elisa-developers team mailing list archive

[David Mcleod <daiode@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I wasn't sure about where or if I should add all this on the Wiki. Instead I will share it via email for now.
It is a slightly long read so save it for a time when you can sit and spend an hour or so any read this and look at some of the things I link to.
It contains some condensed down thoughts on problems I see with media centers and Moovida as well as ideas that can streamline a very 'idea bloated' concept that Moovida was into something more concise hopefully. (I might use some terms or phrases we devised in the Fluendo office for some things sorry).

Here you go...*KABAM!!!*....


Problems With Media Centers In General

- Heavy reliance on API's or crappy RSS Feeds
- Content isn't in a form that is easily 'captured'
- Content is usually not high quality but marketed as being better.
- Translating the web for TV for every site/plugin is tiresome
- Difficult to just find something to watch outside 'my' content (Instead App/Plugin Hopping)
- Users have to wait for developers to build an App/Plugin to get access to content they like.
- App/Plugin driven, not 'search based' (meaning I don't care how or where the media comes from, long as its the best possible)
- When I want good quality stuff, I want to be able to buy it. Now.


Specific Problems With Moovida/Elisa

- Playback needs to be on par with VLC
- Ignores other media players and 'clues' to what the media is when scanning.
- Local content and playback has to be solid before attempting anything more.
- Media scanning needs to be better or equal to XBMC/Boxee (people complain about it being bad there though as well)
- The 'Hulu Technique' is vitally important for future content acquisition.
- There are vital missing parts to Pigment to do some basic UI stuff (scrolling text)
- Lots of annoying UI building issues in general. (i.e specifying a box or item, or widget has a set pixel size...can we build UI stuff as easily as it can be built on the iPhone)
- Idea bloat and pertains to the idea that it should/can do everything. It needs to concentrate on a few key features and goals and stick to it.


Core Key Concepts/Ideas (From David)

1. Local content scanning, organisation and playback should be solid.
2. Focus more on user driven content, not developer driven content.
3. Media exploration


Point 1 (from above): The first point is perhaps the easiest to digest and understand. This is the absolute basics of what any multimedia player should be doing with one additional extra…the media scanner. My media should be easily found and correctly identified before I go to play it back. When I do playback media, simple things like ability to shuffle tracks, repeat a track, view subtitles, swap audio, seeking, chapter, track jumping, slideshow playback and the core basics of playback functionality have to be in place. If this isnt done...then a media center is 'broken'.


Point 2: I have been giving a lot of thought to it and what drives my thinking is this: "why do I, as a user have to wait for a Boxee, Plex or other media center developers to write a plugin for the content I enjoy?". It is a question that burns at the back of my skull. I feel it is a question, that if we don't find an answer for, then it makes it harder for media centres to be seen as a viable way to enjoy content. The only opportunity left is to wait it out for a few more years and hope people start making content purely for the TV or can be distributed easier for media centers. I just don't see that happening on a grand scale.

Here is what I am thinking: I want, my mom to go visit a site like this: http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/

Lots of great videos there, and if you visit each of the students websites, lots of great making of pictures and additional content. I guarantee that this schools website and that content will never have a dedicated 'App' in Boxee or a plugin in Plex. I know you guys could argue that we could easily make a plugin for it, scrape the page and all sorts. 

You know what though? It would mean my mom has to rely on one of you to do that. I am sure she could search a YouTube plugin or a Vimeo one and maybe find the movies individually…essentially 'App hop' in the most painful way. (Hello Global Search anyone?).

Wouldn't it be great if my mom could easy 'capture' that content from that site, add all the videos she finds there, label it 'Gobelins' and then…share it with the community? Then imagine a community full of people 'capturing' content they like and sharing it…. then imagine we can search it all inside the media centre… then imagine you can download or 'save' some of the great things you find and store it like any other media file… imagine I can find something or even 'capture' some content yourself and then share it with a friend privately. …throw in the ability to rate the value of the content people are sharing and it makes finding good content that people share altogether better.

In that scenario, developers aren't driving content to a media centre but the average users and the community are.

So, I am sure my mom isn't alone, I am sure others have found that site and content and would like it to be available to watch on the TV. The question is how? How do you allow the average person to do this without swallowing a pill and knowing code from the Matrix?

How do you make it easy for someone to 'capture' something they find on the web so easily and then share it for use in a media centre? For that, I turn to something I have seen in Safari. For those of you with access to Apple's Safari try out the 'Open In Dashboard' feature (via the 'File' dropdown): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIkNUTvtkO8

In that above video the guy there is capturing a boring part of a website. Instead, imagine doing that on a page that contains a Hulu video, or let's be honest illegal content on MegaVideo. You get crop marks appear over the page content, you can drag it over what you want to 'capture' (the Flash video!) and then you have a portion of the website contained. Imagine if we did something similar. An external app from the mediacenter, a widget that existed on the browser window that allowed you to 'capture' what you find, then tag it, give a little description, then bookmark it for later in Elisa, share it with the community …or send it privately to a friend directly using Elisa. Inside the media center the 'capture' is blown up fullscreen to be viewed. (and yes some content will look like ass I am sure...but good stuff will come to the surface).

Where it gets more powerful is if we allow some kind of 'grouping' or organisation beyond just single media file captures. That way, I can group together some music from Pandora, some images from Flickr, some music videos from YouTube and I can then group it into a 'Collectable'. I can label it 'The Best Of Madonna' and then share it with the community. This turns it into a little 'media package' full of possibly interesting content.

It is essentially taking the 'Hulu Technique' that was being devised at Fluendo and putting a user interface ontop of it for average people to use as a content distribution system.

There is a site called ZooTools that are doing a wonderful job of this kind of 'capture', 'collect' and 'share' concept. Just picture this driving content to Elisa but for media: http://zootool.com (Sign up and point it at video page on hulu, or a website with content…it even recognises RSS feeds and more). It probably captures content more gracefully than I describe above.

In fact Boxee themselves are doing something similar and I'm scared they expand it and go this direction as well: http://www.boxee.tv/bookmarklet/info

I am sure that individual 'portals' like Flickr plugins and YouTube will still be made and requested. The idea above however allows for people to get all kinds of content not dedicated to a well known site. Do it via a simple desktop app attached to the browser. People don't have to wait for 'us' to add their favourite sites content in Elisa…they can do it themselves.


Point 3: They ability to be watching a movie and offering the ability to explore things surrounding it is to my mind a great feature. For TV shows you can visit a site like TV.com and see the amount of media surrounding your favourite show. Clips, Trailers, News, Photos, Episode Photos, Video Interviews, Cast Images and info…and more. This would be great to offer up for any type of media in the media centre. Explore an 'Album' or an individual track (see Music videos or live performances of the track via YouTube), do this for Movies… let people get lost in their media.