XBMC skin suite by wabidwoveren (XME)

[wabidwoveren]

i know many people are looking for a clean skin, and i think heres the perfect solution for you. this suite is called xbox media experience, and currently has skins for unleashx, xbmp, xbmc, evox, avalaunch, mediaxmenu, and bo-xlink.

xme screenshots (http://www.gruposid.com/dell/screenshots)

edit: contrary to the title it is called xbox media experience

[Morien]

lookin good wabidwoveren,
in anticipation i tried hacking together a skin from the already uploaded files in the xbmc skin upload directory, however it didn't quite work out :(

morien

[wabidwoveren]

awesome news guys, shadow and i were looking through the dell software to find something to make it legal, and look what was found

* use of pictures licensed by third parties
you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to these pictures from third parties.

so everyone go vote for our skin!!!!

[ludo2]

hehe, very teasing

now before we vote for your skin, maybe we should have chance to install it so : when / where is it going to be available ?

[zilvershadow]

wow that skin looks great!

especially the transparent osd! i love that!

[Frodo]

xbmc got a facelift today
untill know we where using a skin based on windows xp mediacenter. unfortunaly this skin and its graphics are copyrighted.

thanks to shadowmx, chokeman and wabid we now have a new default skin based on the dell mediacenter
this skin is legal, no copyrights and will be the default skin of xbmc from now on.

its already in cvs, screenshots will b coming soon.
but here's a preview:
http://www.gruposid.com/dell/screenshots/xbmc/index.htm

frodo

[Frodo]

read here:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....t=2170; (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=1;t=2170;)
frodo

[Piwi]

great! :d

[nimbles]

this skin looks really cool and i appreciate the unnescessary shots of naomi watts in her skimpies too :d

any chance that the skin will be released before the next point release?

just out of interest is the control bar during the movie a new feature-i assume its of the auto hide variety or will there be an option to enable it as such?

i can't say i've come across it in xbmc thus far

great work team xbmc!! :)

[wabidwoveren]

like frodo said, the skin is already released. check the source forge cvs, it has all the graphics

[Beelzebub]

i tried it i thought it was pretty clean and smooth

[ezar2003]

genial!!!

error when press the exit botton -> the exit image move.

pal mode

[Xylene]

does anyone have a .zip of this skin or anything. it'll take forever to grab every file from the web cvs thing.

[wabidwoveren]

error when press the exit botton -> the exit image move.
this has been fixed

error when press the exit botton -> the exit image move.
not yet, just get tortoisecvs and grab it all at once, if you want it now. but xbmc is getting alot of bug fixes in its code to support this skin better.

just out of interest is the control bar during the movie a new feature-i assume its of the auto hide variety or will there be an option to enable it as such?
if you dont use cvs then you missed out on the first osd already. it dosnt autohide though, y brings it up and puts it away.
ckeck out the old osd skin quick , cuz you may never see it.

hi all,

quick update on the current state of play.

i've created a new window object just for the osd, which is fully skinable just like any other xbmc window. all the basic functions (stop/play/ffwd/rewind etc.) all work now. i'm working on the sub-menu elements now.

the screenshot shows an example osd (cool graphics by floink) and shows a demo volume sub-menu active (i know it looks horrible at the moment, this is work in progress remember!). remember - with it being skinnable, how it looks, where it appears etc. is all up to you

hopefully have something more complete and polished looking next week.
http://www.sammibranson.co.uk/stuff/osd_wip.jpg
and here is our osd
http://dday.tx-shells.net/wabid/xbmc/thumb/8osd.jpg http://dday.tx-shells.net/wabid/xbmc/thumb/8osdopts.jpg

if you want i can zip it up and email it or something.
the skin rared is 6.58 mb, so you might wanna wait for allxboxskins. again i recommend not using this skin unless u have a build from today of xbmc.

[Beelzebub]

does anyone have a .zip of this skin or anything. it'll take forever to grab every file from the web cvs thing.
if you want i can zip it up and email it or something.

[Nickman]

looks great.

just tried it out after my first sucessful build from the cvs *:lol:
but i can't get the osd to show up.. maybe i missed some files or maybe the anon cvs i lagging again ?

great work. nice look for a default skin. but my favorite is still blackblue.

:edit:
got the osd to show up by switching to ntsc... later i copied some files missing in the pal drawer of the skin and i worked in pal to... so no problem =)

[wabidwoveren]

blackblue decided to adopt our icons, so it looks alot more like our skin now. also he changed it alot and some people dont like it as much.

[Beelzebub]

i'm having a problem with the latest cvs/skin where if i go to the exit button on top which is suppose to shut it down? and the other im guessing is suppose to reboot but when i go to them the screen just goes black and stays black and the xbox stays on. i have even deleted the udata and tdata to see if that would fix it but still happens now i have to keep shutting it off by pressing power button on xbox

[wabidwoveren]

the skin is up check the screenshots site

[anakinz]

nice job ;)

[ludo2]

same pb as beelzebub : none of the exit / reboot button give a relaunch / shut down.

in fact the program launch shortcuts do not work either.

i am not sure that this is skin based probem.

this looks like this latest cvs built yesterday 7.3.4 at 17h00 does not allow program exit. could this be python script related ?

apart from that, you guys really did an amazing "art direction" for this media experience skin that looks both very
- professionnal
-fresh and vivid

well done.

lud

re-edit : relaunch pb solved with new cvs. everything works well done everybody !!!

[Beelzebub]

frodo fixed the problem with the exit/reboot and launching apps in latest cvs :)

[tamper]

* use of pictures licensed by third parties
you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to these pictures from third parties.

does this really make xme legal? how do you know that the ripped pictures are the third-party ones? and even if they are, the usage covers work created by use of the software, which implies intended use, not ripping out bits of it to make a different application.

not that i really care, but sometimes the rather 'unique' interpretation of licensing by the xbox community gets my goat.

[jamal]

very nice !!!
thanxxx :)

[thebeast]

congratulations!

i hope retro will be kept updated though.

[thebeast]

congratulations!

i hope retro will be kept up-to-date by the relevant people though.

[xman]

has anyone got the link for the new skin?

[mknight]

i really like the new skin, so don't get me wrong, but i am not sure i follow the logic as to why this one was chosen as the new default skin. it was said...

until now we were using a skin based on windows xp mediacenter. unfortunately this skin and its graphics are copyrighted.

but this skin based on dell media center experience program which is also copyrighted. so changing to this skin does not really address the copyright issue at all. i was expecting the new default skin to be one of the ones with original graphics like retro, hifi or blueblack.

[MortUK]

wow, nice skin, by far the best.. can i change my vote.?

about the legal thing it does say that you can use the artwork, the opening line is "you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software". the main restriction being that "you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners"

or am i reading this wrong..?

[wabidwoveren]

does this really make xme legal? how do you know that the ripped pictures are the third-party ones? and even if they are, the usage covers work created by use of the software, which implies intended use, not ripping out bits of it to make a different application.

not that i really care, but sometimes the rather 'unique' interpretation of licensing by the xbox community gets my goat.
that is the company that actually made the software for dell, as it includes powerdvd, dell just put there name on it. the dell logo is only in the skin once and its on the exit logo :)

about the legal thing it does say that you can use the artwork, the opening line is "you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software". the main restriction being that "you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners"
xbmc itself is legal so its fine. its just when the usual places compile it that the line is gray, so its there problem

[wabidwoveren]

as far as i can tell the dell skin is not copywritten.

* use of pictures licensed by third parties
you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to these pictures from third parties.

[rdperalta]

cool skin :d

keep up the good work guys

[tamper]

i haven't seen the full license agreement so i could be wrong, but given the nature of the dell media experience i wouldn't be surprised if the 'third-party pictures' clause is referring to album artwork etc. pulled down as part of the cataloging process.

[Gamester17]

as far as i can tell the dell skin is not copywritten.

* use of pictures licensed by third parties
you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to these pictures from third parties.
can someone please post the full eula because that's not how i interpet that small section of the license, i read that as post pictures of this on your website as long as it referes to the dell software, as in reviews etc.. there is no way anyone can interpet that section alone as 'you may rip and re-use these pictures to do what you please with'. "the software" refers specifly to dell'as software in this case, and "licensed" means you have to get approval, something you most likely have to pay for.

and what exacly does "skin is based on dells mediacenter" mean?, point being if this dell skin uses any rippes or cloned pictures/images from dell then it's violates copywrite just as much as the mediacenter would do, so also need a yes or no answer to; where this pictures in the 'dell' skin ripped/cloned or not? if this skin does not use an rips or direct clones then it's mearly 'inspired by'..., which is a complete contrast to 'based on'.

sorry to sound all jumpy/offensive but it's something that needs to be cleared up before can officialy set it as a default xbmc skin

[Gamester17]

as far as i can tell the dell skin is not copywritten.

* use of pictures licensed by third parties
you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to these pictures from third parties.
can someone please post the full eula because that's not how i interpet that small section of the license, i read that as post pictures of this on your website as long as it referes to the dell software, as in reviews etc.. there is no way anyone can interpet that section alone as 'you may rip and re-use these pictures to do what you please with'. "the software" refers specifly to dell'as software in this case, and "licensed" means you have to get approval, something you most likely have to pay for.

and what exacly does "skin is based on dells mediacenter" mean?, point being if this dell skin uses any rippes or cloned pictures/images from dell then it's violates copywrite just as much as the mediacenter would do, so also need a yes or no answer to; where this pictures in the 'dell' skin ripped/cloned or not? if this skin does not use an rips or direct clones then it's mearly 'inspired by'..., which is a complete contrast to 'based on'.

sorry to sound all jumpy/offensive but it's something that needs to be cleared up before can officialy set it as a default xbmc skin

poing also made a few good points> ** use of pictures licensed by third parties
> you may use pictures, if any, provided in the software, which may be
> licensed from third parties, to demonstrate or complete your work created by
> the use of the software; provided that you should not use the pictures in
> any illegal or immoral manners, nor shall you grant your right to use to any
> third party. cyberlink does not provide any warranty or representation to
> these pictures from third parties.

could you paste the complete eula? based on this part, i don't think it's
right to assume that reuse of menu graphics is allowed.

"pictures, if any, provided in the software" -> are we even sure this
refers to menu graphics, and not included sample photos?

"[..] to demonstrate or complete your work created by the use of the
software;" -> even if we assume pictures refers to the menu graphics and
icons, this only states that we're allowed to use it to demonstrate dell
mediacenter, or complete work created by the use of the software. xbmc is
not demonstrating the dell mc nor is it created by the use of dell mc.

to me it seems most likely that this is referring to sample photos and not
the menu graphics, and that it's allowing you to include these samples in
any content that you produce with dell mc, and also for demonstrating dell
mc (in a pc retail environment or so).

also, let's think for a minute, why would they allow other companies or
people to copy the menu look & feel? there's nothing in it for dell. dell
mc is included on all new dell pcs as an alternative to the more expensive
windows media center edition, so it's supposed to promote dell pc sales
(it's not a free download nor can you buy it as a commercial product, as
far as i know). xbmc indirectly competes with dell pcs running dell mc, so
why would they let us reuse their custom designed menu graphics?

i think if we want a truly legal skin we have to choose one of the skins
created by homebrew authors, and make sure they didn't use any copyrighted
sources. i don't think any commercial software product will allow reuse of
their menu graphics for free.

poing

[Bitwize]

howdy!

i'm on a widescreen hdtv and applied the new default skin to xbmc. it seems there are some issues with the skin at 720p or 1080i. the top bar only runs half way across the screen and the buttons are positioned incorrectly when highlighted. this is also true of the text on the main menu buttons i believe. seems to be off-centered. i tried editing some of the xml files and resizing png files but couldn't get it to work right. this skin is awesome and can't wait to see the bugs worked out for widscreen hd users! thx.

[wabidwoveren]

for all this third party crap, dell is the third party, and its there graphics on top of the powerdvd player, this program is pretty basic, its just a gui ontop of powerdvd/windows media player.

[tamper]

for all this third party crap, dell is the third party, and its there graphics on top of the powerdvd player, this program is pretty basic, its just a gui ontop of powerdvd/windows media player.

i don't follow how this solves the legal question? i'm firmly with gamester17 on this. it's extremely unlikely that the xme skin is legal.

[jalla_nord]

just installed the 3-9-04 cvs w/the xbox media experience skinn and everything works fine except for the my weather part of it. checked the log file, and it seems like there are some problems with the myweather.xml and the loading of the skin (not changed - as in the official cvs).

-----------------------

10-03-2004 16:13:29 load default skin:[mediacenter]
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load skin from:q:\skin\mediacenter
10-03-2004 16:13:29 delete old skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load fonts for skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:29 loading fonts from q:\skin\mediacenter\font.xml
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font13 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font13.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font14 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font14.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font16 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font16.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:matrix8 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\matrix8.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load new skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 unable to load:q:\skin\mediacenter\myweather.xml
10-03-2004 16:13:30 initialize new skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 skin loaded...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 initializing skin

--------------------------

btw - internet connection ok, all files are in the correct xbox directories...

why would the "weather" xml-load go wrong? missing png's in texture file, the ref. to logo file, ....

just a bit stuck here!

[jalla_nord]

just installed the 3-9-04 cvs w/the xbox media experience skinn and everything works fine except for the my weather part of it. checked the log file, and it seems like there are some problems with the myweather.xml and the loading of the skin (not changed - as in the official cvs).

-----------------------

10-03-2004 16:13:29 load default skin:[mediacenter]
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load skin from:q:\skin\mediacenter
10-03-2004 16:13:29 delete old skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load fonts for skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:29 loading fonts from q:\skin\mediacenter\font.xml
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font13 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font13.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font14 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font14.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:font16 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\common-font16.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load font:matrix8 path:q:\skin\mediacenter\fonts\matrix8.xpr
10-03-2004 16:13:29 load new skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 unable to load:q:\skin\mediacenter\myweather.xml
10-03-2004 16:13:30 initialize new skin...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 skin loaded...
10-03-2004 16:13:30 initializing skin

--------------------------

btw - internet connection ok, all files are in the correct xbox directories...

why would the "weather" xml-load go wrong? missing png's in texture file, the ref. to logo file, ....

just a bit stuck here!

[zilvershadow]

try to update the skin with the one from the newest cvs.

[jalla_nord]

hmmm...

am using the latest build (03.09.2004-proper-ind), so that should not be the problem (seems to be working for everybody else...?).

just in case, i did some .png updates from sourceforge (seemed to be missing some files from the "skin / mediacenter / pal / media " directory) without any changes.

so - still no action when selecting "my weather" from the main screen (just dead) - same error msg in logfile as previously.

everything else works...

[BattleCat]

with the risk of sounding like a complete lamer, where exactly do i find the xbox media experience skins for avalaunch, evox etc?

tried allxboxskins but not on there yet and the above link only seems to have the xbmc skin to download.

it does look quality and its a good idea having the same skins though multiple dash's .. gives it that 'factory' look.. nice!

[wessleym]

does anybody know the difference between the new default skin and the xbox media experience you download separately? they look a little different. it's the fonts or something. anybody know?

[Hullebulle]

does anybody know the difference between the new default skin and the xbox media experience you download separately? *they look a little different. *it's the fonts or something. *anybody know?
lol
are you serious? http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[wabidwoveren]

well allxboxskins is a great place to look, unfortunatly their skin upload is down, so i will need to wait for them to fix their probles.

[wabidwoveren]

the skin i put online, is the exact code, and textures that were part of the sf repository. the only differences would be bugs that have been since the rar was created.

[rpm]

can someone give me adjusted values so that the "big icons" will be well.. bigger? maybe 320 pixels as it's on a 1080i 65" tv.

below is refrences.html control section "default thumbnail panel"
<control>
<description>default thumbnail panel</description>
<type>thumbnailpanel</type>
<id>11</id>
<posx>262</posx>
<posy>154</posy>
<width>510</width>
<height>420</height>
<spinwidth>16</spinwidth>
<spinheight>16</spinheight>
<spinposx>640</spinposx>
<spinposy>420</spinposy>
<spincolor>ffffffff</spincolor>
<textureup>scroll-up.png</textureup>
<texturedown>scroll-down.png</texturedown>
<textureupfocus>scroll-up-focus.png</textureupfocus>
<texturedownfocus>scroll-down-focus.png</texturedownfocus>
<itemwidth>110</itemwidth>
<itemheight>115</itemheight>
<texturewidth>80</texturewidth>
<textureheight>80</textureheight>
<thumbwidth>64</thumbwidth>
<thumbheight>64</thumbheight>
<thumbposx>8</thumbposx>
<thumbposy>8</thumbposy>
<imagefolder>folder-nofocus.png</imagefolder>
<imagefolderfocus>folder-focus.png</imagefolderfocus>
<font>font14</font>
<selectedcolor>fff8bc70</selectedcolor>
<textcolor>ffffffff</textcolor>
<colordiffuse>ffffffff</colordiffuse>
<suffix>|</suffix>
<texturewidthbig>128</texturewidthbig>
<textureheightbig>128</textureheightbig>
<itemwidthbig>150</itemwidthbig>
<itemheightbig>150</itemheightbig>
<thumbwidthbig>100</thumbwidthbig>
<thumbheightbig>100</thumbheightbig>
<thumbposxbig>14</thumbposxbig>
<thumbposybig>14</thumbposybig>
</control>

i did it myself but the thumbnails although working had the text in the wrong places.. etc etc.

i've put in bold the values i believe need to be changed.

thanks

[wessleym]

no, seriously man. *i may not have gotten my build from the right place, but the default mediacenter has a different font size than the xme from the xme web site. *again, this is just from the build i have, so nobody whig out on me or anything. *i guess it's just something to do with my build. *is it okay if i delete my current mediacenter contents and replace it with those from the xme web site?

[mosax]

nice skin!

some comments:
-the symboles used for tickmarks, checkmark for on and cross for off, feels a bit ambiguous to me. the reason might be that whilest checkmark is used as a positive marker in the us whilest, at least in sweden it is mostly used as a negative marker (at least when i went to ground school it was) and the cross is most often used to check things off = positive(like in a exam multiple choice test). hence i find the use of both symboles in the gui a bit ambiguous. why not use a usual empty square for a tickmark set to off and use either the checkmark or the cross for a tickmark set to on? just don't use both at the same time.

- in pal the page up/page down arrows are shown on top of the file list.

- in pal, the settings menu doesn't wrap around from the top menu item to the last menu item (just stays on the top item).

- i prefer to have the currently playing item shown in a different color, hence i have modified my references.xml to use <selectedcolor>ffffff80</selectedcolor> (light yellow) instead of the current <selectedcolor>ffffffff</selectedcolor> (white - same color as used for non-playing files).

- the symboles used to warm boot(?)=house, shutdown=exit and cold boot(?)=left arrow seem a bit unclear to me. i found the ones used in the previous default skin clearer. as for the button used for turning-off the xbox, why not name it "off" instead of "exit"? to me, exit implies exiting the program, not necessarilly turning of the xbox.

- in pal, when having adjusted the ui to show the whole miniature in-line picture of the playing movie, the symboles for pause, rewind etc. only show partly on screen; upper/right is off-screen.

i use latest cvs 2004-03-12. :)

[mosax]

maybe you should move the question mark button (credits) to the far left in the top button row on the start page. i mean, it would save one 'click' to get to the other three presumably much more frequently used buttons if you did. :)

[floink]

wabid now that you have had a xme bonanza on axs.com shouldn't there also be an update of the xbmc webserver gfx? http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
/floink

[erpi99]

the new default skin is fantasty. however, there are still some bugs. for 480p 16x9, the background pictures are stretched horizontally. is there a quick fix?

for 720p and 1080i, the problem is a little more severe. the sizes and locations of icons are not corret. i know the developers do not have access to hdtv. i am willing to do the information gathering and testing. just let me know what you need.

[wabidwoveren]

yea webserver is on my todo list, right after alot of sleep. maybe on some boring weekend ill put it together.

[sWampy]

can someone please use a larger font for a skin, i have pretty good eyes, and the font in 1080i mode even on my 63inch tv is way to small.


here are a few screen shots of how small and hard to read from across the room. picture 1 (http://www.fordnmel.com/01010001.jpg)
picture 2 (http://www.fordnmel.com/01010002.jpg)picture 3 (http://www.fordnmel.com/01010003.jpg)

sorry the shots aren't to good, but you get the point.

[wabidwoveren]

there is a screenshot button, (left thumbstick)

[sWampy]

i was trying to show relative size, you can't see that the fonts are 1/3 an inch tall on a 63" tv from a screen shot. ;-)

[Aurora13]

i'm currently creating a 720p skin based on the default skin.

this is how it looks with the current cvs:

720p (old) (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p_main.jpg)

so far i made it into looking like this:

720p (new) (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p.jpg)

so please give me comments for like:
- if i'm going the wrong way with this skin?
- should i stick more to the default layout/look?
- bigger fonts?
- do i need to blow pictures up?
- etc

[Aurora13]

thanks for all the comments http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif
nah just kidding, i find it fun creating this skin so i couldn't resist to continue :d

oke the old my programs:

default list (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/480p_list.jpg)
default icons (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/480p_icons.jpg)
default big icons (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/480p_big_icons.jpg)

new 720p my programs:

720p list (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p_list.jpg)
720p icons (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p_icons.jpg)
720p big icons (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p_big_icons.jpg)

[jmarshall]

looks good! good work.

[Aurora13]

the skin is almost finished, only have to tweak:

- the music info and album picture while playing
- the video box when playing a movie
- the video osd

but i have two questions:
1. since i tweaked 2 or 3 pictures to look better on 720p, can i still use the default skin folder or should i create a new seperate folder skin? (it is currently in mediacenter\720p so it is sharing the pictures with the mediacenter\pal folder.)

2. where should i place it when it is finished?

[Aurora13]

well i finished the skin even without comment and feedback. :)

i upload it to http://www.nightfalltech.com/upload/

hopefully it is of some use.

[jmarshall]

i'll pm one of the xme skinners and check it's ok to go into cvs.

[Aurora13]

i've uploaded the 'wrong' skin, the one i uploaded contains the "my email" entry on the front page.

here is the home.xml without the "my email" support:
home.xml (zip) (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/home.zip)

and here is the correct full skin without the "my email" (also for you guys and girls who have hdtv and can't wait for this maybe to be implemented in cvs)
mediacenter skin for 720p (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/mediacenter720p.zip)

if you download it please give some comments (negative or positive) :d

[Shotgun Ted]

aurora13,

i appreciate the work you've put into this skin. it's great to have one tailored for hdtv. there are quite a few hd xbmc user about - i'm surprised that you've not had more feedback.

to get things going:

navigation on home screen - i can't select settings and the focus doesn't appear to move to weather

i prefer the main body of the screen to start a little lower down - for instance on my videos my shares appear very close to the top of the screen.

i'm very impressed with the skin - i've never seen the osd and home page buttons correctly displayed in 720p before.

keep up the good work,

st

[Aurora13]

navigation on home screen:
i removed my email so i must have done something wrong. i will look into this matter asap.

i like to have use of most of the screen, this way with big icons there can be 4 rows on the screen. and it is not that close, probably your tv has more overscan than mine does?

make a screenshot (left thumbstick button) and load it on your pc. you will see there is more space than on your tv.

[beenn]

aurora13,thanks for your good work,finally we 720p user have a normal skin.except that i cant highlight "setting" button,everything just look fine to me ,and would you kind enough to pack your skin to textures.xpr-like file,that would make xbmc run faster.

and i think you should ask someone to move this post to general discussion to get more feedback.

[Aurora13]

oke i'm almost certain i found the bug, but i can't test it because i'm at work. (yes i was bored :d)

will test it for sure tonight, but just unzip and copy over the home.xml (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/home.zip) in the 720p folder of the skin on your xbox and it should be working flawlessly now.

and here is the full (corrected) skin, which you only need if you didn't download it before:
mediacenter skin for 720p (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/mediacenter720p.zip)

@beenn
i did pack it into a textures.xpr, but then it doensn't display any picture, only text which you even can't select. i only changed 3 of the pictures to make it look better, so i think one of them is causing this behavior.

i will look into this tonight and/or maybe some dev knows something about this textures.xpr issue?

and can someone indeed move this thread to the general discussion?

[Hullebulle]

and can someone indeed move this thread to the general discussion?
whats wrong with this place?

[Aurora13]

well i like it here :d, but maybe it gets more attention if it's moved to general. :)

[Shotgun Ted]

aurora13,

the new home page has fixed the problem just fine. i've shifted things down a few lines in the gui calibration screen to allow for the slight cropping i get on my plasma.

i noticed that the "interlace" option is missing from the video settings - although the tick box is there.

still looking great!

st

[jmarshall]

aurora13:

i'll look at adding this into cvs. before i do, though please answer the following:

1. which graphics have changed? (ie which have been altered, which are new etc. etc.?)

2. have you changed any of the .xml files in the pal/ subdirectory of the skin?

3. which of the files in the 720p directory have actually been changed from their pal counterparts?

4. it sounds as though you are pushing the limit of the overscan areas on some tv's. do you mind checking that you're not getting too close to the edges? note that i don't have an hdtv, so i can't check any of this myself.

that should do it, i think.

[Aurora13]

1. in the latest version (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/mediacenter720p.zip) i changed the skin to work with all the default pictures, except for the home-topbar.png. so i just changed only one picture.

2. nope didn't change any, just made a copy to the 720p folder and changed only those files.

3. the most of them except the following:
- dialogfilestacking.xml
- dialoginvite.xml
- dialogkeyboard.xml
- dialogok.xml
- dialogprogress.xml
- dialogyesno.xml
- font.xml
- musicvisualisation.xml
- slideshow.xml

4. hmm well i thought my plasma had big overscan (1180 x 690 or so) so even with the overscan in mind i keep some space around the edges. so hopefully it will fit correctly one most hdtv, because it is a lot of work to redesign. (like the big icons it fits perfectly with 4 rows, if i must use more space around the edges it will go to 3 rows)

hopefully you have enough info, otherwise ask! :)

@shotgun ted
i will look into the interlace 'issue', where is it exactly located?

[jmarshall]

1, 2, 4: that's fine.

3: ok. so you changed a lot of the .xml files. that's ok if they really needed it. the only thing i am worried about is that this means that whenever a skin change occurs, there is more and more work needed to keep it up to date.

assuming it is ready to go now, i'm happy to add it to cvs so that others can enjoy it out of the box. will do this likely sometime in the next 2 days. let me know here if you update anything before i submit it to cvs.

[jmarshall]

added to cvs. *please check.

textures.xpr now includes the new home-topbar.png.

let me know if there's something not right.

[Shotgun Ted]

just to clarify: settings - my videos - deinterlace label is missing.

st

[Aurora13]

are you using the latest cvs?

because it isn't located under:
settings - my videos (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/settingsmyvideos.jpg)

but under:
settings - my videos - filters (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/settingsmyvideosfilters.jpg)

and it is there as you can see on the pictures.

[Aurora13]

@jmarshall
unfortunately it is needed to change almost every xml file, so that it uses the maximum of the 720p resolution. i changed the myweather.xml (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/myweather.xml), which had 2 text line up errors. so if you put that in the 720p folder, it is definitely good to go.

since i started making this skin it changed 2 or 3 times in cvs and it was easily adjustable for me. so if there is a change in the skin and you let me know what has been changed, i will make sure that it is changed for the 720p. let me know what you think about it or if you have a better suggestion.

[beenn]

hi,guys.

would you tel me what files i need from cvs,to replace my current build's files to get the 720p skin?i don't have the environment to compile xbmc.

thanks.

[Shotgun Ted]

aurora13,

i'm using a cvs from 23/4. i haven't been able to locate a later one - not much into compiling.

you links have shown me that it's actually the "upsample videos to gui resolution" label that i'm missing.

i assume it's because my build is old.

st

[Aurora13]

24-04-2004 added: new option in my videos for upsampling videos to gui resolution[i]

so indeed in your cvs it wasn't there yet, you compiled it one day too early http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif *http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[wabidwoveren]

hey,, i plan on making a change to xme sometime once skinners get dev access. it should remove the need for a sepate top bar :)

thank you for doing this, saved shadow_mx and i a lot of work, we really appreaciate it.

[Aurora13]

you are welcome, it was the least i could do since i love xbmc so much. keep up the good work guys!

[Bloodsent]

wonderful job on the skin aurora13!

if you want to make it perfect, i found something small. *when you fast forward and rewind, the 2x, 4x, etc. blue circle is partially off the screen. *

just a heads up! *great work, now if you could make one for 1080i! http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[wabidwoveren]

if u use 1080i you should really consider just sticking with 720p, its a couple less pixels but the quality is better, and it has no flickering.

also shouldnt a 16/9 skin auto bump up to 1080 perfectly, it shouldnt be easy to do.

in xbmc it takes all coordinates and multiplies all coordinates by 1.5. that is the difference between 720 and 1080. (1920/1280, or 1080/720 both come up to 1.5)

[jmarshall]

that would work if you set the <defaultwideresolution> tag in skin.xml to 720p.

hmmm. perhaps this idea of <defaultresolution> stuff needs to be extended somewhat?? i'm thinking something like this:

1080i -> 720p -> defaultwidescreen -> default
720p -> defaultwidescreen -> default
ntsc16x9 -> defaultwidescreen -> default
ntsc -> default
pal16x9 -> defaultwidescreen -> default
pal -> default

obviously 480p will be treated the same as the ntsc modes.

currently i think all the above is happening except the extra 720p step in the 1080i case.

let us know what you think.

[Aurora13]

totally agree with wabidwoveren: progressive is way better than interlaced even if interlaced is a higer resolution.

@bloodsent
i thought my plasma tv had a big overscan (1216 x 688 instead of 1280 x 720) so i made the pause, 2x, 4x, etc button to perfectly fit in the corner om my tv. but it look likes most of the tvs have a big overscan. what are your video calibration coordinates? so i can see what your overscan is, mine are for the upper-left corner (32, 18) and the lower-right (32,18). (if you like to change the buttons yourself, the coordinates for the buttons are in 720p/videofullscreen.xml)

[Anomaly]

aurora13: hi, finally got the chance to try out your 720p skin with the 30/4 build. it seems to work very well on my hdtv but i have some feedback. the text in the sub-settings screens seems a bit small and spaced apart. maybe a touch larger if possible. also, in weather, the four days shown with their icons are very small and also a tad over-spaced. it is possible to make them larger?. adding an extra day is probably not practical but would fit.

oh and thanks for getting those page counters in the right place!. that's an annoying bug that's been with xbmc for a while.

if it helps, the overscan settings for my sony hdtv are (upper-left corner) 29,17 and (lower-right corner) 32,15.

i wonder if you could work your magic on the xbox media player skin - as that is my skin of choice.

[Aurora13]

@jmarshall
i forgot to update the imdb screen, so now it uses 720p correctly. grab it here (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/dialogvideoinfo.xml).
and i updated myweather.xml (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/myweather.xml) to look a little better.

@anomally
the text in the sub-settings screens seems a bit small and spaced apart.
well it looks oke to me, what do you mean with 'spaced apart'?

about my weather i made the fonts bigger and moved the days so it looks a little better. (check here (http://www.aurora13.cistron.nl/720p_weather.jpg)) if you like it and can't wait until it is in cvs grab it above (myweather.xml)

as for more days, we have to ask the maker of my weather.

[jmarshall]

will update.

[Anomaly]

hi, i think that's better. what i meant about the sub-settings screen was the vertical spacing of the lines of text seemed perhaps a bit much for the font size. but really, it all looks good - i am just fussing over fiddly things. great work!

[Chokemaniac]

hi guys

im currently donating on my site (http://www.critikill.net/content/downloads.asp) to get myself a vga box to give you perfect 720p/1080i support with my skin (project mayhem) incl. bigger fonts for both resolutions etc.

cheers chokey

[kraqh3d]

aurora, great work on the 720 xme skin. it looks fantastic on my plasma.

there's just one thing i'd like to alter but i cant figure out what xml its in. i want to move the overlay that comes up during the visualizations (and while in the gui) that shows the track/video name, the play/pause button, and the running time. it's in the top-middle of my screen, and i'd like to move it more into the top-right corner.

i found that musicoverlay.xml has posx/posy values for the labels, but not the graphic block they sit on. i assume if i edit these values, the text and the play/pause icon will be outside of their respective boxes. can you point me to the right xml file?

[Aurora13]

thank you, glad you like it.

you were half way there, because it is in musicoverlay.xml:

<posx>442</posx> (change it to 842)

you have to change it under the following descriptions:

<description>play logo</description>
<description>pause logo</description>
<description>ff logo</description>
<description>rw logo</description>

that is the bar you were looking for, they are just four seperate pictures.

to allign everything correctly also change the time and text:

<description>play time label</description>
<posx>737</posx> (change it to 1137)

<description>album/artist/genre etc info label</description>
<posx>462</posx> (change it to 862)

so now you you should have moved the music bar 400 pixels to the right. you can alter the settings of course to your likeing.

good luck.

[kraqh3d]

oh!!! so all four of those png's include the background image that makes the bar?? i'll give that a go tonight. thanks dude.

heh, actually i figure this was the case and tried to check out the images but i couldnt cuz they're embedded in the texture file :(

also, the "old" skin used to have this really large play timer in the lower right hand corner. i really liked that and want to put it back. can i do this by adding another "playtime" control to the musicoverlay.xml using font64?

one more question, what controls how those things appear? right now, the bar that displays the title/track/etc slides in from the top, and the cover slides in from the bottom. is this configurable somehow? if i were to add the large timer back, how would it appear onscreen?

[Aurora13]

i do not now if that's all configurable, i only altered the skin a bit.

mabye one of the developers can answer those questions for you.

[kraqh3d]

i finally got to try this out... i added 300 pixels to the posx values of those controls in both musicoverlay.xml and videooverlay.xml and got that bar exactly where i wanted it.

but, my experiments with adding back the big play time control didnt work. here's what i added:


<control>
<description>big play time label</description>
<type>label</type>
<id>9</id>
<posx>1037</posx>
<posy>700</posy>
<label>-</label>
<align>right</align>
<font>font64</font>
<textcolor>55b2d4f5</textcolor>
</control>


can one of the devs maybe explain how the overlay works and why i dont see this control?

also, i found a bug. both overlay types arent displayed when you go into settings -> my videos. (they are displayed in all the others tho.)

[kraqh3d]

i'm still having trouble getting the large play timer to work in the musicoverlay. *i figured out my first problem was that the font.xml file didnt have font64 defined. *but after i added that to font.xml, all i got was blank squares. and the squares remain onscreen during the vis while the other pieces slide away.

im not quite sure where to go from here. are the fonts embedded in the texture.xpr file? i wonder if the common-font64 is not in the mediacenter texture.xpr file. (i assumed they are not in the texture file because there are seperate .xpr files for each font in the skin/fonts dir.)

[Gamester17]

i am sorry but due to a recent issue around the mediaportal skin i have to raise and re-open the legal/copyright discussion again.

@wabidwoveren, we need to clear out out once and for all if the "xbox media experience" dell based skin is fully legal or not!
ps! until we have cleared this issue i have to ask you to move the skin from the xbmc sf project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc) to the xbmc skinning project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xboxmediacenter)

edit: my argument: we cannot use ms media center/mediacenter/dell media experience as deafult skins or even host those as they are copyrighted, (a default skin and any skin we host must be 100% legal, and not contain any ripped icons/pictures that are copyrighted unless we/you have the copyright owners explicid consent!). same goes with the control-panel from xbmp. don't get me wrong i love the ms media center/mediacenter/dell skins as they appeal to the majority of people as default skin should, but the fact remain that we cannot host or distribute a such skin on our site as it might be copyrighted and thus illegal to use without the copyright owners full consent, we cannot break the law. (...however i do believe look-a-like clones or replica gfx would be ok to use as long as they are not rips or modified rips, a similarity clone must be made from scratch), maybe one of you skilled skinners could moddify the relative skins by remove the offending pictures/icons and creating new original ones as replacements so it doesn't break any copyrights? that way we still have a skin most people love but without any legal issues to worry about. i think it would be supersweet if a 3d cad artist could make some models that could be converted into 2d icons form different angles.

[wabidwoveren]

lets go with "its not legal" frodo has already made the decision to remove it from mp, so i think xbmc should do the same, because hes a smart person.


@ gamster17- i totally agree that a look alike should be started, because we need to keep the same feel. project mayhem is an amazing skin, but for some reason feels like it should be bundled with, as the alt skin, to a blue skin. as chokemaniac says, too bad the matrix ruined the color green.

yea ill move it to skin project, but i wanna work on it a little. i think a legal skin should take place before a fixup.

@skinners - mrmario and i talked about colors, and i think blue/red should be given a shot. we also talked about a wavey osd, so here is the one i threw together in 30 seconds.
http://dell.gruposid.com/osd3/osd-bad.jpg

[floink]

sounds good.
some comments on a default skin (in my view): a default skin shouldn't be bloated. more of a plain look that is easy to add functionality to. tho this doesn't have to mean that its boring, but on the virge. i believe a reason why the previous default skin (msmediacenter) worked so good was that it was forgiving when it came to design. by that i mean that it was hard to make things look bad when adding stuff. not sure why but maybe because it wasn't too complex in the design?
a default skin can't be too specialised either like fex my retro (http://www.owoco.se/floink/).
xbmc (and mp) deserves a professionally designed skin so let's make look proffesional. count on me if help is needed :)
/floink

[Gamester17]

@skinners - mrmario and i talked about colors, and i think blue/red should be given a shot. *
big fashion/colour-scheme no-no, you should never mix red, blue, green and/or yellow as they clash, (gf making me watch diy shows :blush: )

[Gamester17]

fyi: got message from sf telling to remove xme skin from xbmc (which we have), plus we're not allowed to call anything "media experience".
ps! sourceforge (patrick mcgovern) also said they where told dell has applied for trademark protection on the phrase "dell media experience".
finally, in addition patrick mcgovern (sf.net) also suggested that we may also want to distance our look-and-fell from any of dell's product.
@wabidwoveren, best if not call it anything with "media experience" in it, even if you moved to to the skinning project or remove from sf.net