[JohnnyD2]

I'm not sure what can be more intuitive or discoverable than when you press a button it does something immediately

Unfortunately that's exactly the problem for a newbie. It's done something. What's it done? It's skipped somewhere, but where? How far? If your goal is intuitiveness, there certainly needs to be OSD feedback for this functionality by default (for newbies, which can be turned off for those used to it).

Also using up\down from there for bigger skips does not automatically follow. When I figured this out (which I did by pressing every key I could find - hardly intuitive) I didn't know what the difference was. It was doing something similar but I didn't have a clue what (...because there was no OSD feedback).

and when you press it again it does exactly the same thing

In fact, I wasn't sure that pressing it again had replicated the behaviour, for 2 reasons:

• I was now in a different part of the video and therefore my frame of reference was gone

• More significantly because all other consumer-level video playing systems today DO change their behaviour when you press FF multiple times

Also what's being asked for is the option of 2. not that it would be implemented by default. I'm not sure I understand what the resistance to having an alternative skip method is. There seems to be a call for it, significant enough to make implementing it worthwhile for all concerned.

JD

[jmarshall]

There is osd feedback. It tells you exactly where you jumped to. Press it again and it jumps the same amount, so you can easily tell how far it jumps. Any further hints would have to be fairly subtle I think - perhaps a +30s indicator on that popup would do the trick?

Agreed regarding the up/down buttons - no reason they can't be on some other more obvious button on your remote. If you have a remote that sends different codes on short and long press, then you can map them to just 2 buttons.

You claim that "all other consumer-level video playing systems today DO change their behaviour when you press FF (sic) multiple times." You aren't confusing fastforward with skipping are you? These are quite different things. Nothing I've ever used has had different skipping behaviour with multiple presses of "skip forward". Everything I've used has had incremental speed adjustment with multiple presses of fastforward or rewind.

The resistance you are seeing from me personally is exactly the same resistance as I have to any new feature. Addition of features is not as simple as just adding a bit of code here and there. There's code maintenance to take into account, ease of use for newcomers, effective use of the UI, documentation, support etc. Many features have been added to XBMC in the past without proper regard for these things, and I and others on the team have had to spend many hours cleaning up after them. I thus have a policy of not adding anything unless I'm convinced that it's needed, it's well thought through, and won't unduly add burden.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[Abe Froman]

Zoom player has different skipping behaviour with multiple presses of "skip-forward". It's seems a little bit better than the skipping behaviour in XBMC, also in Zoom it does show how much you skip by each time (15, 30, 60 secs)....

Using a Remote the FF/RW are a little harder to find, plus you have to "stop" the FF/RW by pressing another key, whereas the directional up/down/left/right are much easier to use and only you don't have to "stop" the skip.

Even leaving it as is and adding a +30s popup sounds like a great idea.

[Swifty]

The +30s popup is your immediate feedback with this feature in mediaportal.

First press the popup appears straight away and says +15s, next press +30s, next press +1m, and so on.. then after the first idle period of ~ 1 second it will make the jump of xx'seconds (whatever is on the OSD) and then reset the counter so that next time you press its back at +15s.

It would be nice to have it in XBMC, even if its just an 'incremental skip' option that we could turn on. But I appreciate there are more pressing matters that the devs are actually wanting themselves

[vinistois]

don't know about you guys but when I skip forward in XBMC the status bar comes up and it shows the 'current position' indicator moving further up the line. That's some pretty solid OSD feedback. My wife figured it out, hell even my 3 year old boys know that I'm trying to skip their show forward so that bedtime comes sooner It doesn't take a genius...

I think if you can't figure that one out then you should just use whatever media player you're comfortable with, and stop your whining. The Developers have way more important things to work on than this feature that is working perfectly.

[Abe Froman]

This is the feature request forum, and it is simply a request.

There's no whining it's just discussion, everyone is very appreciative of all the hard work the devs put in to this.

[JohnnyD2]

The resistance you are seeing from me personally is exactly the same resistance as I have to any new feature. Addition of features is not as simple as just adding a bit of code here and there. There's code maintenance to take into account, ease of use for newcomers, effective use of the UI, documentation, support etc. Many features have been added to XBMC in the past without proper regard for these things, and I and others on the team have had to spend many hours cleaning up after them. I thus have a policy of not adding anything unless I'm convinced that it's needed, it's well thought through, and won't unduly add burden.

Great reasons, I completely respect that. I was a little concerned the discussion might be starting to grate on you, and it really isn't my intention.

There is osd feedback. It tells you exactly where you jumped to. Press it again and it jumps the same amount, so you can easily tell how far it jumps.

Hm, I'll have to check that, I've been concentrating on getting the skin customised the last few days I can't remember if it does with the one I'm using. I remember feeling completely lost when using it however so I'll have to check why. Is it skin dependant?

Any further hints would have to be fairly subtle I think - perhaps a +30s indicator on that popup would do the trick?

Sounds great.

Agreed regarding the up/down buttons - no reason they can't be on some other more obvious button on your remote. If you have a remote that sends different codes on short and long press, then you can map them to just 2 buttons.

Interesting, I'll look into that.

You claim that "all other consumer-level video playing systems today DO change their behaviour when you press FF (sic) multiple times." You aren't confusing fastforward with skipping are you?

I am using them somewhat interchangably, yes. However current digital equipment 'skips' as opposed to FF'ing. For consistency I'm using the phrase FF - e.g. the >> button on my Sky+ box starts skipping forward at 2x speed, press it again and it's 6x, then 12x then 30x. It doesn't FF in the VCR sense, but at 30x it skips 30seconds at a time.

These are quite different things. Nothing I've ever used has had different skipping behaviour with multiple presses of "skip forward". Everything I've used has had incremental speed adjustment with multiple presses of fastforward or rewind.

Are we talking at cross-purposes? [Configurable] Incremental speed adjustment (2x, 4x, 8x with multiple presses) would be fine. Personally I think the ability to actually "skip" 5min\30min, let go of the button and know it's going to skip forward the required amount would be nirvana, but being restricted to a '30sec' and '10min' button is too far in the other direction. I don't want to have to bash the 'skip Fwd' button a dozen times just to skip 5 minutes ahead...

P.S. I know the 30sec and 10min is configurable, but if you change them they lose their general-purpose use.

[Freddo]

There is osd feedback. It tells you exactly where you jumped to. Press it again and it jumps the same amount, so you can easily tell how far it jumps. Any further hints would have to be fairly subtle I think - perhaps a +30s indicator on that popup would do the trick?
Cheers,
Jonathan

This would be excellent in my opinion, and is all that's needed to make it immedietly obvious exactly what skip you just did.

[migueld]

There is osd feedback. It tells you exactly where you jumped to. Press it again and it jumps the same amount, so you can easily tell how far it jumps. Any further hints would have to be fairly subtle I think - perhaps a +30s indicator on that popup would do the trick?

I think that's something worth exploring. Currently the user sees "flashes" of the screen changing, with a tiny OSD at the bottom corner, but it's not immediately clear what has happened. The user is required to extrapolate what just happened by looking at the numbers and/or timeline. Some users may find this straightforward, some others won't. So I think visual feedback showing the action explicitly could help.

Agreed regarding the up/down buttons - no reason they can't be on some other more obvious button on your remote. If you have a remote that sends different codes on short and long press, then you can map them to just 2 buttons.

I think this is a bigger issue. Currently the Apple remote has up/down keys for volume, and so there is no easy way to do big skipping. Holding right, or holding left for big skip is a nightmare for both casual and experienced users IMHO. So personally one reason I'm interested in Media Portal's mechanism is that it would fit in perfectly in the Apple remote as well as other small remotes.

I agree this type of feature needs a lot of scrutiny, and I'm glad there is much analysis as well as anecdotes going around

[jmarshall]

Great reasons, I completely respect that. I was a little concerned the discussion might be starting to grate on you, and it really isn't my intention.

Heh, I have a fairly high tolerance level before it gets to that point

Will look into the feedback thing as I agree it'd be most useful.

I'm particularly interested in your FFwd/REWd comments regarding your sky box - I suspect this is a "digital" form of FFwd/REWd where they're basically just trying to ffwd/rewd by skipping a bit, playing a few frames, skipping, playing a few frames etc. It's essentially exactly the same way we do it as well. The nice thing about this is it's a continual skip, so the incremental thing works well as you continually have the feedback as to what it's doing as things look like they're going faster etc. The not so nice thing is it's quite hard to control it, as you tend to overshoot really easily.

The thing I don't like about the MP stuff is that you have to know in advance how far you want to skip, as the skip isn't done until you stop pressing for whatever the timeout interval is. It's not as responsive as PRESS -> skips, see what's on screen -> PRESS etc.

@migueld: Agreed regarding the apple remote. It's a nice remote to use, but has problems due to the lack of buttons in some areas. Agreed that the hold down to skip big isn't natural - again I think it takes the responsiveness out of what you're doing. I personally use up/down for this (volume is on the amp and it's pass through, so useless on the apple remote).

Cheers,
Jonathan

[JohnnyD2]

Heh, I have a fairly high tolerance level before it gets to that point

Will look into the feedback thing as I agree it'd be most useful.

Good to know and glad to hear it

I'm particularly interested in your FFwd/REWd comments regarding your sky box - I suspect this is a "digital" form of FFwd/REWd where they're basically just trying to ffwd/rewd by skipping a bit, playing a few frames, skipping, playing a few frames etc.

That's exactly what they're doing. I tried to describe this previously but I probably didn't do a very good job. The actual implementation I believe is by internal 'bookmarks' because sometimes it seems to miss chunks of a programme out even when skipping at 2x. I also believe each frame displayed is on screen for longer than it should be - e.g. 1/4 or 1/8 of a second as opposed to 1/30th (or 1/24th) of a second. If it was genuinely skipping at 30x and showing every 30th frame I think it would induce headaches...

It's essentially exactly the same way we do it as well. The nice thing about this is it's a continual skip, so the incremental thing works well as you continually have the feedback as to what it's doing as things look like they're going faster

XBMC has incrementally faster skip?

The not so nice thing is it's quite hard to control it, as you tend to overshoot really easily.

Massively agree it's the single biggest problem with it. My gf is always moaning at me for overshooting (or undershooting) on the Sky box and it frustrates the hell out of both of us.

The thing I don't like about the MP stuff is that you have to know in advance how far you want to skip

For me that's the beauty of it - I usually know roughly how far I want to go - even if I'm searching for a particular scene and I don't know exactly where it is, I usually know whether it comes before or after a certain scene. So I skip 20mins in, figure out whether I need to go forward or back, and narrow it down bit by bit from there, using the =<1min skips when I get close. I have no problem hitting 'right' 2 times then waiting 1sec for it to skip 15sec

It's not as responsive as PRESS -> skips, see what's on screen -> PRESS etc.

Heh, that's the crux of the issue - there seems to be 2 heavily divided camps, one that sees it as more responsive (me + the others in this thread asking for MP-style option) and those who, as you just said, see it as less responsive (you + the others who like the current set up).

Agreed that the hold down to skip big isn't natural - again I think it takes the responsiveness out of what you're doing.

It does a little bit, and on the Sky box this is only implemented to skip between bookmarks (which, unless you manually add some, defaults to the start + the end of the recording).

Having said that, once I read the manual this seemed to be a good idea. I wouldn't suggest implementing this by default due to it's lack of intuitiveness, and lack of responsiveness, but as an advanced feature it might work well to have the option. It works well on the Sky box because it's a not-often used feature, but when you DO use it, you're really glad it's available (i've used it when having to turn a movie off mid-way through. I just bookmark the spot, then when I restart it I hold >> and it jumps to where I left off. Makes me love the thing a little bit more every time...)

JD

[jmarshall]

Player.SeekOffset is in SVN as of r31232. It's now up to skinners to support it. I expect Confluence will have support as soon as Jezz_X has a bit of spare time

Cheers,
Jonathan

[igotdvds]

Player.SeekOffset is in SVN as of r31232. It's now up to skinners to support it. I expect Confluence will have support as soon as Jezz_X has a bit of spare time

Cheers,
Jonathan

What exactly does seekoffset do?

[jmarshall]

What exactly does seekoffset do?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=74818

[Hitcher]

Works perfectly -









Thanks.