure you see every bit of the menus, but adjusting the OffsetX/OffsetY and the Width/Height.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Remember the skin having some overscan space around the edge has nothing to do with how big the video ends up on the screen during playback. It only affects the application menus, and you can tweak the <MVPSpecificSettings> settings in config.xml to make sure you see every bit of the menus, but adjusting the OffsetX/OffsetY and the Width/Height.

I understand what your saying. My problem is that I can turn off overscan on my TV, but then I get this nervous video line on the top of the video. Someone once told me that line contains the teletext, but I don't know if that's true. Anyway, the suggestion to change the offset is probably a good idea, if the future wave skin doesn't have the overscan area.

[pBS]

i have a 4:3 1080i tv and it has TONS of overscan, but this is the worst case scenario and very rare..
i simply *have* to tweak everything to fit on it...
but I wouldn't dare suggest making skins have to account for it...

[7ore]

Interesting. I've summarized the answers up 'til now:

1. Is your preference in backgrounds a) Bright colourful or b) darker more mono-chromatic
   11 B
   
2. Is it important to have a) an overscan border or b) no overscan (1:1 pixel mapping) and fit more on screen
   1 A, 11 B
   
3. Do you prefer your default text to be a) larger or b) smaller (for example Wave started with 11pt text and is now 12.5pt)
   8 A, 2 B
   
4. Do you prefer a) high contrast between text and background or b) more subtle contrast (e.g. use yellow text for titles vs Waves' use of blue)
   9 A, 2 B
   
5. Should preference be given to a) number of TV channels in listings or b) larger show descriptions
   6 A, 6 B
   
6. Should preference be given to a) show subtitle or b) show description
   5 A, 6 B
   
7. Should preference be given to a) long file titles or b) descriptions and artwork
   1 A, 10 B
   
8. Should preference be given to a) Bold text styles or b) Plain text styles (more specifically in titles and subtitles)
   1 A, 9 B
   

[tieke]

1. b) darker more mono-chromatic
2. b)
3. a) larger
4. a) high contrast
5. b) larger show descriptions
6. b) show description
7. b) descriptions and artwork
8. a) Bold text styles

[Hairy]

A shameless bump, to try and get as many responses as I can.

Also to thank those who have responded. A pattern appears to be emerging (thanks 7ore) and it's really useful and interesting info.

Cheers