2011-10-26, 16:28
As part of GSOC 2011, improving the picture viewing features is a task that still needs to be done. This topic is ment to give an overview of the current picture viewing features of XBMC. The ultimate goal of this topic is to gather information and ideas to improve the picture viewing features of XBMC.
In general HTPC-usage scenario, picture viewing is mainly ment for local picture viewing and centralizing your pictures. Just like with video's and music. Then it could become the central hub in your house to manage and enjoy (watch/stream/publish) your (family) photo collections. At this time and in the recent past, the core team wasn't very interested in those features since the focus is on the framework in general and more specifically video playback. But, as you can read in the mentioned GSOC-wiki page, a lot of work still needs to be done.
Luckily, 2 community members (Aardvark & Gwan) stepped in and shared their work with a few essential patches/bugfixes for a better picture viewing experience:
- enables playing of videos within a picture slideshow but still some bugs...
- Video thumbnails in Picture viewmode
- Support automatic scrolling of panoramas in slideshows Not in master
- Fixed Iptc parser under 64bit linux Fixed in Eden
- Better EXIF-handling Fixed in Eden
- Problem with next and zoom
- Exiting a slideshow brings you back to where you started (first viewed) you slideshow instead of where you ended it (last viewed). Fixed
- Mouse wheel isn't working (scrolling) in slideshow (tested in Openelec with Confluence on 10.1 & git) : Fixed for Eden
Fixed in Frodo:
- A new (and faster!) JPEG-encoder: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commit/1d99...6e5ef22dd6
- A thumbnail cache: Even more speed after initial browsing a folder. (for further optimization: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/12308 & http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=118967)
- localized EXIF-date: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commit/d9ce...75b38d1afe (some extra skin work: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/1020)
- problem with geotagged pictures: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=106686&page=2
As a side-note, team-xbmc made some usefull fixes to the UPNP-protocol implementation in XBMC. Those fixes made sure that XBMC is utilizing the specs of the protocol better while it supports the current way the picture section works.
Altogehter, those improvements already made the picture viewing experience better from Eden and on. Still, the main problem with the current picture viewing part of XBMC is that picture viewing isn't managed from a database like with music and videos. This is known as the library feature of XBMC. Together with the GUI, this is the strongest part of XBMC but it isn't used for pictures. Besides, being not databased, picture addons become a lot more complex to add extra picture features to XBMC. Thus also for integrating with online services. In other words, the XBMC framework (including Addon Framework, JSON API, database layer (including import, export, cleaning), scraping/query mechanisms, GUi integration) doesn't fully leverage its own powers for pictures since there is no central database with metadata.
The current feature (when entering a view with thumbnails to browse folders and start a slideshow) just populate thumbnails and picture information once you enter a folder from your source. (In Frodo, a patch to cache all this will go in) This way, the database layer is skipped and the views are rendered on the fly. This makes browsing a larger (starting at 40+) picture collection rather slow due to slow thumbnail generation (there is a workaround-patch). You notice this when your scrolling through your picture collection is slower than in your video section. But more importantly, many features you would expect from XBMC, like scraping (all the meta-data from) your pictures and do some usefull things with it, aren't supported.
But also the lack of picture information (most missed: XMP-info. But also EXIF information & IPTC info is incomplete. See this example for available info.) is a great missed opportunity. Currently, metadata (only some XMP & ITPC information) is scanned from the picture when opening the folder. But the best info you could use in a slideshow, is missed (but there is a solution. The same information on which your picture management is based (see the addon mentioned below).
So there is lots of room for improvements in the picture section of XBMC.
Luckily, Solexalex developped the database backend and the queries to scrape the images. He made a great addon for this. Downside with this AddOn is that it can't easily provide the uniform way (database, Gui, JSON framework, Addon Framework and the slideshow feature) like XBMC works for the rest of your media. This means that other Addons (currently these picture addons are mostly addons that connect to online services) can not easily interact with this very important feature which isn't in the core.
That's why I think the features (database and queries) this addon provides should be part of the core of XBMC. I also think that Solexalex designed his Addon with integrating to the core in mind, from the start. Thanks to this, the AddOn could relatively easy be integrated in the current database backend (with the queries for scraping) in the core. On of the most important questions is wether this data needs to have it's database or if it should be integrated in another one.
Hopefully, this view is shared within the community and this posts may be the start of getting the picture library up and running.
But first, it would be great if some team-xbmc members and solexalex would give their opinion. What are the plans within team-xbmc related to pictures or is the team awaiting patches for those features? Does the proposed "porting-the-picture-addon-to-the-core"-approach sounds worth the effort?
In general HTPC-usage scenario, picture viewing is mainly ment for local picture viewing and centralizing your pictures. Just like with video's and music. Then it could become the central hub in your house to manage and enjoy (watch/stream/publish) your (family) photo collections. At this time and in the recent past, the core team wasn't very interested in those features since the focus is on the framework in general and more specifically video playback. But, as you can read in the mentioned GSOC-wiki page, a lot of work still needs to be done.
Luckily, 2 community members (Aardvark & Gwan) stepped in and shared their work with a few essential patches/bugfixes for a better picture viewing experience:
- enables playing of videos within a picture slideshow but still some bugs...
- Video thumbnails in Picture viewmode
- Support automatic scrolling of panoramas in slideshows Not in master
- Fixed Iptc parser under 64bit linux Fixed in Eden
- Better EXIF-handling Fixed in Eden
- Problem with next and zoom
- Exiting a slideshow brings you back to where you started (first viewed) you slideshow instead of where you ended it (last viewed). Fixed
- Mouse wheel isn't working (scrolling) in slideshow (tested in Openelec with Confluence on 10.1 & git) : Fixed for Eden
Fixed in Frodo:
- A new (and faster!) JPEG-encoder: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commit/1d99...6e5ef22dd6
- A thumbnail cache: Even more speed after initial browsing a folder. (for further optimization: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/12308 & http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=118967)
- localized EXIF-date: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commit/d9ce...75b38d1afe (some extra skin work: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/1020)
- problem with geotagged pictures: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=106686&page=2
As a side-note, team-xbmc made some usefull fixes to the UPNP-protocol implementation in XBMC. Those fixes made sure that XBMC is utilizing the specs of the protocol better while it supports the current way the picture section works.
Altogehter, those improvements already made the picture viewing experience better from Eden and on. Still, the main problem with the current picture viewing part of XBMC is that picture viewing isn't managed from a database like with music and videos. This is known as the library feature of XBMC. Together with the GUI, this is the strongest part of XBMC but it isn't used for pictures. Besides, being not databased, picture addons become a lot more complex to add extra picture features to XBMC. Thus also for integrating with online services. In other words, the XBMC framework (including Addon Framework, JSON API, database layer (including import, export, cleaning), scraping/query mechanisms, GUi integration) doesn't fully leverage its own powers for pictures since there is no central database with metadata.
The current feature (when entering a view with thumbnails to browse folders and start a slideshow) just populate thumbnails and picture information once you enter a folder from your source. (In Frodo, a patch to cache all this will go in) This way, the database layer is skipped and the views are rendered on the fly. This makes browsing a larger (starting at 40+) picture collection rather slow due to slow thumbnail generation (there is a workaround-patch). You notice this when your scrolling through your picture collection is slower than in your video section. But more importantly, many features you would expect from XBMC, like scraping (all the meta-data from) your pictures and do some usefull things with it, aren't supported.
But also the lack of picture information (most missed: XMP-info. But also EXIF information & IPTC info is incomplete. See this example for available info.) is a great missed opportunity. Currently, metadata (only some XMP & ITPC information) is scanned from the picture when opening the folder. But the best info you could use in a slideshow, is missed (but there is a solution. The same information on which your picture management is based (see the addon mentioned below).
So there is lots of room for improvements in the picture section of XBMC.
Luckily, Solexalex developped the database backend and the queries to scrape the images. He made a great addon for this. Downside with this AddOn is that it can't easily provide the uniform way (database, Gui, JSON framework, Addon Framework and the slideshow feature) like XBMC works for the rest of your media. This means that other Addons (currently these picture addons are mostly addons that connect to online services) can not easily interact with this very important feature which isn't in the core.
That's why I think the features (database and queries) this addon provides should be part of the core of XBMC. I also think that Solexalex designed his Addon with integrating to the core in mind, from the start. Thanks to this, the AddOn could relatively easy be integrated in the current database backend (with the queries for scraping) in the core. On of the most important questions is wether this data needs to have it's database or if it should be integrated in another one.
Hopefully, this view is shared within the community and this posts may be the start of getting the picture library up and running.
But first, it would be great if some team-xbmc members and solexalex would give their opinion. What are the plans within team-xbmc related to pictures or is the team awaiting patches for those features? Does the proposed "porting-the-picture-addon-to-the-core"-approach sounds worth the effort?
