tv show/channel studio logos - a proposal
#1
So one of the things I set out to do with reFocus is to have the media flags feel as an extension of the skin.

Regarding studio flags I made the decision to only make reFocus specific icons for tv show studios as the amount of movie studios and substudios is just staggering. For tv shows it has been pretty doable with the help from users.

So with the introduction of the PVR functionality in XBMC I'm at a similar crossroad. As you can imagine there is an enormous amount of tv channels all over the world and to do reFocus styled logos for all of them is an impossible task for me to take on.

Right now in the PVR reFocus checks the same folder as tv shows to see if there's a studio flag that corresponds exactly with the studio name. The PVR however offers the possibility of setting a default folder for tv channel logos and it will try to match it with the tv channel name.If it can't match it automatically, the user can set the icon for individual channels by hand from the gui.

There's two different routes I can take:

1. Provide a skin setting to either keep reFocus' studio images or use an external folder with studio images.
This way you can use any studio logo pack you want.
The dimensions of the studio images in the code however is optimized for reFocus' own studio images and that will not change under any circumstance as I want to only use reFocus styled logos myself.
The problem here is that there is no standard set of properties for these types of logos, and because of that some external logo packs may not be displayed in an optimal way (blurry if they are lower resolution than reFocus studio images and jagged when they are higher resolution)

2. Move the tv show studio logos folder out of the .xpr
This way you can use reFocus' logos and also put missing logos in this folder yourself and point XBMC to this folder in XBMC's tv settings (or do as described above in option #1)

Ideally, I would like option #2 to result in a community driven project.
If you prefer to have all logo's in a uniform (reFocus) style, I can provide a way for you to easily make new reFocus styled logo's for the tv channels that are missing. After that you can post the logo's on the forum so other people can use them too, and they can be included in the reFocus releases as well.
This would also benefit tv shows in the library as they can use this folder too.

This is all not thought out properly yet, so consider this as a poll to see if there is any interest whatsoever in gettting this going as I may be the only one this anal about uniformity Wink

Cheers for reading,
Jeroen
Reply
#2
I think #2 sounds like a great idea. And if, as you say, you could provide a way for us to make our own everyone could help out.
Reply
#3
macardi Wrote:I think #2 sounds like a great idea. And if, as you say, you could provide a way for us to make our own everyone could help out.

I´m with macardi, uniformity is the shitSmile
Reply
#4
When I use confluence, I get the channel logos from the PVR backend, shouldn't be this the 'standard' solution? they are consistent with what I see on the backend web ui.

I would provide a pack of icons, and let the user choose, as you said they could not match well with refocus. Actually I prefer your icons over the pvr ones Smile

(using tvheadend)
Reply
#5
Hirs Wrote:When I use confluence, I get the channel logos from the PVR backend, shouldn't be this the 'standard' solution? they are consistent with what I see on the backend web ui.

I would provide a pack of icons, and let the user choose, as you said they could not match well with refocus. Actually I prefer your icons over the pvr ones Smile

(using tvheadend)

I see, I didn't know the PVR backend can supply them too. I use the mediaportal backend, I guess that one doesn't offer this functionality. So they're built right into the backend so to speak? There's nothing you actually configure?

So yeah in that case that would be a standard resolution, or at least standard aspect ratio. In that case it would probably be best to conform to that and not rely on the network logos for locally stored tv shows that are present in reFocus at the moment.

So, I could have separate pvr channel logos, conforming to the square aspect ratio, or redo the already available network logos so that they can be used for both the pvr and tv shows. The last option is probably ideal, but also the most work Rolleyes
Reply
#6
Whatever way you choose to go, I still think it would be great if you could provide the users with a way to produce new logos as you suggest in your first post.
Reply
#7
That would only be useful when I have decided on the way to go as the properties of the template are tied to that decision. So all in due time.
Reply
#8
Please do keep the record label logos also out of textures.xbt /xpr. Please keep a single folder for studio logos & network logos.

It will enable users to have either colored logos from Kisuan's repo or the plain logos from CCMatrix's github / Kisuan's repo.
CPU:- AMD FX 4100 Motherboard: Gigabyte 78LMT-S2 RAM:-4GB Graphics: AMD HD 7750 1GB DDR5 PSU: IBALL 500W Display: DELL S2240M Storage: 1TB
Reply
#9
I think it would be good to keep all things standard, and start a separet thread for people to post their ReFocus logos, that way everyone has the freedom to add what ever logos they want. This would mean that all you have to do ( as the creator) is conform your skin with the standard pvr options and functions, and simply leave it up to the user to point their pvr options to their own thumbnail path/pack.

Personally, I prefer my own colored logos because I can easily make a distinction between channels.

So I think, keep pvr standard. Conforming with the way it's proposed to work... And we can so our own logos if we see fit, just like I can in confluence... Or any other skin with pvr functionality.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the way pvr does it at the moment.
Reply
#10
So I think I pretty much decided what to do here.
  • There will be no automatic matching of channel names and their logos, as this can't really be done effectively. So, the only way to use channel logos will be to point to a folder containing your channel logos of choice.
  • Using square logos is recommended. The skin will display the logos at 96*96 in most places, but will up-or downscale while keeping the aspect ratio
  • I will not move the regular tv network logos out of the xpr file. I could however adjust the build script so that these logos will be copied to an extra folder so that they can be used for the pvr as well.
  • The regular tv network logos are not square, and I won't be changing that as they scale down to a square area pretty nicely.
Reply
#11
Sounds good to me :-)
Reply
#12
Jeroen Wrote:So I think I pretty much decided what to do here.
  • There will be no automatic matching of channel names and their logos, as this can't really be done effectively. So, the only way to use channel logos will be to point to a folder containing your channel logos of choice.
  • Using square logos is recommended. The skin will display the logos at 96*96 in most places, but will up-or downscale while keeping the aspect ratio
  • I will not move the regular tv network logos out of the xpr file. I could however adjust the build script so that these logos will be copied to an extra folder so that they can be used for the pvr as well.
  • The regular tv network logos are not square, and I won't be changing that as they scale down to a square area pretty nicely.

It sounds very good to me too.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
tv show/channel studio logos - a proposal0