The nExt Media Player 11 Features

My main requests arn't about features, but rather basic usability:

a) ClearType when I ask for it
b) a UI that looks good on high-end CRTs please
c) A responsive UI that doens't have 500ms lag-time for various buttons's actions
d) No adverts!

Note the emphasis on point d).

Manip wrote:

wtf is vloging? Something you just made up or "the next big thing" some blogger created?

Vlogging is video blogging. It's a stupid term, but at least he didn't invent it.

Zeo wrote:

1. Podcasting??
2. What kind of RSS integration story do you want to see??
3. What kind of vloging capabilities do you want?

Podcasts are MP3s! What needs to be 'integrated' into WMP11?! Why is it that you bloggers have to create a new word for something and then look for ways to over-complicate things that have worked perfectly well for three or more years.

wtf is vloging? Something you just made up or "the next big thing" some blogger created?

And RSS in WMP? Why? What is the point?

My five:

1. Native XVid Support
2. Re-size-ability in taskbar mode
3. Save video place / position (Like a VCR can)
4. Better default remote control support
5. Fix the monitor-power save bug (where if you keep making the video full screen / normal sometimes it can "forget" to turn off the monitor power save and the monitor turns off)

Vlogging (or video blogging) is the act of delivering video files via RSS feeds. There's hundreds of people who are doing video blogs. Channel 9 is one of them.

So to be clear you guys are pushing so the internet will work like this:

Raw Network Data -> TCP -> HTTP -> RSS -> Video

hmm I'm going to need a faster internet connection then.

Actually,
I don't believe they embed the video stream in the RSS stream.

Instead, the RSS stream is just RSS containing links to video files.

Anyways what would this matter - the same thing is already one by ASF files with WMV and you don't need a faster internet connection for that.

Manip wrote:

Raw Network Data -> TCP -> HTTP -> RSS -> Video

not quite... the RSS feed contains an <enclosure> tag which includes a URL link to the video content.  The frame data is not included in RSS.

EDIT: nightski wins... must type faster..

Maurits wrote:

Manip wrote: Raw Network Data -> TCP -> HTTP -> RSS -> Video

not quite... the RSS feed contains an <enclosure> tag which includes a URL link to the video content.  The frame data is not included in RSS.

EDIT: nightski wins... must type faster..

Oh right; so explain to me how this is new when compared to a playlist creating using WMP?

Manip wrote:

Oh right; so explain to me how this is new when compared to a playlist creating using WMP?

It's the same.

Media Player? Podcasting would be nice. Less overhead (it can bog down your pc sometimes). Would be nice if MS had a sister product for recording music like Apple's GarageBand - then you could record your own music, and then within WMP (along with MSN music) have some kind of area to promote your own music

What would also be nice is if you record a tv show on your pc, that you could somehow auto update the meta data..from the web (maybe this is possible, but i dont see it)

Well I guess since Scoble is asking for comments over on his blog (got to admire the way he tries to get more people involved over here) I'd like to say "podcasting".

I am one of those who think podcasting is a fad, and given my recent comments about how absurd I found Curry's over the top evangelism at his Gnomedex keynote this may seem a rather odd request. I use podcasts on my commute (to pass the time, hopefully usefully) but frankly the quality of most of the podcasts is so toe-curlingly awful (does anybody other than their parents actually listen to or enjoy 'The Dawn and Drew Show'?) I can't see it catching on in the mainstream.

But the new version of iTunes has changed my opinion a little on the way podcasting could move more into the mainstream. When podcasting gets as easy as clicking a subscribe button and having it automatically transferred to my iPod at sync time it opens up to a wider audience.

I'd like the same on my Pocket PC please, but with video and ESPECIALLY webcasts too please Microsoft! You put a ton of these things out every week but it's too damned difficult to watch them "on the commute". The stumbling block is that Microsoft has a hardware problem. Try getting a decent stereo headphone lead for the Pocket PC and it's a nightmare (whole articles have been produced on the web about the nightmare of finding the right lead to fit the proprietary socket on the O2 XDA for instance). That's why iPod is winning hands down and my Pocket PC sits unloved unless I remember to convert a DVD before a long journey, other than to sync up my home and office Outlook schedules. Pocket PC is too fiddly, too much hassle and the source material isn't there. I tried transferring a downloaded webcast once - I only got sound which made no sense since it was referring to pictures I couldn't see. I transferred the "mobile" edition of The Dot Net Show and it was the size of a postage stamp. No fun! Life's too short. Back to the iPod and The Daily Source Code or Dot Net Rocks!

Will podcasting take off mainstream? Early signs are it's fallen over already because the business model isn't there. I used to download Adam Curry's Daily Source Code whenever available - I think the show has a low signal to noise ratio but I like his (illegal) music mash-ups and Curry has a great voice and style for radio. Today for the first time ever it won't auto-download. Not in FeedDemon. Not in iTunes. Ah, iTunes! COuld the fact that suddenly Mr Curry is featured on the front page of the iTunes Podcast Top 10 which was launched only yesterday have anything to do with these sudden problems. Given his revelation last week that it was costing him 350 dollars a day to host his downloadable show has the popularity of the monster that is Apple finally broken his bandwidth? With no real business plan in place he's screwed. If I keep getting download failures I'll forget his podcast and move on to other things. Like reading the paper. Or a book. Or whatever it was I did when I found the Pocket PC didn't fulfill its potential. And if he adds advertising to try and sort out his business model people will stop listening anyway. Nobody wants to spend their time on a commute listening to bad adverts! There's the flaw in the whole podcasting "phenomenon". 

DotNet Rocks is probably the only podcast I make a regular point of downloading each week, even without the convenience of hitting a Subscribe button. Why is that? Because it offers something I can't get anywhere else (even with a host who's heart is in the right place but who is toe-curlingly inept at times and has way too much of a 'let's turn this into a love-fest for Microsoft' tone to it). I'd love for that podcast to have more competition - ideally from someone more technically knowledgeable and more challenging but it's unique enough to justify the download despite its obvious flaws. And at least it doesn't sound like a guy on his own thinking out loud for an hour a day, which is what most of the so-called "developer-oriented" podcasts sound like. Professionally-produced (but amateur!) specialist areas is where the "minority" success of Podcasting lies. Not in trying to be hospital radio - we have professional far superior versions of that available on the airwaves already, thank you.

But Lord you have to sort through a lot of crap to find the few nuggets you might be interested in downloading. Most of the great unwashed public will give up after their first few downloads based on the average quality of the average podcast. Given the immature state of the whole podcasting phenomenon and the constant rallying cries of Curry and co to "do your own podcasting" the signal to noise ratio can only get worse as every Tom, Dick and wannabe Harry rushes to produce their own variation on "thinking out loud". Which is why ultimately it will turn out to be a fad.

(Trying desperately to get back on topic) But so long as DotNetRocks keeps podcasting stuff that isn't being done better elsewhere I'll still keep downloading it each week. Which is why I'd like podcasting (for iPod AND Pocket PC devices) built into Windows Media Player 11.

Greetings,
Everything old is 'Brand New!' again, but now 'With extra special RSS sauce!'

That's why I'm pretty positive podcasting is a fad, no matter how much Dave Winer asserts that it isn't.  Assertion doesn't make it true, and the everyman doesn't have the time (or skill, often!) to produce quality content, and it's only quality content that will make people come back more than the once or twice that amusement and 'cool factor' brings.

There's very little new here, and certainly nothing people haven't been able to do for a long time.  Something like a decade ago a friend of mine did a twice a week 'internet radio' recording, where he spun some local artists works, and talked politics, technology, and first-person-shooters.  It was live and recorded, so you could catch it live, and IM them questions on the spot (which podcasts don't let you do; where's the conversation people?!?), or you could download it after the fact and enjoy listening to it later.

Hundreds of other people were doing it too, and they all stopped, because it's cool at first, and feels 'cutting edge', but rapidly becomes boring, and actual work to do it right.  And if you don't do it right, you don't get listeners, so what's the point...?

Sure, Media Player should support the new 'Feed Store' that they're building for IE.  But it should also not get in my way, like it does now.  I loathe using Media Player, because it tries to be 'hip' and tries to integrate the Internet (and ads!) into everything, even if I'm just trying to play a simple local video file.  Not to mention not allowing me to save the current video from a website.  That aggravates me to no end; it's on my computer, let me save it.  Happily, the codec collection is easy enough to use with other, better programs, and there are 'streamsuckers' out there to deal with the aggravation.

--  Morgan Schweers

Couldn't resist.

How about fixing the order of items added to a play list. Whenever I add items to a playlist from explorer, the first few items NEVER end up in the correct order....

Would be nice...

cyberfox wrote:

I loathe using Media Player, because it tries to be 'hip' and tries to integrate the Internet (and ads!) into everything, even if I'm just trying to play a simple local video file.

Do you have any example of this? Because it doesn't happen on ANY of my video files.

I really like Coverville. That guy has such a good voice for radio. I listen to a few others but that one is my favourite.
I use a combination of iPodderX + Several iTunes smart playlists, and an iPod Shuffle.
I'm really disappointed with the new iTunes support, since it doesn't actually support the Shuffle.
The iTunes podcasts are not part of the main library so they do not show up in the smart playlists, and the built in support for transferring the Podcasts to an iPod doesn't work for Shuffles.

I guess the thing that really impresses with iTUnes is the level of integration with the iPod. Being able to automatically keep the playcount, lastplayed and ratings synced between the device and the PC is really cool. I think the MTP protocol stuff in WMP10 is supposed to enable the same thing for WMA devices, but I don't have one that supports it to try it out.

I think synchronisation is going to be the next big thing, so many people have more than one PC, or want to keep home and work up to date with one another. Apple seemed to be heading in the right direction by building a framework for it into Tiger, but then blew it by tieing it to their own subscription service. How can they get away with it when Microsoft got pounded over Hailstorm?
WinFS was supposed to be taking care of it in Longhorn, I wonder how much of that is left.

Oh and fix the thing that makes WMP jump out of fullscreen mode if you interact with the desktop on another monitor. Thats really annoying.

I'll ask for the things that I actually want even though I know that it will likely never happen.

 - support for *.mov files.
 - support for *.rm files.  Real Player sucks, especially when embedded in IE or FireFox.
 - the repeat/shuffle toggle in the default skin can be confusing for many people.
 - allow me to start two WMP instances when I want to have multiple videos playing simultaneously.  This would have come in handy a number of times when doing demonstrations.  Currently I switch to Quicktime for these instances.

Bugs:
 - about 20% of the time that I start WMP it has two copies of tree nodes in the left hand display (i.e. two copies of "All Music", "All TV", "All Video", "Other Media", "My Playlists", "Auto Playlists", and "Now Playing.")
 - when I sync playlists with my iPaq WMP doesn't recognize when some of the files are already present on the iPaq -- it seems to what to upload everything each time.

Of course support for the new podcasting/RSS would be useful as well.