Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Progress Update
In the prior post, I mentioned that one of the things I was working on was researching "Front-End" software. I looked at a few, and have pretty much settled on Meedio. It is now installed and I'm in the process of configuring it for my setup. Here's a few screen shots of the basic look & feel:
There are several different themes/skins for it and a lengthy and growing list of plug-ins to add functionality. These screens show the basic default skin, and the basic "out-of-box" functionality. I'll be spending a lot of time in this area for a while to come.
I also mentioned DVD playback, and that I was current using Zoomplayer. I ran in to a couple of difficulties with Zoomplayer and while it's very powerful and configurable - it just turns out to be a little more cryptic than I'm comfortable with and I don't want to spend the time necessary to tweak it and get it just right. So, long-story-short, I've pitched Zoomplayer and opted for TheaterTek - An also powerful, very configurable, commercial product. While it costs a little more, it is much more user-friendly, and stable. I'll also be spending time here to integrate it with Meedio and getting the FFDShow (postprocessing) working right.
For the last few days, I've been working with the MX-800 universal remote. I'm working on macros ... etc to get the button pushes minimized with the goal of high WAF (and also high MLAF). Remember that WAF stands for Wife Acceptance Factor and as you might imagine, MLAF stands for Mother-in-Law Acceptance factor. While both are very important, the WAF is absolutely essential. So far, everything is working really well except for the On/Off of the audio component. Actually it's the ON that is proving to be a problem. When processing the macro, OFF consistently work, but ON seldom works. It's a little wierd, as ON/OFF on this device is a toggle of the same button and sends the same IR signal to the processor. I'm really scratching my head on this, but will keep working for it.
Like I said before, a lot of try this and try that -- then tweak this and tweak that -- really the "funnest" (there's that word? again) part.
There are several different themes/skins for it and a lengthy and growing list of plug-ins to add functionality. These screens show the basic default skin, and the basic "out-of-box" functionality. I'll be spending a lot of time in this area for a while to come.
I also mentioned DVD playback, and that I was current using Zoomplayer. I ran in to a couple of difficulties with Zoomplayer and while it's very powerful and configurable - it just turns out to be a little more cryptic than I'm comfortable with and I don't want to spend the time necessary to tweak it and get it just right. So, long-story-short, I've pitched Zoomplayer and opted for TheaterTek - An also powerful, very configurable, commercial product. While it costs a little more, it is much more user-friendly, and stable. I'll also be spending time here to integrate it with Meedio and getting the FFDShow (postprocessing) working right.
For the last few days, I've been working with the MX-800 universal remote. I'm working on macros ... etc to get the button pushes minimized with the goal of high WAF (and also high MLAF). Remember that WAF stands for Wife Acceptance Factor and as you might imagine, MLAF stands for Mother-in-Law Acceptance factor. While both are very important, the WAF is absolutely essential. So far, everything is working really well except for the On/Off of the audio component. Actually it's the ON that is proving to be a problem. When processing the macro, OFF consistently work, but ON seldom works. It's a little wierd, as ON/OFF on this device is a toggle of the same button and sends the same IR signal to the processor. I'm really scratching my head on this, but will keep working for it.
Like I said before, a lot of try this and try that -- then tweak this and tweak that -- really the "funnest" (there's that word? again) part.
