[wpbpete]

A video of the latest build in action has been added in the first post! Enjoy everybody. Feel free to post questions, feedback and ideas.

Looks great, thank you

a couple questions,

I noticed you FF'd thru the trailer and it seemed to go very slow, CE has always had this problem, you could never FF or skip any part of the intro's. Is that something you intend to improve?

Also, are we really gonna have to see your logo Over and Over and Over.... LoL

[GoofyJeff]

The new video looks great! Seems much easier to configure than Cinema Experience, and I love the fact that you can rearrange items on the timeline. Very cool.. And to echo another poster's remark, if y'all need people to beta test before general release let me know. I don't know crap about coding and the internal workings of Kodi, but I am a big movie fan and love having movie nights with CE.

[GoofyJeff]

Also, are we really gonna have to see your logo Over and Over and Over.... LoL

I believe those are just their versions of the trailer intro video, feature intro video, etc and you can customize whatever video you want in their place.

[Ragnarok]

hi,

will it be pssoble to start cinema vision via the cinema experience button in Kodi and threw my ipad app (xbmc constellation)?

Or do the app developer update the iphone app and Kodi will get a seperate button?

I'm honestly not sure yet. Just yesterday we started talking to our developer about skin integration. We will likely reach out to the skinning community and try to get a CinemaVision button embedded in the skins, much like the button for Cinema Experience. I'm not sure if we can use the existing button because of possible conflicts, I'm sure we'll be able to get the skinning community behind adding a few lines of code to make CinemaVision launch the same way that CE launched though.

Cool video to see things in action. Also brings up a bunch of queries.

1. Local Trailers. CE worked off the -trailer.xxx which Kodi uses to identify local trailers stored in the same directory as the movie the trailer is for (if you do all that work yourself) but also requires -trailer.xxx on any trailer in 1 specific local folder of just trailers to actually get them to play? Will it pull "library" trailers based on the naming convention? Will it play trailers with/without any naming convention from a general local folder?

Trailers currently only stream from Apple, but the functionality you're talking about will be included in the add-on when it's released. We have plans to add an option in the trailers module that will only play trailers for items in the local Kodi library, as well as plans for an option to play trailers from a local folder. We're not sure how the local folder option will work yet, but you'll likely just have to drop a video file in the Trailers folder that CinemaVision creates for you. We're not sure how much additional work will be required, as we don't have that code currently written. We will update everyone as soon as I know how it works.

2. Other bumpers and videos. CE worked with a basic folder set-up. Movies/Audio for example. Will CV use this same folder set-up to find local folders by default for default actions like Trivia Intro or Countdown? With this, could you simply tell CV where the CV main folder is an everything else works "out of the box?

CinemaVision is using a different folder structure, but all of that is created for you with the new add-on. All you have to do is point it to a location where you'd like the content stored, and it will create the structure and (when we implement it) unpack the default content to those folders. It doesn't use Cinema Experience's folder structure because CinemaVision doesn't require that much infrastructure to work. 3D content folders are a thing of the past, and we've created it to match the module structure that's in the add-on to avoid confusion. If there's interest, we'll write an executable that will perform the migration and move all of your Cinema Experience files into the CinemaVision folder structure, and remove the Cinema Experience folder when that migration is complete.

Our default folder structure is currently:

Code:

ROOT FOLDER (the location you tell CinemaVision to store files)
    -Audio Format Bumpers
        -Auro-3D
        -Dolby Atmos
        -Dolby Digital
        -Dolby Digital Plus
        -Dolby TrueHD
        -DTS
        -DTS-HD Master Audio
        -DTS-X
        -Other
        -THX
    -Music
    -Ratings Bumpers
        -BBFC
        -DEJUS
        -FSK
        -MPAA
        -[Future Supported Ratings Systems]
    -Trailers
    -Trivia Slides
    -Video Bumpers
        -3D Intro
        -3D Outro
        -Countdown
        -Courtesy
        -Feature Intro
        -Feature Outro
        -Intermission
        -Short Film
        -Theater Intro
        -Theater Outro
        -Trailers Intro
        -Trailers Outro
        -Trivia Intro
        -Trivia Outro

3. CE worked best as a full playlist that got to run it's course beginning to end. In the video it looks like you end it abruptly. Does this cause issues with Kodi or CV not playing the next time because the previous run was not yet "finished"?

I ended it abruptly for the same reason that I fast forwarded through trailers. I didn't want YouTube to flag the content!

We have plans to implement hot keys that will allow you to skip forward, pause and stop the playlist without breaking it. They're just not there yet.

4. Again with CE, you could skip a video by pressing PageUp or skip backwards with PageDown. In the video it looks like you FFW through the movie trailer. Do the playlist skip functions still work?

They don't work, yet. When they do, they'll be standard for all preshow content. You'll be able to skip video bumpers, trivia slides, etc. individually using one button throughout the preshow, for example.

5. 3D trailer/bumper support? If so, based on what trigger(s)?

It's not there yet, but it will be. 3D support will be based on Kodi. CinemaVision will detect that your feature is a 3D film, and then play the 3D content stored in the same folder structure above to suit it.

6. Audio format bumpers will be triggered by the library info, correct? If so, can it also determine the number of channels and play a 5.1 or 7.1 or other bumper based on those parameters?

That's correct. Currently, we have support for formats like Auro-3D and DTS-X for example, but until those audio codecs are actually in the video content being played by CinemaVision, we'll have to rely on your receiver to upscale it, and the wrong videos will probably play. Unfortunately, our add-on can't automatically determine your speaker configuration. What you can do is create a Video Bumper module that points to specific files or a folder that you create containing that kind of content, and put it anywhere in your sequence.

If you need Beta testers I'd be happy to try things out. Play with it and try to "break" it and report back all feedback good or bad.

Apologies for the long post. Doesn't seem to be spoiler tags here.

I'm not sure when, but we will need folks in the community testing and giving us feedback. Don't apologize for long posts. They don't hurt anyone, and we appreciate the feedback!

I noticed you FF'd thru the trailer and it seemed to go very slow, CE has always had this problem, you could never FF or skip any part of the intro's. Is that something you intend to improve?

Unfortunately, that's a limitation of streaming content, for now. What we are going to do is add those hot keys allowing you to fast forward over the entire trailer (or whatever content) at once. That's not in there yet, but it will be.

Also, are we really gonna have to see your logo Over and Over and Over.... LoL

YES! That's how you brainwash folks, right? Repetition?

Seriously though, no. Our logo and site will be all over the default content package that's installed to allow the add-on to work out of the box. Really, that's a measure to point people to the CinemaVision.tv website to see what other content folks have put on the site and give them more options for their preshow. You will not be limited to using content with our logo on it by any means.

The new video looks great! Seems much easier to configure than Cinema Experience, and I love the fact that you can rearrange items on the timeline. Very cool.. And to echo another poster's remark, if y'all need people to beta test before general release let me know. I don't know crap about coding and the internal workings of Kodi, but I am a big movie fan and love having movie nights with CE.

Thank you, sir! We were going for easy to configure and manipulate, and sincerely hope that everyone thinks we accomplished that. As soon as a release is ready for community testing, you all will be the first to know!

I believe those are just their versions of the trailer intro video, feature intro video, etc and you can customize whatever video you want in their place.

That's exactly it!

[Carl314]

I'm honestly not sure yet. Just yesterday we started talking to our developer about skin integration. We will likely reach out to the skinning community and try to get a CinemaVision button embedded in the skins, much like the button for Cinema Experience. I'm not sure if we can use the existing button because of possible conflicts, I'm sure we'll be able to get the skinning community behind adding a few lines of code to make CinemaVision launch the same way that CE launched though.

Please figure out a way to let us program use a remote button to start CV. For instance, with my Harmony SmartControl, the ideal setup would be that Play simply plays the movie, while a long-press of Play launches CV. (And for those w/o long/short button presses, simply using a different button for the same effect).

Trailers currently only stream from Apple, but the functionality you're talking about will be included in the add-on when it's released. We have plans to add an option in the trailers module that will only play trailers for items in the local Kodi library, as well as plans for an option to play trailers from a local folder. We're not sure how the local folder option will work yet, but you'll likely just have to drop a video file in the Trailers folder that CinemaVision creates for you. We're not sure how much additional work will be required, as we don't have that code currently written. We will update everyone as soon as I know how it works.

From your comment, does that mean CV would not play a locally-stored trailer in the same folder as the main movie? If so, I would encourage a rethink of this.

I'm probably not alone, and have used Ember Media Manager to painstakingly organize all of my movies, including artwork, and trailers (named xxx-trailer), in the same folder as the movie itself. (which I believe, but am not sure, is required to have the option to play a movie's trailer from the info screen).

This has the advantage of one folder on the server being self-contained with every file associated with a movie, and as I add a movie, it's easy to see if the trailer is missing, and if deleting a movie, one simply deletes the folder w/o remembering to go to a separate trailer folder to delete that as well.

So while an option for a central folder for trailers may be appropriate, please include the ability to play trailers stored with the movie.. My local trailers are all stored in the same folder as the movie, with the xxx-trailer name. I'm believe the trailer needs to be in the same folder as the movie to have the option to play the trailer from the context menu, but even if not, I like the fact that one folder on my server contains the self-contained movie with all associated filed.

4. Again with CE, you could skip a video by pressing PageUp or skip backwards with PageDown. In the video it looks like you FFW through the movie trailer. Do the playlist skip functions still work?

New buttons, or using existing chapter skip buttons? I believe the chapter skip buttons work with CE to skip individual trailers, though CE hasn't worked on my system in a while, so I can't verify that at the moment.

Cheers, Carl.

[coyote82]

I think the easiest way would be to use the existing button from cinema experience, because no one would use cinema vision and cinema experience at same time. Also it would take a really long time until app developers will add the new button. At Xbmc Constellation it took a really long time. So it would be really great ro use the existing button...

[mcorcoran]

Hey Man,

Just wanted to drop a quick note of thanks for taking on such a big project and helping to manage it from beginning to end. Looks like great stuff, keep up the good work and let me know if you need anything.

[Ragnarok]

Please figure out a way to let us program use a remote button to start CV. For instance, with my Harmony SmartControl, the ideal setup would be that Play simply plays the movie, while a long-press of Play launches CV. (And for those w/o long/short button presses, simply using a different button for the same effect).

I'm not sure how we would be able to do that, but I'll run the idea by our developer and we'll see what he comes up with. Worst case, you may have to send keyboard commands via your remote, but we'll see what he says we can do and go from there.

From your comment, does that mean CV would not play a locally-stored trailer in the same folder as the main movie? If so, I would encourage a rethink of this.

I'm probably not alone, and have used Ember Media Manager to painstakingly organize all of my movies, including artwork, and trailers (named xxx-trailer), in the same folder as the movie itself. (which I believe, but am not sure, is required to have the option to play a movie's trailer from the info screen).

This has the advantage of one folder on the server being self-contained with every file associated with a movie, and as I add a movie, it's easy to see if the trailer is missing, and if deleting a movie, one simply deletes the folder w/o remembering to go to a separate trailer folder to delete that as well.

So while an option for a central folder for trailers may be appropriate, please include the ability to play trailers stored with the movie.. My local trailers are all stored in the same folder as the movie, with the xxx-trailer name. I'm believe the trailer needs to be in the same folder as the movie to have the option to play the trailer from the context menu, but even if not, I like the fact that one folder on my server contains the self-contained movie with all associated filed.

Honestly, I hadn't thought about people having trailers stored that way, but I'll pass this on to our developer. My thought was that trailers from the Movie Information screen and context menu were streamed. I'm sure we can add that option. We're very early in development.

New buttons, or using existing chapter skip buttons? I believe the chapter skip buttons work with CE to skip individual trailers, though CE hasn't worked on my system in a while, so I can't verify that at the moment.

Unless it's for some reason impossible to do so, we will use the Kodi standard buttons for these functions. I'm pretty sure that's the current plan.

I think the easiest way would be to use the existing button from cinema experience, because no one would use cinema vision and cinema experience at same time. Also it would take a really long time until app developers will add the new button. At Xbmc Constellation it took a really long time. So it would be really great ro use the existing button...

We'll see what our developer comes up with as a solution. I can tell you that he mentioned skinners only having to add a few simple lines of code to support the add-on. We'll also be reaching out to them all as soon as we have an add-on to show off.

Hey Man,

Just wanted to drop a quick note of thanks for taking on such a big project and helping to manage it from beginning to end. Looks like great stuff, keep up the good work and let me know if you need anything.

Mike! You helped make this thing possible, sir. Thanks for all of your help getting all of the data in order, we couldn't have done any of this without your help. It's moving right along, that's for sure. I'll shoot you an email soon!

[ntzeke]

Any plans for Philips Hue integration?

[Dave the Minion]

I had mentioned the use of local library trailers in my post so again echo the inclusion of them CE does it now as one of the options. I never stream random trailers from the internet. I get why people do, but it's not my preference.

Trailers can be limited by rating and genre as well when using the local library trailers (based on the movies metadata). I'm guessing CV does this with streaming videos?

For adding a CV button to skin, right now in my skin this is the CE code on the movie information screen.

Code:

                <control type="button" id="20">
                    <label>Cinema</label>
                    <include>DialogVideoInfoButton</include>
                    <onclick>Playlist.Clear</onclick>
                    <onclick>Dialog.Close(MovieInformation)</onclick>
                    <onclick>RunScript(script.cinema.experience)</onclick>
                    <visible>Container.Content(Movies) + system.hasaddon(script.cinema.experience)</visible>
                </control>

Pretty simple and basic. I'm sure CV will be just as simple with perhaps a minor tweek. If skinners still support their skin, adding code like this would take them less than 2 minutes. So long as you only have 1 of CE or CV installed you would only get 1 button on the movie info screen. If both are installed you'd have 2 buttons though another visible string could be added to drop CE is CV is present.

Code:

<visible>Container.Content(Movies) + system.hasaddon(script.cinema.experience + !system.hasaddon(script.cinemavision)</visible>

That folder structure looks quite similar to what I posted (and I knew I'd forgotten about things like Atmos and Ratings) but how will CV know which trailers to use for 3D bumpers other than the intro and outro?

Also, Kodi has no way to determine if an audio stream is Atmos yet. How will CV do this? File name tag? Same would apply for Auro-3D and dts-X down the road. And the question about audio channels is because that info is stored in the library metadata so if you are playing a movie with 7,1 audio you could see a 7.1 specific bumper vs a 5.1 or just general dtsHD-MA. Just an idea I had as an additional option or customization.

I like that CV will be based on it's own Home folder. That's one big frustration with CE is always having to navigate through drives and folders for every video option during set-up.

Again, to skip through videos in CE you use the PageUp/Down buttons to skip forward/back in the playlist. The chapter skip buttons (Up/Down arrows) will only skip the pre-set amount if the video is more than that length. I don't actually believe you can skip to previous videos with the previous chapter button, only restart the current video.

[Ragnarok]

Any plans for Philips Hue integration?

It wasn't planned, but it might be simple enough to integrate. I've added it to the development roadmap. We're nowhere near ready to start working on Home Automation, so don't expect an update on that for a little while.

I had mentioned the use of local library trailers in my post so again echo the inclusion of them CE does it now as one of the options. I never stream random trailers from the internet. I get why people do, but it's not my preference.

Trailers can be limited by rating and genre as well when using the local library trailers (based on the movies metadata). I'm guessing CV does this with streaming videos?

Yes sir, but I wasn't thinking that some folks store those trailers with their local movies. I was thinking that we were talking about the "download in background" method that saved the trailers to a local folder instead of streamed them. Either way, we'll have it all there, eventually.

Pretty simple and basic. I'm sure CV will be just as simple with perhaps a minor tweek. If skinners still support their skin, adding code like this would take them less than 2 minutes. So long as you only have 1 of CE or CV installed you would only get 1 button on the movie info screen. If both are installed you'd have 2 buttons though another visible string could be added to drop CE is CV is present.

It will be at least that simple. We're waiting on our developer to move forward with integration, though.

That folder structure looks quite similar to what I posted (and I knew I'd forgotten about things like Atmos and Ratings) but how will CV know which trailers to use for 3D bumpers other than the intro and outro?

We haven't gotten that far in the design, just yet. I'm not sure what method our developer will use, but it will figure it out somehow.

Also, Kodi has no way to determine if an audio stream is Atmos yet. How will CV do this? File name tag? Same would apply for Auro-3D and dts-X down the road. And the question about audio channels is because that info is stored in the library metadata so if you are playing a movie with 7,1 audio you could see a 7.1 specific bumper vs a 5.1 or just general dtsHD-MA. Just an idea I had as an additional option or customization.

The CV add-on will only be able to automatically determine the codec if it's named in the video file. I'll run the idea by our developer to see what he thinks about including channel specific bumpers as well. My thought was that the audio might be in 7.1, but if people only have a 5.1 system that might be odd. CV likely won't play Atmos, Auro-3D and DTS:X videos unless you add an Audio Format module and specify that format. This can be useful when you have an upscaling receiver that converts to either Atmos or DTS:X and want that bumper to show.

Again, to skip through videos in CE you use the PageUp/Down buttons to skip forward/back in the playlist. The chapter skip buttons (Up/Down arrows) will only skip the pre-set amount if the video is more than that length. I don't actually believe you can skip to previous videos with the previous chapter button, only restart the current video.

We brainstormed the idea of including skip functionality just yesterday. I'm not yet sure what will be the final, but as soon as I have more information I'll let everyone know.

[nickr]

Unfortunately, our add-on can't automatically determine your speaker configuration.

Kodi and your proposed addon should be able to tell what speaker configuration you have, it is in guisettings.xml. <channels>

[Cinephile]

Question, how will this add-on be implemented into the various skins that currently support Cinema Experience? I am using the Aeon MQ5 Helix mod and it has a dedicated CE button in the movie info screen. Will this same button now initiate CV? What if you have both add-ons installed? Will they clash?

On a side note, I am trying to remove CE in light of the upcoming CV release but for whatever reason I am unable to either disable or uninstall the add-on as apparently it is used by my skin and cannot be removed (message comes up upon trying to uninstall)... Any ideas there?

[Ragnarok]

Unfortunately, our add-on can't automatically determine your speaker configuration.

Kodi and your proposed addon should be able to tell what speaker configuration you have, it is in guisettings.xml. <channels>

And that's why we hired a developer! I have no idea what Kodi is capable of doing, and we want to use it to its full potential.

Question, how will this add-on be implemented into the various skins that currently support Cinema Experience? I am using the Aeon MQ5 Helix mod and it has a dedicated CE button in the movie info screen. Will this same button now initiate CV? What if you have both add-ons installed? Will they clash?

We're not sure yet, but I think the idea currently is not to use the same button that CE uses. I'm not sure if skinners will want to replace CE with CV. If they do, the user experience will likely not change much at all. We'll have to see. They won't clash, as they're still two different scripts.

On a side note, I am trying to remove CE in light of the upcoming CV release but for whatever reason I am unable to either disable or uninstall the add-on as apparently it is used by my skin and cannot be removed (message comes up upon trying to uninstall)... Any ideas there?

Have you tried temporarily changing your skin to Confluence and removing CE? I'm not sure that will work, but that's my best guess. Barring that, you'll have to reach out to skinners to see what's going on there.

[Cinephile]

Have you tried temporarily changing your skin to Confluence and removing CE? I'm not sure that will work, but that's my best guess. Barring that, you'll have to reach out to skinners to see what's going on there.

Cheers mate, will try my luck!