E3: Xbox 360 dashboard - New theme Codename: [NEO]
Though this looked interesting enough to post, a complete browser for you media. Very interesting. (<— me being ironic) Hey ST can you beat ‘em to the punch?
Here is a Pearl theme i put together that somewhat looks like that.
I think this would be a great future theme pearl is pretty close but not quite just a few minor changes like the menu at the top and cover art in the middle and it would be perfect.
Basically its a combination of Pearl and Lotus. Why didn’t they just ask me to work on it for them? :x
I’m toying with the idea of making a completely new theme name undecided maybe Pearl-Neo or something else. But I will require more mockups if you have them available.
Can go one better than mock ups for you ST, how about IGN’s video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON4stPcGPxs
Shows you a fair bit to get your teeth into for ideas.
One of the cool things from that video is the way the pictures scroll through the icons. How cool would it be if your theme scrolled through backdrops from the folder in your ehs icons. This could give the viewer a visual idea of the movies/T.V. in the folder. However over the past years I think that this was a feature request and was kiboshed due to the resources it would eat…or something like that ;)
In order to keep it similar but slightly different it would be cool to have the menus at the top; off centered to the left, these menus could be customized to Media Browsers Indexing options (Genres in particular, perhaps studios. Actors would be a ridiculous list and way to long).
When I think of an all in one media center I have to say that MS XBOX 360 has almost grabbbed it all (minus codecs which is why MB is so important, with it’s integration of external player etc.). What about the Social menu option. This is very interesting beause MB is not limited to just one social experince. Already we have our Community Tracker as well as our new friends over at follw.it. Could we use this to our advantage? New plug-in ideas? (Yes maybe ever a reader for Facebook…there I said it..;) I’m not really posting this idea as a great one, MB is about accessing, thus far, music and movies/T.V.
Finally perhaps integreating the Media Browser Store into the EHS would not only allow people easy access to it, but people could keep up to date latest store items without having to go to a different machine/close Media Center to download supporter keys. It would probably generate a crap load of business for the project too! This would be found under the “Apps” style menu.
Oh yeah I got a million ideas… lol!
P.S. By the way, in the new theme JADE. The best new thing I’ve seen is the fact that you can back out of the film you are watching to the media browser menu, and it overlays the movie. This is the way themes should be writen! Forget about the boring little Picture in picture that Media Center wants to place in the bottom corner of the U.I. Makes me feel like I’m watching a Bluray disc. Love it!
This is way to early but…
Please add the weather feature (i am a weather junkie :–)
I need some monochromatic icons (similar in style to the xbox ones) for:
Here are some free icons I found online that have no license attached to them that could be used.
Sling Shot Effect?
Just out of curiosity how intricate can the animations be in media center? For instance when moving between screens on the EHS is there a way to have the pictures move slightly to the left before sliding off screen to the right? This may be a wierd request, but it would give the screen a “sling shot effect”. The same for moving right, it would “sling” left before moving off the screen. How quickly is it possible to move between pictures? The “sling effect” would only work if it moved slower to the left and then quickly to the right off screen to the next set of pictures and vice versa. I believe that this is the effect that XBOX uses in their Dashboard. It could even use a cool sound effect.
I think timing is everthing for this effect to work. Last thing you want is someone saying “every time I press left it goes right”. lol!
This effect would be pretty cool to use in a new style of coverflow as well. The poster sling shots off screen and a new poster for the next movie slides into its place. This allows for a lot more real estate for descriptions and option buttons.
(geez chefbenny wtf where are all these ridiculous ideas comming from?) ;)
Hey ST! Neo looks great! How does the spotlight panel work in your theme? Does it pick a movie randomly? Is it possible to use backdrops in the last played window? Does the entire screen switch when you pick a new option from the top menus?
Well this is very early and alpha is quite a ways off. Sometime after hydra release of MB is complete you will get your hands on this in alpha form. As for now, you can follow the blog. I will answer a few questions where I can. With this being early things are always changing at this stage.
Spotlight takes you to the media page for the item that was in focus when its selected. It features 3 items on each entry of mediabrowser, randomly selected.
The recent panel shows 1 backdrop from each movie in the RAL. I was told that the text list at the bottom will be removed at some point, so something cool could be coming here.
The top right is the last item played, and yes backdrops need to be here as well instead of a poster.
As for the pages switching? No at this time the page does not actually animate to bring in another page, instead the content inside the tiles change as the focus changes on the text vf list.
What would you guys like to see in the extras tile? Not a toggle option, so no weather, clock things like that.
Chef, I’m switching this to a feature request for you.
For the extras tile, it might be neat to press it and have MB launch into a backdrop slideshow for items in that VF.
If you pick this idea your contractually obligated to help me figure out my current mcml issue :P
(BAS made me post it)
I am definitely purchasing this theme when it comes out. I have even whipped up something similar using the chocolate theme to hold me over until this comes out. You developers are outstanding.
Oh this is sweet! It was about time this thread got some extra attention. I’ve been folloing ST’s blog page, this looks awesome. Definatley bring some new options and layout to MB.
The Extras option could be a couple different things the way I see it. For instance,
What about using it for “Season 0” options when a TV series is choosen for the Spotlight panel. This would render it useless alot of the time if Movies where choosen for the Spotlight. But then again it could play the local trailers.
Trailers for the movies choosen in the spotlight.
Advertising for Media Browser. Oh god Advertising, Mr. Don Draper over here. A slide show of Media Browser logos, website links, up commming releases and plug-ins. Press the extras button and it could take you to the MB Store.
Perhaps (and this is a streach) all three. Sounds to me like ST is able to change the links these panels are showing. So, Extras could play MB adversting sometimes, Trailers for the movies in the spotlight panel and “Season 0” (Behinde the scenes stuff) from TV shows.
The only other idea I have for that spot is a video window that plays Trailers from your collection. Is that possible?
I noticed a lot of people have a virtual folder set up specifically for genre view, which got me thinking. Instead of doing that, why not use that extras spot for that. It could even say genres instead, and simply take you to the genre category for that collection. I think that would be very user friendly and eliminate the need for the extra virtual folder. You could have random backdrops display or a custom made genre backdrop. Just a thought anyway.
FINALLY!
I think I’ve completed the basics to the EHS layout. Now I’ll be able to work on the other views very soon.
YEY.
Holy crap! Neo looks AWESOME! Thanks for the video ST. I was wondering why your site was down for a while yesterday. Guess you were working on it. I hadn’t checked it out for a couple days because my son was born last Thurday.
I have some questions,
Will There be an option to slow transitions between backdrops in the various panels?
Will the final “ask ST” panel be called that or perhaps “Quick Picks”?
Will you be needing any sound FX, Transtion sounds? I have a pretty intersting library of FX from my music studio.
I’m starting to focus on the views now, so if you have any particular design you wish to see incorporated now would be the best time to talk to me. I’ve added full screen video support to the theme now as well.
I would really like to see views that over lap the playing video. I guess it would be the last tier that would over lap. Sort of like how Media Centers “Start menu overlay” does and Jade does this as well.
Pearls Thumb views are awesome, when you use banners. The titles scoll down into the banners. Perfect!
Coverflow views would be cool to minipulate, allow to raise them to the middle, bottom or top of the screen.
Details (which is my favorite view in pearl for searching movies) is perfect. Perhaps allow for larger covers? so as to use some more of the real estate on the screen.
Nice the New view looks awesome!
Where it says “24” it looks like a PNG of the show title. How does that work exactly?
I have a graphics request. I need some new icons for HD Content. (1080 and 720)
If anyone could share some nice looking icons I’d like to incorporate them into Neo.
Thanks.
If your not following the blog, here is some additional info on clear logo support.
WOOO
Alpha is finally ready for some testing.
Please leave your name on this thread I need some Alpha Testers... I’ll send you access details asap. Thanks gentlemen.
