Re: Ideas for Windows Media Player 12

Ahh, watching TV via a tuner card. That's why we have the Media Center
version of Windows, that's in their charter. They even supply tv guide type
functionality (the episode guide) as part of their package.

Personally I have a Hauppauge WinTV 250 PVR tuner card and use their
software in conjunction with Titan.TV for the episode guide as it actually
has "one click" scheduling in the webpage that lists the programs. I prefer
the thinner clients for things like that.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant.

--
Thanks!
Mike Poz [MSFT]
--------------------
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"Travis King" wrote:

For video capture, I meant using a tuner card and watching regular TV on the
computer, not necessarily streams over the Internet. Not sure if that is
what you meant. Thanks.
"Mike Poz [MSFT]" <MikePozMSFT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:C9731799-2487-41F5-94C7-3EA1A1137135@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Travis,

Some good ideas there, some that can't be done for technical reasons,
etc.

MFPMP.EXE is necessary, it's the decoding engine for audio and video on
Windows Vista. The team that works on that knows that performance
improvements are needed and they're looking at ways to make that happen.

DWM is an integral part of the Vista Premium/Ultimate experience, we
cannot
"not" use it if it's turned on. They also know that performance
improvements
are needed.

Speaker configuration is a platform setting, WMP is a per user
application,
that's why you can adjust volume over all but not each speaker
individually
in WMP. This is also why some audio card companies came out with the
little
system tray configuation applet so you can do this quickly and easily.

Direct digital video capture of a stream is a content owner copyright
issue
that WMP cannot disregard. Isn't going to happen in the player, sorry.

The rest are either great ideas or already being investigated. Thanks for
the ideas!

--
Thanks!
Mike Poz [MSFT]
--------------------
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.


"Travis King" wrote:

In addition, here's what I think should be added (some things are small):

1. A wallpaper for WMP in the background that can be customized just
like
there is a wallpaper on my iRiver Clix basically.
2. Built-in basic video capture abilities
3. For syncing music, instead of heavily relying on the library to find
your music, also have an option where you can explorer the computer's
hard
disks to find the music you're looking for even if they're not in the
library. Similarly, do this with videos and pictures.
4. For the radio feature, show the different "stations" in the playlist
instead of as a web page.
5. An optional feature that can be disabled or enabled that will
automatically sync files to the device when you add them to the sync list
without needing to click the 'start sync' button.
6. On Windows Vista, automatically make window borders very dark when
watching videos, but also, have an option to enable or disable this
feature.
7. For Windows Vista, remove mfpmp.exe or drastically improve its CPU
efficiency.
8. For Windows Vista, quit relying heavily on dwm.exe when playing music
or
a video.
9. Not sure if it's possible, but have the ability to select your
speaker
configuration within WMP itself, and allow you to adjust the left front,
right front, etc.
10. In addition to having the WMP toolbar when minimized, have an option
of
instead of a toolbar, it will have a simple play/pause button.
11. Do not enable this by default as this can be CPU intensive, but
allow a
feature for visualizations to be partially transparent.
12. Not sure it's possible, but have sound environments under the
'enhancements'.

"Teqnilogik" <Teqnilogik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:CA54B6EE-8D9F-4190-93FD-CB0815CBBBF0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Here are some feature requests and ideas for Windows Media Player 12.
This
is the best Microsoft forum I could find to post this informatin so
hopefully
it gets read by the appropriate people. We all know that right now
Apple
and
iTunes is dominating in the digital music world and are trying to also
take
on digital video as well. Windows Media Player has been lacking
features
for
years and ease of use that iTunes has provided both Mac and PC users.
Microsoft can easily steal iTunes crown by implementing features that
iTunes
has and then some. First thing Microsoft needs to do is make WMP as
easy
to
use as iTunes in all areas but yet keep WMP unique. I feel that if
Microsoft
continues with its open PlaysForSure campaign that would be the way to
gain
marketshare back from Apple. Microsoft can say that their WMP and
Windows
offers more choice than Apple does. Microsoft can say that WMP
supports
more
formats, has more features, and is just as easy. This will draw users
in
and
away from Apple which anyway you look at it is good news for Microsoft.
Give
users a media player that they can't live without and make people
forget
about Vista. WMP 11 was a huge step forward for WMP. It is on its way
to
being on par with iTunes. WMP 12 (or even an update to WMP 11) has the
ability to surpass iTunes in every way. I also think another good
strategy
would be to cater to the more advanced digital music user as well by
implementing some features commonly talked about at Hydrogenaudio.org.
iTunes caters to the average Joe while nothing really caters to both
the
average Joe and the experience digital music user. WMP can bridge this
gap
and be the media player for everyone. WMP 12 could also be the 'killer
app'
for Windows Vista. I would encourage Microsoft to still produce a
version
of
the program to XP users but the Vista version could have some more
advanced
features.


Here are my ideas/feature requests for Windows Media Player 12:

Display 'Disc #' as column in library to support multiple disc albums.

Keep multiple disc albums grouped together as one album instead of
having
an
album per CD.

Make organizing music files easier such as an automatic rename of a
file
after a tag change rather than needing to use Apply Media Information
Changes
all the time. Look at how iTunes does it, that's the way it should be
done.

Give users the option to set no gap between songs on burned audio CDs
and
support 700 MB for data CDs.

Make WMP fully compliant with ID3v2.4 tags using UTF-8 (see Foobar2000
as
a
fully compatible implementation).

Ability to convert to lower bit rates or between formats.

Support for more audio formats preferrabley inluding MPEG-4 AAC, Ogg
Vorbis,
and FLAC.

Think about implementing support for AccurateRip (www.accuraterip.com).
This is an easy and free way to ensure that audio rips with WMP are
accurate
so people hear less pops and clicks in their music.

Put Internet Radio back into WMP. iTunes has this feature and this was
a
great feature in past versions of WMP.

Add a 'Podcast' feature.

Allow users to choose more bit rates for the MP3 format. 96, 128, 160,
192,
224, 256, 320 would be excellent choices. And possibly upgrade the MP3
encoder to use the best MP3 encoder available, LAME.

Improve the options menus and make it easier for people to configure
the
player. One example is to put "Error Correction" in the Ripping tab
rather
than in the Devices tab.

Improve the Media Sharing feature by making it easier to use.

Improve the auto-playlist feature to make it as easy to use as iTunes
Smart
Playlists.

Allow users to make a CD jewel case print out or a print out of albums
or
songs in a playlist. Similar to work iTunes does now.


Those are all the ideas I have at the moment. Please post your
comments
and
feature requests here and perhaps they will be implemented in the next
WMP
release.




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