"vista user 43" <> wrote in message
news:...
> ok zachd, as I can see you work on media player...
I contribute there, but that is not my primary role. Consider me a
developer (programmer, engineer) for Windows who is here on his own time
speaking on his own behalf. =)
> I have to tell you that media player 11 is totally pathetic.. sorry but
> its true...
No worries, potatoe, potahto. As long as multimedia is working for you,
rock on. I read the many external "Which is the best Media Player?"
conversations pretty regularly: there's not a heck of a lot of *new*
interesting feedback, but it's always interesting.
> Color: Black on XP with blackish horrid tone variations... can you say
> YUCK?
> If you want black since its modern ok.. but when you change the skin color
> you should really be able to change the skin color.
> This means if you want fiery bright red you should be able to do it.
You can get a pretty interesting flame red with heavy saturation, but:
noted.
> The menus: Ok this is stupid... you guys hid the menus again like you did
> in IE7.... it might look nice an tidy this way but oh god is it no user
> friendly! I will hate myself for giving this as an example but the new
> real player 11 has put the menus on the very top title bar as you can see
> here and made them gray so they wont stand out so much
> http://photo6.yupoo.com/20070610/194...0_vjkiiajl.jpg
> Sorry but WMP is not consistant with other microsoft products in the GUI.
WMP's GUI represents part of the ongoing evolution of the product. But it
is much more Vista centric. It's a Bonus that it's available for XP. If
you're not a fan, hey, I can sell you WMP10 cheap! XD
Just kidding. I like WMP10. I simply like WMP11 more. There's just some
glaring-to-me defects in WMP10 that make me gnash my teeth that WMP11 fixes.
(I'm not here to sell you on either, so let's not go there. If you like
WMP10, rock on. If you like GOMPlayer or TinyAMP, rock on. )
> OR at least have a button like live messenger has on the left, from which
> you can access the menu's, see screenshot:
> http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/8108/livemesspa1.jpg
The subpane chevrons let you get at most of the relevant/scoped options.
> And another very annoying thing.. some bright DORK thought of putting the
> play etc buttons in the MIDDLE of the GUI of WMP. OK this is stupid, they
> should be on the LEFT like the older players...
IIRC, discoverability testing found otherwise. It's a design decision,
regardless.
> what problems arise from such stupid design? Well here is one of them....
> *which even with the middle button excuse is UNNACCEPTIBLE!
> see screenshot: http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4118/player1zh7.jpg
> having WMP11 divert the volume to a pop up while you still have so much
> space is crazy!
The left ridge of the curve is impinging upon the left play status area in
the chrome. You have it turned off in yours so it's not apparent. Turn it
to album art (by clicking) and it's readily apparent.
> Codecs downloading and errors...
Like what?
Codec download is pretty much solely supported for Windows Media files
sourced from Windows Media codecs. If you look up "3ivx security
vulnerability", you'll see one of many reasons why this is a good idea.
Codec errors: I try to help sort this out, but it's difficult. Sooooo many
bad codecs/filters out there. =(
> GUYS I have been using GOMPLAYER because it has GREAT built in codecs and
> guides you very well when you need an extra one...
This is an interesting and sticky field, full of problems and licensing
issues. It's definitely one that the right people pay attention to.
> Why cant media player give some GOOD advice on codec downloading and
> information? A good online database and codec query..
> Stupid jargon tech codes with numbers are Not acceptible! This 2007 going
> to 2008 now.. everyone has internet.. USE THIS CONNECTIVITY
> so that Media player will be able to play anything with just a few
> clicks.. this codec hunting is a nightmare and you cannot imagine how many
> people are extreamly frustrated...
> If MS cannot (due to legal matters) have all the codecs on its server, at
> least point to possible solutions... why not include some functionality
> that GSPOT has to see what codec is missing????
The above two paragraphs: have you tried Web Help during a codec error? It
lets you play everything with just a few clicks.
It sounds like you haven't tried this in WMP11...? I'm open to feedback
upon the existing implementation, but from your above feedback it sounds
like you (once given the current implementation) are heartily in favor of my
suggestion to M, which was simply:
Change "Web Help" button to "Get Codec!!! <3 kittens!" on error dialog
or something equally extra-obvious.
I'm open to further feedback upon the WMP11 implementation, but it sounds
like you're hitting some different code path. If you are, knowing exactly
what Web Help URL you're hitting might be interesting. If you have a wonky
codec that says it plays DX50 but it doesn't actually, that might cause you
to get a non-codec-related error message.
> Playback performance....
> Gomplayer is good .. it plays almost every video you can throw it.. PLUS
> it has very good playback... snappy.. what do I mean by this?
> If you take the mouse and drag the progress bar while a video is playing
> it shows the preview of the video and does so without hogging up the
> cpu..... YOU CANT DO THAT WITH WMP!
Right, it's often called video scrubbing, the right people are aware of the
request.
> People use video and audio for EDUCATION TOO YOU KNOW!
Absolutely, much of the early product development was driven by feedback
from people doing distance learning implementations. Stanford Distance
Learning I think was one of "my" team's most frequent contacts.
> What does this mean? This means that when you are using a video or audio
> to learn something you must be able to go back and forth
> and pin point something you heard or saw so you can listen to it again..
> without visual or audio feedback when you drag the progress bar, WMP
> makes you feel like you are lost!
If you have the time visible on the player chrome (left of the big play
button, looks like you have it off according to your pictures), it'll show
you where the drop point is.
Beyond visual scrubbing, what other notifications would you suggest here? I
think we couldn't do a tooltip there because the tooltip notification
wouldn't update often enough or something of that sort. Your "scrubbing
back and forth" scenario didn't work well with a tooltip, IIRC.
> Try GOMPLAYER.. I could go on and on and on about how many great features
> it has.. like adding favorites to tracks and locations in the tracks...
> there was a plugin for wmp10 for this by a third party but was broken in
> WMP11
Markers! Very old feature, driven by distance learning/etc, kind of
slightly deprecated(?). I haven't followed it, sorry. It's a good but not
heavily demanded feature.
The "Media Link for E-mail" Enhancement feature may give you some of what
you want here.
> I could go on and on.. but I dont even know if you will come back to read
> this....
I generally read by "Responses to my posts" first, but I've also got a
million things to do, so... it can take me a long while sometimes,
especially if I need to ponder things. But that's mostly a pause in
troubleshooting, not in a conversation like this.
> if you want more feedback from someone with a brain... tell me... I will
> give more back to you.. :-)
I've probably heard most of the feedback - I'm probably most interested in
discovering *bugs* as opposed to questions upon implementation or feature
requests. Probably the most interesting thing above is the volume control
dropping out. Or specific feedback upon the current missing codec solution
path. =\
But it's good feedback regardless. =)
Cheers,
-Zach
--
Speaking for myself only.
See
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.