[Nazgulled]

I thought of posting this on the main thread but I have quite a bit of things to say and it's easier and simplifies things if I do it on a separate thread.

I haven't yet got the time to dig deeper into the skin and use it as it should be used by having a properly configured database, I'm actually using the file mode until I get my way around configuring the library as I want. So, my critics/suggestions/bugs/whatever will be on another level...

They are in no particular order, I just toke note of things that "bothered" me as I was using the skin and now I'm posting them here:

01) The ability to move the main menu up and down with the arrow keys is nice and all but maybe you could add an option to toggle this ability? I kinda like the menu in one place and not move it by mistake. I can just move it back to where it was, but preventing this from happening would be better.

02) When using PM3.HD, if I went to "Apperance" for instance, and then came back to the settings window, the option select would still be "Apperance", in Aeon, the selected option every time we go to the settings window is always the first one. This can become annoying if we are going through all the options available. Make it remember the menu setting selected and select that one by default when we come back to the settings window from one of those menu settings. Of course, if we are going to the settings window from the main menu, select the first setting.

03) Are you considering in adding navigation sounds for the skin in the future or not at all? I think it would benefit from a few cute sounds here and there... It's awful quiet using this skin that it becomes boring lol...

04) About the shutdown timer in the "Button Menu" I have 3 things to say:
04.a) There's no way to turn the timer off after being turned on for any amount of minutes, at least I couldn't find one. It would be nice to have the ability to cancel the shutdown timer if it's needed.
04.b) When the shutdown timer is turned on, Aeon presents with a message saying how much minutes we selected for the timer. Let's say we select 5 minutes, something like this will be display "STARTED, ALARM IN 5M"; I suggested that instead of "5M", it shows "5MIN". We all know it's minutes, but "5M" looks weird... Also, why is this called "alarm clock" if it's not an alarm at all? Maybe think about that too?
04.c) The most important issue about the shutdown timer is this, it crashes XBMC. Dunno if it happens with anyone else, it happened to me, no matter if I use "susped", "hibernate", "exit", "minimize" or any other... I didn't found any option for this "shutdown timer" on PM3.HD, so I can't test it to see if the problem is skin related or XBMC related. Can you help me debug it?

05) Now the thing that annoys me the most lol... Why don't know why, but the skin is awfully slow on my computer and that's not right. It's not smooth at all. I know something's wrong because on the "Vitals" screen on the "Assistant" I see a problem there... It says that the resolution I'm running XBMC is "1920X1080 1920x1080 @ 50.00HZ (FULL SCREEN) 25.00HZ". Two issues here: a) it repeats the resolution for some reason and b) XBMC is running at 50Hz but the skin itself is running at 25Hz. That explains the slowliness I'm seeing... This does not happen with PM3.HD, that skin runs itself at 50.00Hz.

06) There was a very nice and handy feature I used with PM3.HD that I find it odd that it's non existant in Aeon. I'm talking about "party mode" in the music section... Sometimes, I just want to listen to something, doesn't matter what, just play random music, "party mode" was very nice for that. I can't seem to find that option on Aeon...

07) I intend to use this as primary skin on my XBMC system, but in the time being, I might keep switching between skins. That's only annoying because everytime "Aeon" is selected, the feature tour is launched. Maybe add an hidden setting to control to only shown the feature tour the first time the user selects Aeon? Of course, if the user selects "START TOUR" from the assistant, just show it...

08) The progress bar could progress a little more smooth than it currently is. It's like it moves in steps of 20px where it could move in steps of 1px and produce a far smoother progress movement. Cloud you consider improving this? I'm talking about the big background progressbar while playing music. Just noticed whilre writing this post that this also happens to the thing white progress bar while playing movies.

09) Damn, this is the last one, I thought I add more than 10 things to relate... Anyway, I have my settings window locked so no one messes my configuration, however, pressing the "context menu" on my remote shows the menu you call "button menu". This menu has two options relevant to this point, "settings" and "customize". The "settings" one is protected by my lock code but the "customize" one is not. I think it should be, it's part of configuration and it's actually in the same menu as all the other settings. This in the "button menu" is just a shortcut, but it should ask for lock code too.

This is it... Of course there are some issues more important than others, but I like to make a full report of everything (that I noticed so far) that doesn't feel right to me.

Waiting for your thoughts on all these issues djh

[quebert]

+++ Party Mode, while I'm not a coder I wouldn't think this should be too hard to add. Maybe someone will chime in with the info on how to do it. I haven't really gotten into the music portion yet, just ripped a few CD's, but a random play feature would really be nice.

[mindweaver]

05) Now the thing that annoys me the most lol... Why don't know why, but the skin is awfully slow on my computer and that's not right. It's not smooth at all. I know something's wrong because on the "Vitals" screen on the "Assistant" I see a problem there... It says that the resolution I'm running XBMC is "1920X1080 1920x1080 @ 50.00HZ (FULL SCREEN) 25.00HZ". Two issues here: a) it repeats the resolution for some reason and b) XBMC is running at 50Hz but the skin itself is running at 25Hz. That explains the slowliness I'm seeing... This does not happen with PM3.HD, that skin runs itself at 50.00Hz.

I second that, the skin is not flowing in 1080p (mostly Showcase, everything else seems smooth). I have a Intel E8500 3.16 ghz CPU and 4 GB DDR2 (from which 3 is utilized by Vista).

It runs fine in 1060x* and on my small screen which is 1366x768. But seems to struggle on 1920x1080. Maybe all the graphics. I love it non the less

[Crewone]

I second that, the skin is not flowing in 1080p (mostly Showcase, everything else seems smooth). I have a Intel E8500 3.16 ghz CPU and 4 GB DDR2 (from which 3 is utilized by Vista).

It runs fine in 1060x* and on my small screen which is 1366x768. But seems to struggle on 1920x1080. Maybe all the graphics. I love it non the less

I second that second. I've a E6600 / Intel G35 @ 1080p - and at 60Hz the skin itself only does 20-ish FPS. Is it the graphics? Would a new 9400GT help?

[HexusOdy]

I 2nd the 2nd 2nd.

My overall biggest bugbear is the lack of smoothness. Where Horizonz for example is smooth as silk in 1920x1080 everything is that little bit more jerky which just takes the edge off it.

Like having a Ferrari that looks gorgeous but won't go faster than 30mph

[Hitcher]

03) Are you considering in adding navigation sounds for the skin in the future or not at all? I think it would benefit from a few cute sounds here and there... It's awful quiet using this skin that it becomes boring lol...

Yes, they are planned.

05) Now the thing that annoys me the most lol... Why don't know why, but the skin is awfully slow on my computer and that's not right. It's not smooth at all. I know something's wrong because on the "Vitals" screen on the "Assistant" I see a problem there... It says that the resolution I'm running XBMC is "1920X1080 1920x1080 @ 50.00HZ (FULL SCREEN) 25.00HZ". Two issues here: a) it repeats the resolution for some reason and b) XBMC is running at 50Hz but the skin itself is running at 25Hz. That explains the slowliness I'm seeing... This does not happen with PM3.HD, that skin runs itself at 50.00Hz.

a) One is the set resolutions frame rate and the other is the actual running frame rate.
b) That's because Showcase with Fanart enabled (and especially in Flow mode because of all the angled posters plus their reflections) is very processor intensive. Turn on Debug mode to see the FPS and try switching off Fanart and/or Flow mode to see the difference.
If your PC can't handle it I'd suggest trying one, the other, or both of the following -

i) Resizing all your fanart to 1280x720
ii) Lowering your thumbsize in the advancedsettings.xml to 384, 320 or even 256 (NOTE: This will not affect the info screen poster)

07) I intend to use this as primary skin on my XBMC system, but in the time being, I might keep switching between skins. That's only annoying because everytime "Aeon" is selected, the feature tour is launched. Maybe add an hidden setting to control to only shown the feature tour the first time the user selects Aeon? Of course, if the user selects "START TOUR" from the assistant, just show it...

MediaStream also has a 'Welcome screen' when you change to that skin and you only have to press 'Esc' to get past them both.

08) The progress bar could progress a little more smooth than it currently is. It's like it moves in steps of 20px where it could move in steps of 1px and produce a far smoother progress movement. Cloud you consider improving this? I'm talking about the big background progressbar while playing music. Just noticed whilre writing this post that this also happens to the thing white progress bar while playing movies.

The steps are dependent on the number of of items being scanned.
ie a TV Show folder with 20 episodes will do 5% steps but one with only 2 will do 50% steps. It's same for other skins.

09) Damn, this is the last one, I thought I add more than 10 things to relate... Anyway, I have my settings window locked so no one messes my configuration, however, pressing the "context menu" on my remote shows the menu you call "button menu". This menu has two options relevant to this point, "settings" and "customize". The "settings" one is protected by my lock code but the "customize" one is not. I think it should be, it's part of configuration and it's actually in the same menu as all the other settings. This in the "button menu" is just a shortcut, but it should ask for lock code too.

Your button is mapped wrongly as the 'Context Menu' is totally different to the 'Shutdown Menu'.

[daje]

06) There was a very nice and handy feature I used with PM3.HD that I find it odd that it's non existant in Aeon. I'm talking about "party mode" in the music section... Sometimes, I just want to listen to something, doesn't matter what, just play random music, "party mode" was very nice for that. I can't seem to find that option on Aeon...

You'll find the Party mode in the playlist menu
(spent some time looking for it myself)

[motyR]

two things that i've done that seems to help a lot, at least for me...

a) convert the media folder into xpr using XBMCTex.
b) resize and convert the backdrop images, i've found out that resizing the backdrop pix is kind of intensive task for xbmc, so i'm trying to help a bit in here, initially all my backdrops was 1920x1080, but my lcd can do only 1360x768.
so i took the height of the backdrop divided by its width to find out the pix ratio and then apply it to my lcd dimension so in other words it would be something like that

1080\1920x1360 whjich will give 765
so i've made alittle bash script using imagemagic to convert the all the pix to 1360x765 which is preaty close to my lcd dimension and still keeps the ratio of the original pix and while doing it u may also convert it to uncompressed format like bmp.

that seems to do the job.

[Crewone]

Well, my display is 1920x1080 and most backdrop images are as well. But my skin is -4% sized (overscan), would that affect the size of the backdrops as well? Would be nice if, somehow, there was a way to figure out what caused the drop in performance.

[Freddo]

for 5) I'd also suggest you enable triple buffering in your graphics driver, should buy you a few more fps.

[Nazgulled]

a) One is the set resolutions frame rate and the other is the actual running frame rate.

I know that, I was not talking about the frame rate but the resolution it self, it's repeated. I just launched XBMC in Window mode and now it says:
"SCREEN REOSLUTION: 720X480 480P 16:9 XXHZ" (the xx is always changing). Maybe something could be done for the 1920x1080 resolutions? It doesn't make sense to "1920x1080 1920x1080", maybe something like "1920x1080 1080p" makes more sense. But I don't know if that's a thing the skin can fix...

b) That's because Showcase with Fanart enabled (and especially in Flow mode because of all the angled posters plus their reflections) is very processor intensive. Turn on Debug mode to see the FPS and try switching off Fanart and/or Flow mode to see the difference.
If your PC can't handle it I'd suggest trying one, the other, or both of the following -

i) Resizing all your fanart to 1280x720
ii) Lowering your thumbsize in the advancedsettings.xml to 384, 320 or even 256 (NOTE: This will not affect the info screen poster)

I don't think that's the issue. Like I said, I'm using the library in "file mode", all my movies do not have, yet, posters nor fanart. All I have is "folder.jpg" for music albums and the maximum resolution they have is 600x600. Way lower than the 1280x720 you are suggesting.

And this doesn't happen only in show case, I see it in wall mode too and with fanart disabled (I don't have anyways), there's not much reflections and effects there and it's still slow.

I have enabled debug mode and I find it odd... In the main menu, the FPS are constantly around 50, when I move to any other place, it fixes itself at 25. And I'm not even doing anything, I just stood there, at a screen with not that many effects and it doesn't go above 25. It seems to be limited for some reason...

MediaStream also has a 'Welcome screen' when you change to that skin and you only have to press 'Esc' to get past them both.

Yes, but that can be mode to show just once when the user first is introduced to the skin, there's no need to show it everytime. But this is just minor...

The steps are dependent on the number of of items being scanned.
ie a TV Show folder with 20 episodes will do 5% steps but one with only 2 will do 50% steps. It's same for other skins.

I don't see the logic in that... What does the progression of a progression bar for a video/music filte have to do with how many files there are in the folder? The progress bar is about the current file being played, now how many are in the folder...

But yes, it happens on other skins so I believe it has nothing to do with Aeon itself...

Your button is mapped wrongly as the 'Context Menu' is totally different to the 'Shutdown Menu'.

It's not mapped wrong because I mapped it that way myself. But that has nothing to do with the problem!

You'll find the Party mode in the playlist menu
(spent some time looking for it myself)

I also find that in the PM3.HD skin and it doesn't work in both. I click on that item and nothing happens... However, PM3.HD as a "specific" party mode button in the side menu which works, Aeon does not.

for 5) I'd also suggest you enable triple buffering in your graphics driver, should buy you a few more fps.

Dosen't help

[Hitcher]

for 5) I'd also suggest you enable triple buffering in your graphics driver, should buy you a few more fps.

More than few.

I run Showcase in Flow mode and get ~50 FPS on my HTPC but when I disabled Triple Buffering it dropped to ~30 FPS.

[Nazgulled]

More than few.

I run Showcase in Flow mode and get ~50 FPS on my HTPC but when I disabled Triple Buffering it dropped to ~30 FPS.

Like I said, doesn't do anything on my end

a) convert the media folder into xpr using XBMCTex.

Can you explain how to do that with Aeon please?

[JoWa]

ah nice, triple buffering rocks now i get also around 45 fps in showcast, without triple buffering only 25-30

[motyR]

while in the media folder, run "XBMCTex -noprotect -quality max".

after this handy tool is done, u'll have Textures.xpr file inside that folder, so the last thing to do is replace the content of the media folder with the Textures.xpr, so all u have in media folder is Textures.xpr.

if u don't have XBMCTex just look for it, i dont remember where did i got it from but if u cant find it i'll be happily send it over.