3 simple suggestions

[jonathonsunshine]

ok.. my 1st suggestion is about thumbnails. if i have a video on my pc's hd, and do a imdb lookup, it will download the picture and remember it. when i transfer that video to cd/dvd and play it in the xbox, it no longer has the thumbnail. this suggests to me that xbmc is remembering thumbnails through the entire path, ie smb://mshome/19244blah blah blah/movie.avi xbmc should associate the thumbnails with only the file name.

my next suggestion it that when xbmc looks up info for a film on imdb and only finds one match (that more often than not is wrong, especially when alliance or dmt or flt or whatever is appended to the title), it should ask if it is indeed correct or do you want to edit the search string.

and finally in the video settings menu, there should be an option to turn off subtitles by default.


thats about it. these all seem like very simple improvements (to me anyway, don't blast me if i'm wrong)

[jmarshall]

about the imdb thing, it cleans (filters) the filenames before searching the imdb - i guess perhaps it needs more filters.

please specify all the filters you can think of (that should be removed) and i'll add them in.

about thumbs: many files can have the same filename - xbmc uses the path + filename for this very purpose. this probably isn't as big an issue with videos though - any other thoughts?

and finally, i have nothing at all against a setting to turn off subs by default. imo that should always be the default, but others may well disagree. i guess a setting could be added. if you don't want subs, however, why do you have them? are they muxed in subs, or separate?

cheers,
jonathan

[jonathonsunshine]

first of all let me say how much i appreciate that my opinion was actually listened too.

about the imdb thing, it cleans (filters) the filenames before searching the imdb - i guess perhaps it needs more filters.

add: kjs

althou i have a few more search strings this solution would be of little value to anyone but myself which is why i still feel a simple prompt for verification is the best way to go.

especially since if it wants to pick the wrong movie (ie, bypass the list and go straight to the wrong movie), there is no option to search for a different string, you have to change the file name. too bad if you have already burnt it to disk.

you pretty much have to double check file names just to make sure they are "imdb compliant" once before you burn it, and then again if you ever actualy want to use it again on the xbox.

about thumbs: many files can have the same filename - xbmc uses the path + filename for this very purpose. this probably isn't as big an issue with videos though - any other thoughts?

instead of using the directory path to identify files, use the file size in bytes. :thumbsup: would work for images as well.

i have nothing at all against a setting to turn off subs by default. imo that should always be the default, but others may well disagree.

at the very least, with stacking enabled xbmc should remember your subtitle (and audio track selections) when automatically to the next file.

also thou, if the subtitle file has the word "forced" in it, then it should overide not being played by default.

as a slightly more radical idea, since you guys will now (hopefully) be using the name and filesize to uniquely identify files you could add subtitle information to the thumbnails and imdb info as well. just the name of the subtitle that was used last time the file was played or whether the user had disabled subs when watching that film.

& finally, i like subtitles because sometimes i wanna watch movies late at night and don't wanna wake up my roomies. its heaps better than scrambling for the remote everytime something blowsup. and lets not forget the films where you just can't hear/understand what the hell they are saying. ie: trainspotting, alien 3 and especially the restored work print of alien 3. also i always get the idx/sub packs off the net cause every once and a while they will have a transcript of the commentary tracks.

thanx for reading this
and especially thanxs for analogue dts output (or is that more the mplayer guys?)

anyways, thanx in general

johnnys

[ech0]

instead of a filesize check, do checksum

[jonathonsunshine]

doing a checksum would chew up a fair bit of cpu time (?) and i don't think most of the kids would stand for it.

besides an invalid checksum doesn't mean its a different movie & i wouldn't want to trust a philips or thompson drive to tell me if my disc is corrupt. if you need to verify the integrity of the file just copy it to the hard drive.

imo you should always do that if you have to use your xbox dvdrom, theres nothing worse than it crashing half way through a good flick, its better to not watch it at all.