NextPVR 2.03 vs. GB-PVR 1.4.7; very long paths in GB-PVR

[next]

Can you please stop calling it Next, the name is npvr, NOT next.

Sorry that you don't like my abbreviation.
But I don't understand why you put so much pressure on it. The official name clearly is "NextPVR", neither "npvr" nor "NPVR". So "Next" is an abbreviation of the official name about on the same level as "NPVR" or "npvr. You (and others) like yours, I like mine.

Especially in the context of a repeated comparision between "GB-PVR" and "NextPVR" I think leaving out "PVR" is completely justifiable, as it is a common part that makes no distinction.

[next]

Jaggy has reported several times that fonts in 640x576 (PAL) mode look and appear quite differently on a 4x3 monitor. If your video card can handle it set the UI Resolution for 800x600 I think it looks best for PAL and NTSC monitors.

I watch on a LCD computer display with 1024x768x32, not on TV. The graphic card is middle range, the display itself bad.

Anyhow, the screenshots I uploaded and that you can see are probably independent of any actual graphics hardware (apart from general configuration settings in Windows in view of the hardware later in the viewing chain).

[next]

What resolution are you running?

1024x768x32

No matter what you do, the text in both NPVR and GBPVR look pretty crappy at low resolutions like 720x576 or 720x480. With these there just isnt enough DPI for Windows to produce sharp anti-aliased text. I'm sure you probably know that though, because one of your pictures shows the menu in fullscreen mode, with a decent resolution, and the text looks pretty good.

Regarding fullscreen mode I'm content with the text quality of both applications.

Another thing worth noting, is both NPVR and GBPVR were designed for fullscreen usage, so they render everything to look best at the fullscreen resolution. When you run in Window, DirectX has to shrink the picture down, and you lose some quality.

I did not realize it consciously before but yes, you scale the screen in its wholeness. (It would be possible that text resolution would change by scaling a window, e.g. from 135x43 to 80x25 or whatever.)
Still I have a better impression of the fonts in a scaled window in GB than in Next.
Trying to analyze the reason for that I found:
- the problem is most pronounced with white on black
- the problem is most pronounced in the program guide (not tested extensively)
- The font in the guide seems to be narrower in Next than in GB and the weight of it bold or semi-bold in GB while normal in Next.

Regarding getting annoyed about the limits on attachment sizes, and forcing people to zip their attachments - I have to do this to keep the backups manageable. This is not a commercial project, and the donations dont even cover the costs of web hosting and backup service. Just get over it. It's not worth getting upset over.

Ok for the total size of uploads.
But whether I do the upload in one, two or five pieces doesn't change the overall size.
And weather I use one, four or 10 smilies won't change anything in regard to size.
Anyhow, I will get over it!
Sorry that I'm not in a good financial position.

[sub]

I dont really do manual recordings myself, but this is an easy change. No one else had mentioned it.

I assume everybody who does manual recording likes some hint included in the name. So probably nearly nobody uses manual recording. Anyhow, to me it would be helpful.

To be honest, I would have expected most people to set the name when they make a recording. ie, instead of leaving the recording name as 'default' you'd probably have changed it to 'CSI NY' or something.

True it doesnt change color when recording. It does alow you to click the icon to see what it is current up to. Its an easy change if people want this feature though.

To me it is absolutely important to have this feedback "along the way", expressely without having to click somewhere to get the information.

Ok, I'll add this or the next build.

I dont really see any difference between the two apps when playing recordings (or other video files). They both show a timeline, and you click on them to skip to different part of the file. Both seem to skip as quickly and and update the OSD in as quickly. What specifically is happening with NPVR that makes you dislike it for this?

In GB I click into the time line and get a reaction after 1/3 of a second for the view and the bar as well. And I have the navigation bar for jumping in 10' gaps and to the beginning and the end, also for pausing with the mouse.
In Next clicking into the time line lets the view change to the new position as fast as in GB, but updating the bar takes about a full second. And I don't see any navigation bar.

I just tried it here, and I cant seen any difference in speed of this between GBPVR and NPVR. It might depend on the type of file you're watching at the time, and the decoders it's using.

In both apps I don't know how to navigate with the keyboard. I would expect <Space> at least to pause and continue, but even that I can't do.

You can find the keyboard reference at http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...dReference. Pause is Ctrl-Q, Play is Ctrl-P.

[SickBoy]

I'll ditto the request for the tray icon changing color while a recording is occurring. Makes it easy to check to see if I can safely reboot or not

[Reddwarf]

Sorry that you don't like my abbreviation.
But I don't understand why you put so much pressure on it. The official name clearly is "NextPVR", neither "npvr" nor "NPVR". So "Next" is an abbreviation of the official name about on the same level as "NPVR" or "npvr. You (and others) like yours, I like mine.

Especially in the context of a repeated comparision between "GB-PVR" and "NextPVR" I think leaving out "PVR" is completely justifiable, as it is a common part that makes no distinction.

Nope. The name of the user interface is NextPVR, but the name of the whole system is NPVR. Even if you don't like the name you should respect it and not use your own here in the forum.

[next]

To be honest, I would have expected most people to set the name when they make a recording. ie, instead of leaving the recording name as 'default' you'd probably have changed it to 'CSI NY' or something.

Ah! I wasn't aware of this possibility. It's nearly embarassing... So please disregard my comment on this.

I just tried it here, and I cant seen any difference in speed of this between GBPVR and NPVR. It might depend on the type of file you're watching at the time, and the decoders it's using.

Hm. Possible that I have bad luck.

You can find the keyboard reference at http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...dReference. Pause is Ctrl-Q, Play is Ctrl-P.

Ok, that makes quite a difference. Thank you.

Thank you for responding so fast and dedicatedly. And you even do so nice nested quoting. I did not succeed in this.

Building on the naming problem I had I'd like to share my vision of the recordings handling. Just take it as an idea, not as a request for enhancement (because it would be very much work):

In the end I need a library of films to work with.
The list of recordings would be just the beginning of an extended films database front end.
One could edit every entry after recording, i.e. change the name, comment, tag and add bookmarks which could be handled as in Firefox - for whole films and single positions in films as well.
One could cut a recording, e.g. take out the commercials or separate a manual recording of several different shows into its parts, and put the result back into the database. With other words: One could add entries by hand instead of by recording.

I don't know how far the Video and the DVD parts of Next or GB do this already. Anyhow, the vision is integration - one database for all kind of media where source or form is just one field. The recordings list would be a filtered, in some way special view.

[Reddwarf]

Maybe you should go for a pure video/movie managment system. I know there are sevral apps out there. Then you could just do the recordings with Wintv7 or WMC.