Ideas for a Music UI mod.

[OneOfMany]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

The reason I just want backgrounds is because we don't want automatic meta data fetching for music because of the variances of people's music collections. The potential for completely messing up a collection is way too high. Most tagging software will support embedded cover art as well as all other meta data. I'd like to use musicbrainz for fetching meta data, but it would have to be a manual process.

I'm in agreement on this. I have no desire to use Sage as a metadata or albumArt fetcher. I prefer to use a program like MP3Tag to organize my music. My first step when performing a fresh install of Windows Media Player is to disable any and all of the features which download/fetch crap from the internet to screw up my tags

I would gladly manually create the \\Fanart folders and populate as I wish with art that I source. Controlling? Yes.

Just thought it would be nice to be able to display fanart and the band logos if the file exists.

Please, no automatic scaping lol.

Grant

[PiX64]

What about someone like myself that has over 40k songs?

i dont' want to go out and fetch all that album art manually...

Maybe make it an option?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by OneOfMany

I'm in agreement on this. I have no desire to use Sage as a metadata or albumArt fetcher. I prefer to use a program like MP3Tag to organize my music. My first step when performing a fresh install of Windows Media Player is to disable any and all of the features which download/fetch crap from the internet to screw up my tags

I would gladly manually create the \\Fanart folders and populate as I wish with art that I source. Controlling? Yes.

Just thought it would be nice to be able to display fanart and the band logos if the file exists.

Please, no automatic scaping lol.

Grant

Fanart in v6 supported this, but I don't know if v7 does or not. I'll find out though.

Originally Posted by PiX64

What about someone like myself that has over 40k songs?

i dont' want to go out and fetch all that album art manually...

Maybe make it an option?

I'm hoping stuckless can make bmt do this. He has mentioned it in the past. I'm in the same boat as you. I have 10's of 1000's of songs so this would not work well. We'll figure it out though.

[Spectrum]

Assuming stuckless can make BMT play nice, it seems like (to me anyway) the way to go about it would be have it default to metadata embedded in the track or stored in the same folder as the song like folder.jpg. If anything is missing then go fetch from the web and cache then display the data, but don't touch the original file. Best of both worlds, but probably more of a PITA to code

[joe123]

How about a search by decade for music? So for example say search all 1970's music tags (1970,1971,1972 ... 1979).

This would be be helpful to find all 70's music, or all 80's music, etc.

[wayner]

SageMC has had the ability to use Fanart backgrounds for music for a while - here is an example [IMG][/IMG]

[mickp]

I'm still using SageMC with v7 and the way that S7 handles music is probably the main thing that's stopping me from giving up MC.

I spent some time comparing and contrasting Sage7 and SageMC UX when the beta came out. I don't think much has changed in S7 since then.

SageMCversusSage7interfaces

S7 definitely needs some help. The main thing that I want is to be able to browse and play my music collection in a way that's similar to the traditional approach of flicking through my vinyl collection.

Mick.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by mickp

The main thing that I want is to be able to browse and play my music collection in a way that's similar to the traditional approach of flicking through my vinyl collection.

Mick.

Mmmm. Vinyl collection...

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by mickp

The main thing that I want is to be able to browse and play my music collection in a way that's similar to the traditional approach of flicking through my vinyl collection.

Mick.

What is this Vinyl you speak of

Sorry, could not resist the joke from my kids generation...

[dibs]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I agree that when adding a song to a playlist it should be added last similar to the way an actual jukebox works.

As far as working with databases I think I know someone who is very skilled at databases...I think he has enough on his plate at the moment.

In the beginning this project will be more about the way the ui looks and navigates than anything else. I'll be adding functionality as I get better at using studio.

I would also love the above feature. I would want it to work to shuffle all my songs (or a premade playlist) and then have a que where someone could add a song to the playlist that will play after the "playing now" song is over. If 3 songs are added, then those will be the next 3 songs that will play in the order they were added. After those 3 are done and nobody else added anything, it will continue to shuffle through all my songs or playlist just like being at a bar.

Not sure if this is somehow already possible, just stumbled on this thread.

[panteragstk]

Oh yeah! So I'm back on this project. Still looking for ideas. About to start trying to start the ui section to familiarize myself with studio before adding features. Once the UI is in a state to where everyone is happy I'll begin adding features as requested.

EDIT: I wonder if anyone would like to start a music fanart database since it is difficult to find decent backgrounds. I have quite a bit, but need to organize it into folders.

[panteragstk]

I think this would be a nice starting point for the wall type view. This is from boxee.

[ptzink]

panteragstk, I was just thinking about this thread! Are you still working on this project. I for one can't wait for an improved music experience. With Diamond 3.2, my TV and Movie experience is awesome, but the music is still just 'stock'. One thing that you can do in Diamond Cover Flow view that would be cool in the Music view is that you can press down (or left in the case of a music list view) to pull up a 'quick jump' alphabet list. This is one of those features I miss from SageMC.
Also, don't forget about a nice list view. As I said before, I think a cool wall view is fine. In fact, maybe you could clean up Boxee's wall view a little bit by separating by letter (eg. group artists starting with "A", then some space, then artists starting with "B", then space, etc.). I still think a nice list view is an efficient way to browse your collection, though.
I like the idea of grabbing fanart for the background/poster. Where does Boxee grab it's images from? I am assuming it uses Last.fm or similar. Could we (you) do that? Has Stuckless given you any feedback on the likelihood of that being integrated into BMT/Phoenix?
I am looking forward to seeing your hard work! Let me know if you need any help (graphic ideas, beta testers). Also, don't forget about my original list of 'issues' here. Good luck!

[jaminben]

panteragstk, seeing as you have the Ortus beta which comes with the Ortus scraper you should already have music backgrounds..... the scraper downloads these by default just like it does for movies and tv series

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by jaminben

panteragstk, seeing as you have the Ortus beta which comes with the Ortus scraper you should already have music backgrounds..... the scraper downloads these by default just like it does for movies and tv series

I'll have to check and see when I get home. Haven't really paid any attention to it.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by ptzink

panteragstk, I was just thinking about this thread! Are you still working on this project. I for one can't wait for an improved music experience. With Diamond 3.2, my TV and Movie experience is awesome, but the music is still just 'stock'. One thing that you can do in Diamond Cover Flow view that would be cool in the Music view is that you can press down (or left in the case of a music list view) to pull up a 'quick jump' alphabet list. This is one of those features I miss from SageMC.
Also, don't forget about a nice list view. As I said before, I think a cool wall view is fine. In fact, maybe you could clean up Boxee's wall view a little bit by separating by letter (eg. group artists starting with "A", then some space, then artists starting with "B", then space, etc.). I still think a nice list view is an efficient way to browse your collection, though.
I like the idea of grabbing fanart for the background/poster. Where does Boxee grab it's images from? I am assuming it uses Last.fm or similar. Could we (you) do that? Has Stuckless given you any feedback on the likelihood of that being integrated into BMT/Phoenix?
I am looking forward to seeing your hard work! Let me know if you need any help (graphic ideas, beta testers). Also, don't forget about my original list of 'issues' here. Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to start with the ui as this will be my first project so I'm going to learn as I go. When I get the aesthetics down I'll start adding features. I'll have to compile a list so I don't forget anything.

[panteragstk]

I wonder how hard it would be to make sagetv compatible with airplay? Would anyone else even use this feature? I plan to because the A/V receiver I'm getting supports it and after seeing it in action last weekend over a friends house it seems pretty awesome. I just don't know how sagetv would fit into that.

[panteragstk]

List of feature requests:

Is it possible to tap into some website (if one exists) and pull in random trivia about music acts? In other words, show the album art, album name, song title, artist, track number, and year (maybe on one half of the screen), and then on the other half, flash random bits of trivia or something about the artist.

Otherwise, my only change from the default music browser is to make some buttons on the extender remote able to FF/REW when not viewing visualizations (nothing seems to work unless in visualizations), and perhaps some change to wider title rows, so that entire song title and artist always fits.

- Display the correct album art for albums that have the same name by different artists (for example, all of my albums called 'Greatest Hits' display the album art from ABBA's - the first one in the alphabet - Greatest Hits) Technically, this is probably a Sage bug that should be reported.
- Make it such that when playing a song within the song list of an album (i.e. by pressing the enter button or the play button), start playing the entire album from the selected song on. (currently, it only gives you the option to play the current song now, not the entire album from this point)
- Make it easier (i.e. less clicks) to get the Now Playing queue
- Make it easier/more obvious to toggle/see the current play mode (shuffle, repeat, etc)
- Make the album visualization less 'spastic'. Currently, the animation is quite jerky and the song information just flips all around.
- Have a 'fast scroll' mode whereby when you press and hold the down/up arrow (in artist view for example) for a certain amount of time it begins to scroll very quickly and displays the current letter as you scroll (a la WMC)
- Last.fm scrobbling/integration (the current Last.fm plugin only works sometimes for me and has limited functionality)
- iTunes integration (at least one way with playlists and star ratings)
- A more informative 'Now Playing' visualization. Perhaps give the option to have bio information, Last.fm plays/chart info, band/artist photos, similar artist info

As for some more 'pie in the sky' suggestions:
- A new music view (landing screen) that displays recently listened to tracks along with recommendations for future listening based upon: a) recently played items (using Last.fm similar artist information or b) time of year (Christmas music right now in December or based upon Last.fm listening habits)
- Tie in with an online music provider like Grooveshark, Pandora, or Last.fm for streaming music not in your collection

Please add a way to see the music Lyrics when playing!

I'd love to see working visualizations for the non-HD300 UI's. You could do some very cool things (many already suggested in this thread) but I'd be happy with just some different graphic visualization options or perhaps a visualization that simply shows a slideshow of fanart for the band that is playing.

A wall view might be exactly what's needed here. The thing that's always bugged me about the music section of SageTV, though, is how difficult it is to find things on-the-fly and then create a playlist on the spot.

What I think might actually be required for the playlist improvement is a tree structure on the left (or even a fly-out menu to overlay), with the covers on the right, similar to J. River (which someone else already mentioned, but I've never used personally). I think what we would need is a menu popup when scrolling down the tree, so that we could easily create playlists. At any point in the scrolling, you could hit "menu" or some other button and you would have the option to add that folder to a playlist, that folder and all subs, all by that artist, all from that album, etc. Additionally, you could have a very similar set of "play" options. I'd also like to be able to insert things into the currently playing playlist so that it plays next, as well as adding them to a new playlist or to the end of the current one.

the one aspect I miss is easily tagging the rating. Everytime I skipped a crappy song I'd simply tag it crap prior to skip - kinda cool.

the ability to sort my albums by import date.

Another thing that I just though of would be have a way to always show the current playlist. Like I said previously, playlist management is what I think is most lacking, so that's where I'm kind of focused. (I do like what many others have suggested, though.) But, what I think is annoying is that the screens are so separated, they make it difficult to multi-task. For example, the tree-type view would be great for adding things to your playlist, but it would be very beneficial to actually see the playlist you're adding to. This could also allow you to insert the music you want at any point in the existing (or, ideally, any other) playlist.

[panteragstk]

Please add anything you would want to the above.

[Opus4]

- Display the correct album art for albums that have the same name by different artists (for example, all of my albums called 'Greatest Hits' display the album art from ABBA's - the first one in the alphabet - Greatest Hits) Technically, this is probably a Sage bug that should be reported.

Actually, this is a problem that you can correct in the music tags -- make sure the "Album Artist" tag is correct for each album. It is often blank.

- Andy