My Observations

[OneOfMany]

Good morning all. Thanks again for the opportunity to get involved in the beta testing, and I hope to provide feedback on this project. And a heartfelt thanks to all for taking on such an enormous task.

About my setup.

I currently run two WHS v1 servers, both are configured with the same accounts.

\\HOMESERVER - 250GB OS / ~ 5TB storage

- used for basic WHS activities including all media archiving, web server and client backups
- contains BMT fanart share
- contains multiple Import Directories used by Sage (my preferred method of separating media content)

\\TVSERVER - 160GB OS / 250GB storage

- used exclusively as Sage Server
- 3x PVR-150 for Analog SD cable
- 1x Mot DCT6200 w/ HD-PVR for Digital HD cable
- stores all recorded TV (until moved by me to HOMESERVER)
- runs BMT web UI
- runs Remote Web and Mobile Web plugins
- runs Comskip plugin

3x dedicated Sage Clients Win7 Pro64

All use original Microsoft MCE remote
Gigabit Ethernet on Cat5e
Netgear Gigabit Swiitch
DLink Wireless N Router

1x Notebooks w/ Sage Client - Wireless N
1x Notebook w/ Sage Client & Placeshifter - Wireless G


Grant

[OneOfMany]

I migrated from MCE2005 to SageTV 6 due to the great SageMC interface. Besides the obvious server-centric distribution, the ability to customize the interface with the Dynamic menus allowed me the ability to create custom sub-menus to load individual or grouped Import directories. For me, this is the best way to access my media, and is a feature sorely lacking in the default v7 UI.

I am all about the flash. I expect the core to work of course, and in this regard v7 does it very well. However, after getting Phoenix installed last night, and playing with it for a few hours, I am seeing the potential to create my own WOW factor.


Please realize that I have yet to do any customization, so my initial perceptions are out of the box.

------------------------------

The inital landing screen is beatiful in it's layout. It is simple, and very fast to navigate. Most importantly it is intuitive. The font style and size is very legible, and the drop shadowing gives an appearance of depth to the various screens as well as improving readability on lighter background areas. I appreciate the title bar information with the weather, the disk usage information, and like the Current/Upcoming recording information.

The only item that stands out as being awkward is the use of centered text vs. left-aligned on the "View Recording Schedule" selection.

-------------------------------

Program Guide screen is setup the way that I prefer, with guide layout on top, and info on the bottom. I am glad that the "Enter" button on my remote automatically tunes the channel choice. I like the fact that there is no vertical scrollbar used (superfluous). The ability to customize the guide location, layout and opacity will satisfy those that prefer it the other way.

Very legible, very functional

--------------------------------

Live TV

Excellent. Definitely prove the "less is more" axiom is true. The elimination of the heavy title bars, and the use of drop shadow text for the show/episode makes it legible but not intrusive.

The time bar is about as simple as it can be, and that simplicity, along with the lack of buttons referring to ffw/rew is refreshing. They really served no purpose except to take up space. Volume control staus is nice. I guess a vertical coloured bar ala the time bar could be used for consistency, but the numerical values are fine.

I particularly like the transparent information overlayed on the screen when pressing the info button. It doesn't interfere with the viewing, and as I stated before, the drop shadows make the text very legible over the moving background.

Mini-guide is great! This is a feature that we use regularly, as using Channel Up/Down is cumbersome. Again, consistency with the transparency makes it seamless. I like the right side which displays the next few upcoming shows on the highlighted channel, but was really impressed when I hit the right button and the info swapped and allowed me to scroll down the list of upcoming shows! Huge WAF on this one.

------------------------------------

Grant

[bialio]

Mini-guide is great! This is a feature that we use regularly, as using Channel Up/Down is cumbersome. Again, consistency with the transparency makes it seamless. I like the right side which displays the next few upcoming shows on the highlighted channel, but was really impressed when I hit the right button and the info swapped and allowed me to scroll down the list of upcoming shows! Huge WAF on this one.

Thanks - I thought the mini-guide did turn out really well. There is a similar vibe in the 'Channel Surf' which is what you get if you start entering numbers directly.

btl.

[bialio]

The only item that stands out as being awkward is the use of centered text vs. left-aligned on the "View Recording Schedule" selection.

Could you get a screen shot of this? I'm not seeing any alignment issues with this.

[OneOfMany]

When I got home last night, it appears that the text for that particular field "View Program Guide" is no longer centered. Previously it was on two lines, and now it is all on one line. Maybe it has something to do with the particular screen resolution of this client 1366x768. As far as I am aware, the Client has not been restarted. On this system, we generally leave the Photo screenshow running 24/7. Sort of like a large Digital Picture Frame. No issues when jumping from this to Phoenix.

I also noticed last night that the Mute on the remote is not functioning (don't think I had tried it after installing beta). Standard Vol +/- is fine. Tried again this morning, same. I didn't restart the Client this AM, as normal OP is to never turn off or minimize. Sage is only program used.

-----------------------------------------

Archived / Current Recording screens

I know that you have stated that the Horizontal screen is really pre-Alpha and not ready for prime time, however, I feel that it could be a nice option for some. One observation was that the titling on the posters along the bottom is impossible to read. This is due to the length and neccessary size of the test for readability. The titles end up being multi-line, and this makes them difficult to read.

What I noticed while trying this screen layout, was that my eyes tended to focus between the large title and the posters as I scrolled through them. I never looked at the other poster titles. I believe that you could probably eliminate these titles as the posters themselves are really the eye candy of the view. How about just displaying the title of the poster just to the left and right of the one focused. This way you could display it on one line, and it would serve as a simple next/prior indicator?


I did not really spend much time with the single list screen, but will give it a test and report on it later


My preference is the double-list for the recording screens, as I prefer to view all TV shows by Season/Episode. I like seeing the episodes listed, and use this as a method to determine which episodes I am missing.

I do not see any purpose in indicating the # of episodes available being displayed on the series list. The only way this information would be useful would be if it showed the number you have / the total number made.

I turned on the banner support, however none of the banners I have in my fanart directory displayed. Instead it seemed to be a fuzzy brown box. I will zero in on this an see if there is something I missed.

When I first viewed my archived media, which for the most part have full BMT metadata, the initial view of the episode was - EpisodeName (Date Recorded/created?). Upon discovering the ability from the Detail screen to fetch metadata, once re-fetched it then showed it as - EpisodeName (SxEx). Very nice. One thing I did notice is that regardless of the date it initially displayed, it did correctly sort them by SE. Once I updated, they were in the same place.

Background fanart displays nicely, and the screen opacity is pretty much bang on for most backgrounds I have. Once again, the drop shadow text makes everything very legible. A couple were a bit dark, but that may have to do more with the contrast setup on this older LCD.

--------------------------------------------

Detailed Recording Screen

This one won me over! Beautiful.

The transitioning fanart is perfect. The transition filter used makes the changes smooth and seamless, and the changes don't distract the eye when working the menus or reading the summary/detailed info.

I like the fact that the Delete and Get Metadata buttons are initially hidden. Since these are generally "use once" buttons, it makes sense.

I noticed that some opacity is used on the Detailed Info text box, but not on the Summary Info text box. This was not an issue for the majority of my collection, however some of my media shows a full screen of info on the Summary view (definitely something on my end). This is not a problem, however it becomes very noticeable when toggling the two views as the screen goes from difficult to read (no opacity) to easy (opacity) on some backgrounds. Maybe it would be possible to opaque only the text box contents so it would change size with the amount of info displayed.

--------------------------------------------

Metadata updating

Kudos on this. I spent a couple of hours just playing with this, and I find that it works great. I really like the % display, and the other possible correct matches. A few of my shows, the 45% match was the correct one so it was easy to choose.

One thing I only found out by pushing various remote buttons was that on my MS MCE remote, pressing the Enter button on the bottom brought up an editor to modify my search name. Very useful, but not easy to guess as being there.

I like the ability to choose TV or Movie as sometimes certain shows may not be on the TVDB but have an entry in the IMDB (or whichever scraper is being used lol). Especially true with some Discovery specials and kids shows. What would be nice is if when there are no matches in one category, instead of displaying a blank box, put a message indicating something to the effect of:

Unable to find a match for "The making of the Earth" in the TV database"
Either Press "" to edit search title or
Search title in the movie database.

A little verbose, but you get the idea.

What might be nice is the ability to process a whole series vs. one episode at a time if desired.

----------------------------------------------

As an aside, I installed the PShifter beta on my notebook, and tried loading Phoenix from work. The screen is so jumbled up (no background, text that persists when moving through the menus, it is unusable. I will reload when on my LAN and see if that helps. FYI, once I was able to navigate to the Live TV section, the stream was fine (about 786 avg.) but invoking miniguide and the Info overlay were painfully slow to initialize (and with their partial persistence after being closed) cluttered up the screen quickly. Again, I will reload from LAN and see if that clears up the issue. This notebook also has Phoenix running in SageClient for LAN home use, and there are no issues there.


Grant

[OneOfMany]

OK, I am seeing an issue with the mute button on the remote.

When the Client is running full screen (default) or in a window the Mute button is having no effect. Vol +/- is fine. However if click on the Windows taskbar giving it focus, then the Mute will work on the taskbar speaker icon, muting all.

Problem is persisting after Client restart, both whether Sage is set to Always be on top or not.

Grant

[OneOfMany]

Here is a clip of the text-centering. This is from SageClient on my notebook which is running 1280x800 resolution.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by OneOfMany

Here is a clip of the text-centering. This is from SageClient on my notebook which is running 1280x800 resolution.

Hmm... That's weird I don't see that on my hd 300

[OneOfMany]

I'm not sure about PS at the moment. I connected via my LAN to redo the install.

Uninstalled Phoenix to default UI. Restarted SageServer. Everything appeared normal in default UI. Noticed I had an update for Phioenix Core Services so installed that. Restarted SageServer. All OK in default UI. Reinstalled Phoenix plugin, restarted SageServer, reloaded PS and chose the .xml.

Screen still shows no background image (black with landing pad text only). Title bar info is showing fine. Everytime I change menu choice, it draws the new text info, but does not remove the existing text. Bringing up the Info dialog, same issue. It just keeps adding text (and text box borders) but does not remove any existing.

Again, this is my notebook running PS on Wireless N. No issue when running Client on same system Wireless N, or on test system running Client wired. My next step will be to install PS on the test system and see if problem replicates.

Grant

Update: Just arrived at work and loaded PS after writing this. Everything appears normal now. Not sure what caused it, since my last login on PS was done over the local connection. Am seeing the centered text on that menu choice mind you. Wondering if it has to do with the screen resolution? Wouldn't look bad if text was left-aligned.

Grant

[gplasky]

I've seen this show up on the initial install of Phoenix. A restart of the client fixes the issue.

Gerry

[OneOfMany]

Centered text on the PS.

[OneOfMany]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I've seen this show up on the initial install of Phoenix. A restart of the client fixes the issue.

Gerry

Just took multiple restarts of everything, but hey it's working remotely!

Grant

[OneOfMany]

Noticed an issue when using the Sage Video Imports selection in double-list.

When screen loads and shows the multiple import directories I use, as I scroll down the left list, although the main title correctly displays the first folder name on the right pane (and that folder's art), and changes as I scroll the list, the description remains the same

Grant

[OneOfMany]

3.09 - centered text now left-aligned

Grant