[Sens_2002]

I have installed XBMC just recently and I liked very much though I have found some problems described below. I am running Vista SP2 / AM2 5600+ / 2GB RAM / GF8600GT. In general my question is - could some of these probelms be solved by downgrading to XP? Did anyone make a comparison how XBMC works on Vista and XP?

Problems I found so far:
- High CPU usage even when playing simple AVIs (DivX/XVid). Cooler start making a lot of noise. I understand that there is no hardware acceleration support yet but the same files play normally with other players like GOM or KM player with no hw support as well, only internal codecs.
- FF & Rewing work very bad, especially if the command is repeated by pressing the button continiously. A player just got stuck and does not react much. Is it planned to implement this function based on "key frames" as many other players do?
- Not possible to control a master volume. Other players - if you adjust a volume level within the application - it automatically changes also master volume.

And some other findings / suggestions:

- Are there any key combinations to adjust brightness and contrast?
- Movie information search with "Kinopoisk.ru" works but there are no actors' and directors' names returned. IMDB search does it but it makes a lot of false assignments on my movie collection. It would be nice to have a possibility to assign a search engine or just cancel any assignment separately for each file.
- Is it possible to add wikipedia search to the main menu?

Thanks and regadrs,
Andrey

[qwertylesh]

some of the things you mention occur on both XP and vista operating systems, I can say for the Atlantis beta 2 (since I've tried them out on both OS's) that your fast forward 'gripe' wont go away by changing OS's, you will encounter some bugs which are unique to one or the other operating system, I'm about to check if the 8.1 gold release has the same XBMC.exe crash when exiting on XP as I've got this happening on my Vista 32bit ultimate.

You need to remember this is a work in progress, it is a port and still has allot of development to it, probably years. I look forward to seeing the active changes, I'm not going to ask for any suggestions as the community will help team-XBMC develop all the features i probably want, with that being said, if you want wikipedia on the menu, learn how to skin, how to script and make a wikipedia search, someone may make the same thing who knows, if your lucky. master volume isn't part of the mediacenter yet (AFAIK), which is probably good for Vista as you'd want mixer control not a tie into the master volume directly, with XP that sort of feature could be quite handy, I read on here that you want a logoff feature? maybe it was someone else, but if it was you, you might be able to write one in. theres the option of how you want the default shutdown to be, under system settings, you should be able to write in a command to the XML? (if its anything like the xbox version).

Anyway, don't hold me to any of this, im just a n00b here afterall, just keep in mind, all good things come to those who are patient, good times ahead.

[fanclub]

i personally consider the master volume 'issue' that you're having as a feature myself

[paul]

some of the things you mention occur on both XP and vista operating systems, I can say for the Atlantis beta 2 (since I've tried them out on both OS's) that your fast forward 'gripe' wont go away by changing OS's, you will encounter some bugs which are unique to one or the other operating system, I'm about to check if the 8.1 gold release has the same XBMC.exe crash when exiting on XP as I've got this happening on my Vista 32bit ultimate.

You need to remember this is a work in progress, it is a port and still has allot of development to it, probably years. I look forward to seeing the active changes, I'm not going to ask for any suggestions as the community will help team-XBMC develop all the features i probably want, with that being said, if you want wikipedia on the menu, learn how to skin, how to script and make a wikipedia search, someone may make the same thing who knows, if your lucky. master volume isn't part of the mediacenter yet (AFAIK), which is probably good for Vista as you'd want mixer control not a tie into the master volume directly, with XP that sort of feature could be quite handy, I read on here that you want a logoff feature? maybe it was someone else, but if it was you, you might be able to write one in. theres the option of how you want the default shutdown to be, under system settings, you should be able to write in a command to the XML? (if its anything like the xbox version).

Anyway, don't hold me to any of this, im just a n00b here afterall, just keep in mind, all good things come to those who are patient, good times ahead.

Well said? you are quite right most people these day's are far too impatient
and want everything for free.
cosidering how long it's been available for the pc/mac i would say they have done a fantastic job so please bear with them they must be working there fingers to the bone keeping you all happy.
AS for xp atlantis gold final works without a hitch on my system
AMD64 x2 2.61gh cpu Igb ram

[qwertylesh]

Yes I'm very very ecstatic that XBMC project has been ported to Windows/Mac/Linux in the first place and appreciate the development immensely, there are good times ahead, I would love to see the Windows port taken from a casual development (reference?) to a more serious development process, however its free, I'm not here to piss and moan over problems or bugs or missing features, I'm very happy with the use of XBMC on windows XP, and as I'm not a programmer and can't seriously contribute to the development of XBMC (I wish I could) I have no real complaints. Adding features to what already exists on the media centre should be less of a request and more of an initiative to learn how for those who are after them (learn how to compile an SVN maybe??).
Two things which makes me so appreciative of the port over to windows was, How good XBMC has been on the Xbox console (I quite favor T3CH's builds, but have used others) secondly is that with XBMC for windows available now and being free, this removes the need for me to hunt down Windows MCE, I'm not after TV tuning features, I just want codec embedded media playback which is friendly, supports a tonne of formats, and which is free.
If you go and compare XBMC for windows to other free media centre offerings on windows (which have been around for far longer) you'll clearly notice how much the XBMC developers have gotten this project port right, people have raised the issue of slow menus on the forums here, but in perspective if you look at XBMC's age and say compare it to media portal, you'll realise that the performance of XBMC for windows is well within expectable capability.
I'll stop ranting now, but I recommend those who want features, to take the time to read up on howto achieve them themselves, some things would be so simple to implement I'm sure it would take most people a few hours to learn how to add them to the code and then compile the player themselves.