Paul Thurott really doesn’t like the new Media Center
Paul Thurott is out with his latest Windows Vista review and spends a good portion of the article talking about Media Center. From, Windows Vista February 2006 CTP (Build 5308/5342) Review, Part 5: Where Vista Fails:
In Windows Vista, Microsoft has irrevocably broken Media Center. It’s a horrid update to a wonderful bit of software, an ugly stepchild of beautiful parents. It’s so bad, I don’t even know where to start.
Now where do I start with my rebuttal? :)
First, the color scheme, it’s not final. Don’t get too hung up on look and feel and fit and finish in the early CTP builds.
Second, the new start menu navigation model. We debate a lot internally about what’s changing and whether the changes are for the better or for the worse; this new start menu rarely comes under fire. Why? Because this new start menu enables users to get to areas of the product much faster than the old model of having a home page and then home pages for each experience. I won’t spend the time walking through this now, but will in a later post.
Third, the horizontal galleries. This topic too warrants its own blog post. In short, we’re making a big bet on users having 16×9 displays. As such we’ve designed an interface, that is in our opinion, optimized for wide screen resolutions. Personally, I’m undecided about whether I like the change or not. Originally I was adamantly opposed to it, but it’s growing on me :).
Fourth, remote controls. Yes, we have new remote controls coming. If you were at CES 2006 they were in use at our booths.
Fifth, changing the interface. Yes, we’re changing the interface, and existing users will have to spend some time getting aquainted with the new interface. But given our new distribution strategy of bundling Media Center with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate, Media Center will go out to orders of magnitude more users; new users. Users who have never used Media Center before. Users who likely aren’t going to care that we’ve changed the interface.
Sixth, WMP. I’m glad to hear Paul likes the changes to WMP. I also like the changes and think it’s a big improvement from WMP 10. But, I think WMP still has a lot of room to grow in terms of a simple user experience. And I totally agree with Paul that we need to work harder at providing thoughtful transitions between 2′ applications like WMP, PIX, the Windows Shell, and their 10′ equivalents in Media Center.
What are your thoughts on the changes? Have you installed build 5342? What do you think?
Matt Goyer Explains Media Center Changes
Matt Goyer talks about Microsoft’s changes to Media Center in Windows Vista. He makes some interesting…
I agree with Paul. I do not particularly like the looks of Vista, it’s not very pretty and quite confusing (I hate the lame glass effect, but with the “translucency” turned off it’s definetly bearable). I was also expecting much more from what was promised. So far, Vista looks to me like just another version of Windows that changes a few things without any real radical improvements. I know that theoretically Vista brings many interesting things to the table (like WPF, a better Media Center etc.), but practically it is much less usable to me (and maybe I am simply not used to it enough yet). I definetly agree with all the points that Paul pointed out. Also, Windows has become a resource hungry monster with Vista (750MB of RAM consumed at startup!), and I’m not sure that is a good thing. I have the hardware to run it smoothly, but I wonder how it will behave when I start using it seriously.
I finally got Vista working with the new ATI drivers over the weekend and actual “got” the whole UI design.
The wide-screen design works very well.
At first I didn’t like the new menu system but having used them over the weekend I found them much better than the XP version and going back to XP you miss the new menu design.
So I think Media Center is looking good in the current builds, sure there is room for improvement but it works very well.
I included my thoughts on this weeks Media Center Show
I know I seem like an eHome fanboy at times (shame I didn’t get in on the MCE side of the Vista beta (its not too late matt )…
I will take Matt’s and Pauls comments one by one….
1. I love the new MCE interface. It seems much more, I guess… high tech. ( I wouldn’t mind the ability to customize it some more (color schemes, etc.)
2. I love flying around with the new start menu, but to be honest as a Harmony user I rarely use it.
3. I love the VISTA MCE 10 foot world. I have 3 HDs in the house all 55″ or bigger and all 16:9… so it really works for me kudos for the use of my real estate better.
4. Matt… just ship me a remote thats on your blog :)
5. I actually LOVE the interface ( as stated before so no complaints )
6. Ok something we ALL agree on… WMP11 is so much better than WMP10 but it does have a long way to go… Album Art selection ( I wanna be able to choose it and have it stay to my selection and NOT revert…
To be honest… if the current build worked on my main MCE box - the dreaded BSOD on boot, then I would be sure to use it instead of the OLD ( but still loved ) XP MCE.
Personally, I like the interface more than 2005, the problem for me is a lack of tvout and divx drivers for 64bit (NZ TV is so crap I torrent down 90% of what I watch)
Other than that - I prefer it. I think the MCE will be the first - and possibly only - machine at home to get upgraded (other machiens are my laptop (2003 server), the server (2003 server, PDC, Exchange etc) and my wife’s laptop, which is somewhat underspeced to run Vista)
Matt,
As a Danish user of MCE one thing I would very much like to tell about is about the use of WMP10 and MCE2005. We have alot of Danish artist where the album art does not show and often we dont get the right information about the songs on the album. As long as this is not working(it works in Itunes) then I dont see the point at all showing albums. I must also admit that I havent tried Vista yet so I dont know if you have made the other album/artist search functions better but it is very annoying when half you albums doesnt show other than a blue square. I dont think we in Denmark are the only country with this problem.
Given the fact that I will need more power to a system, how will I ever be able to get a silent system in my house?? Noise is probably one of the biggest factors right now so please dont push it again!!
Lastly but not least I still believes that building a media center on top of an operating system like XP is not a good idea. Remember how the former Showshifter could be run on a 1Ghz processor with 256Mb memory and a build in graphicscard. I know its dead but when thinking small boxes in each room, Vista might not be the best idea… Yes you will then suggest xbox360’s but they arent excactly silent..
Jeppe
I agree with Paul on the Virtual Folder/Search folder/Saved Searches crap as well as on MCE.
Vista MCE is just a step backward, imho. The box around the labels on the home page just looks ugly. “pictures and videos”? “Movies and Videos” makes a bit more sense. I defnitely agree with the whole bit about the emphasis on horizontal motion. If you want to use more horizontal in the album or song lists, fine; however, please don’t over emphasize it on the start page. Widescreen or not, up/down on a remote control feels alot more natural to me and is easier on the thumbs. I like the use of album art but do not like that you don’t display them like enhanced tiles in WMP 11. You just show the damn album covers only. At least give me the option to display the albums or movies as enhanced tiles with title, album, artist etc.
I think the changes in WMP11 are superficially pretty, but managing the library became a lot tougher.
It’s been hard trying to analyse the changes since the UI up to build 5243 has been very unstable.
The loss of drag and drop aggregation of tracks in the library does not seem to have been replaced by anything new.
The Album Update feature seems to be unchanged, and there is still little consistency in the naming & display of metadata fields from one part of the UI to the next.
The picture management section is still a mess, particularly in the absence of any separate management UI for images. Why would I want thousands of album thumbnails intermingled with my personal photos?
There’s nothing to help control multi-user access to a shared library media files on a single PC. One user sets update preferences one way, and another sets the other way. Each time they log in, the two sets of preferences fight each other: renaming and rearranging tracks one way and then the next.
Also, we’re still stuck with 2-second gaps between tracks when burning audio CDs.
It’s irritating to see how many people (like Paul Thurrot) are mainly focussing on the UI. I’ll never forget the way he was crying about IE7 and MCE in the early beta stages. He’s a crybaby screaming for attention.
Maybe he has some points.. But he’s writing things as if it’s the final package, as if the things he writes about are all facts. It’s just his stupid opinion!
People like us love to see progressive stuff. But the fact is, this product will be used by the entire planet! It’s too bad they don’t seem to get the complexity of this matter.
Anyway, i’m braggin’.
I would love to test the latest version of Vista but somehow don’t get access to the betaprogram! :( Having MSDN Universal doesn’t help!
Looking forward in testing MCE (extender) in combo with the 360. And I absolutely love the layout of the new interface.
I heard someone talking about a possibility that extenders (like the 360) will be able to act as a Vista extender as well thus creating a remote session to your Vista pc. Now that would be TOTALLY awesome! Can you confirm this Matt? It makes so much sense! I would love to see a feature like this added.
Was also wondering if MCE will have added library features (reset, backup, rebuild etc.)
Thanks
I haven’t had a chance to play around with the CTP, but one feature I hope is added to Vista MCE is discrete access to all the functions. Right now MCE has discrete access to My Videos, My DVD, etc., but lacks discrete access to the zoom functionality of HD content. If there is discrete access to all functionality, then it doesn’t really matter how the GUI is navigated. Just my two cents.
Ben
I really dont like the new interface. I use MCE on 4 machines at home, only 1 of which is a widescreen. I hate the way videos are handled. I have over 300 Divx movies catagoriezed by in folders. In Vista they show up in one massive clump. I hated the way Music was done in 2005 ignoring my folder structure, now videos are done the same way.
If a stable build is ever released I might get to like it but for now its annoying off centered and clunky.
I really do like video in the background though.
I am a big user of my MCE 2005 and I like it, and I only know MCE Vista from the previews I have read on the net, but I have read a lot of them.
My opinion is the following:
- I really, really want to be able to use themes in MCE. If that it is not possible, at least let us change colours. Customisation is very important. And why not take advantage of 3D cards?
- I agree with Paul about the main menu buttons, they really don’t look good. I would rather have an icon on the left side of a text button, a bit like the tiles view in windows XP.
- About the more horizontal use of the MCE in Vista, I would have to try it, to give a more correct opinion, but people are used to scroll vertically when using computers: browsing the web, reading a Word document, etc. And Books and newspapers have a vertical format.
I understand Matt when he talks about 16×9 displays, but also understand Paul when he talks about remote control buttons for vertical use.
I know this could be difficult to implement, but why not let the user choose …
- It is very important to be able to choose from various databases when importing information and cover art from the web, just like “My Movies†plugin for MCE 2005.
- I would like very much to be able to browse the WEB in my 10 foot TV.
- I would like very much to be able to check my email in my 10 foot TV.
- I would like very much to be able to use a calendar in my 10 foot TV.
Microsoft let us perform the same operation in windows from various ways, using the mouse or the keyboard, which is a very good thing, but as been lacking visual customisation in windows, and from what I have read, the same is lacking in Vista. I don’t fancy transparency, why not let us take advantage of 3D cards and use textures?
What about implementing your Netflix Avalon demo in MCE Vista, a very good work.
As a computer programmer since 1983, I know it is not easy at all to please all the users, so I always let my software users to customize as much as possible.
Please give us the best experience possible. I really think you can.
Keep up the good work.
I agree with pjmvc, customization should be given much more focus. Theme support is a must; color customization of the default theme would be a nice starting point. Give users the ability to customize the MCE start menu the way they can arrange programs within the Windows start menu (order, location, icons, etc). There is no way to make everyone happy with a single interface. Adding this functionality, even if it is with a TweakMCE add-on, would make a lot of people happy.
One thing that Paul complained about was the horizontal navigation used in the portable media centers; i’ve got a samsung portable mediacenter and i think the horizontal navigation is a real bonus. If you don’t know what i’m talking about then i’ll try to describe it quickly - if you’re in My Music pressing down scrolls through albums, pressing left or right goes into artists or songs. When you’re in an artist viewing their albums then left and right go to the next/previous artist. Finally, if you’re in an album then left or right go between different albums of that current artist! easy! With ipod you have to keep going back up the tree!
Vista MCE is using something similar but slightly different, i think it’s effective.
BTW, to pjmvc: I believe that MCE (even 2005) is fully hardware rendered inside of the interface and only the Online Spotlight goes to software rendered html. so if you have MCE in a window mode then you can drag/scale the window and you’ll see everything scaling nice and smoothly because it’s done on-card.
You can actually get a hotmail reader for mediacenter but it’s pretty tough to use without a keyboard (typing on the remote :( ) and people have made Office/calender/email/contact plugins for MCE2005.
I’m really looking forward to the WPF based spotlight plugins - especially My Movies if that get’s upgraded to WPF…that html rendering is really clunky.
Lovin’ it so far!
Matt.
So far only one vendor has found the right solution. Bang & Olufsen has made an excellent black box. Yes it has limited functionality at this stage but you can use the remote that your using today(if your a B&O user), You dont have to care about updates, you dont have to think about Antivirus etc, You just plug it into your system and your up and running. I really like MCE2005 and I use it every day but I dont like that it is based on an operating system like Vista or even XP. It should be based on CE or some other simple OS. That way it is not that easy to get into troubles…
Jeppe
I haven’t used MCE in the new build but I am very worried that you are taking a beautiful thing in MCE2005 and making it “too feature rich” so that it becomes unattractive and complex.
If you can keep it so that my mom can figure it out without training, then you are on the right path. However, I have a sick feeling that it is going the other way.
I would comment, but as a lowly paying MSDN subscriber, we have been frozen out of anything since Feb CTP build 5308 with the massive memory leaks :-(
Still nice to know all the non-paying regular job-blow beta testers get all newer builds…
I respect Paul Thurrot quite a bit and read his columns/sites blogs with interest. However, I completely disagree with him on this. I rather like the new UI and navigation. I didn’t find the transition all that hard. Although it is still early, there are two features I would love to see in Vista MCE.
1. Softsled. I have read numerous items regarding this. Some say it is in, some say it is out. Please make it in.
2. support for OTA HD in Canada. This is a big one, I love my media center 2005 environment and hate having to switch out to watch OTA HD. This is going to be even more important knowing that cablecard 1.0 or 2.0 are not provided by any cable providers in canada. The only way to watch and “sling” hd content around the house in canada will be if ms adds support for hd in canada.
3. I read that ms is working closely with Directv to provide additional functionality and easier connectivity to directv installations via a new recevier, etc.
MS should work with Bell Expressvu in canada to provide the same thing here. Bell and MS already have extensive partnerships around MSN and sympatico internet service. Can the same thing happen with expressvu and media center.
4. Avia-type television configuration. The tv setup wizard in MCE 2005 is a good start, MS should built on it and provide more advanced configuration options.
I like the new interface, but what I miss are the really new features, you got a new interface and new search, filter options, but I hoped to get some really new features like:
I want to categories my recorded files, and want to use basic file management features in the 10 †interface, like copy, move to other folder and thinks like that, now I have to do this in the Windows interface and I really had hoped that this was added in the new version.
Something liked discussed on the green button forums: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/110755.aspx
What I also still don’t understand is that you cannot add more then 4 minutes for before and after a recording, I now you can changes this in the register and even use some tools for this, but why not in the default interface?
I now I can change the pre recording time in the recording itself, but why I can’t change this in the defaults under settings is a mystery to me, I see this question I al the forums so I’m not the only one who misses this possibility.
Why not a standard basic Outlook clone, calendar, mail and contacts that’s the most used application on every PC, now I have to change to the default Windows interface and use the normal Outlook to do these tasks, not very handy on a TV screen?
Web browsing, also not possible, not even a standard rss reader???
So I don’t have a problem with the interface I think that MS has a point to use a vertical lay-out and even like the colors and al the rest, but I miss some new features, I’m sorry but now I don’t see the real need to upgrade.
Kind regards,
Danny
Well,
I’ve liked the idea of having a more dense view of the itens, but I also think that scroling vertically makes more sense to me.
I do like to looks of MCE in Vista, including the color scheme, but the way the menu was designed can lead to problems. For one, I think videos and photos can be a logical step if you think only about your family videos, but what about MPG files that are actually movies? Where they should be placed and how?
My main concern is when Matt talks about MCE being easier to use to all this new users around the world that never had access to MCE. I don’t think the Menus and look and feell should be the major concern in this area. Being a user outside USA (I live in Brazil), most of the major new features (such as HD and CableCard) are not available to me. We also don’t have access to xbox 360’s and no TV Guide. If Microsoft want’s to provide a good experience to this new users, they should fix this first (Eg: providing other ways to use extenders like softsled and providing a mechanism to import local schedulings in a predefined format).
I think that having a complete experience with Extenders and TV Guide is much more user appealing that a new user interface in these new markets.
I also agree that MCE in Vista does not look like a such upgrade if you take out the UI. Aside from some minor changes like mini-guide, all the new big features are USA only. So they mean close to nothing to me.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
A few comments:
Scuffs, videos still has a folder view for those who prefer a folder structure for videos.
Pjmvc, web browsing, email, calendars and a Netflix application are great ideas for a third party, independent software vendor, to build on the Media Center platform. And in fact some have already been built! Of course, Microsoft can’t build everything and currently we’re naturally focused on ‘media’.
Re: Themeing, yes some users want it. But do enough users want it to justify the large investment we would have to make in order to enable it?
Re: Moms, we invest a lot in usability testing each step of the way to ensure that each release is as easy, if not easier, for our Mom’s to use than the past one.
The loss of management of large music collections in WMP 11 is my biggest bug bear.. Basically I used to be able to drag and drop tracks from one album to another in WMP 10, bulk select attributes and update them. The loss of this functionality is appaling for those heavy users of WMP 10 with large music collections. I seriously hope you are not going to leave WMP 11 like this. On the upside however you can now scan in album art and add it in for those tracks where there is no on-line data (especially usefull since the service is American based and UK only albums don’t appear!!).