[meghead]

i noticed in the bugs.txt file there is an unassigned item about changing ff/rw to 1% & 1% instead of 1 minute and 10 minutes. i have been playing around with this recently and have taken a slightly different approach which i'd like to run by you guys.

my original intention was to add support for something as close as possible to what tivo does - three (or more) levels of speed (programmable), with an optional overshoot compensation when the "play" button was hit at the end. however after looking at the code it became clear that doing this would require modifying the mplayer source code which i did not (at that time) have a build environment set up for.

what i did instead was to add a continuously variable ff/rw, using the left analog stick. moving it slightly to the left would do a slow rewind (about 10 seconds every one second). moving it more would increase the speed, up to a max of around 5 minutes per second. same for fast forward obviously.

i have this working, although it needs a bit of clean up. it's not as smooth as i would like, but making it better again requires changing mplayer. i now have mplayer.dll building, so i was going to go in that direction. in addition, for those using a remote control i was going to implement the original tivo-like method.

however, before i go to the effort of doing this, i wanted to run it by you guys. is this the kind of functionality you think would be good? it seems a lot more sophisticated than just a percentage jump. any other things i should consider?

i am very happy and willing to do the work on this, but it's not worth me doing it if it's going to sit on sf as a source patch that nobody can use. if there is a reasonable chance of getting it into the cvs, then i will go at it and see what you think of the results.

comments?

[Gamester17]

personanly i prefer ff/rwd as in xbmp: x2, x4, x8, x16, x32 & x64. also remember that most people use a dvd-remote

[jmarshall]

if it's a decent patch (ie works nicely, and the code is ok) then it won't sit on sf for long. i'm sure it'll be snapped up quickly enough.

you may find that you want to extend the functionality of the button repeatability code - currently it just uses a long repeat time until it's been held down for 10x, then uses a short repeat time - this can be ramped in another way if you think it'll be more useable. just make sure that it's configurable as some remotes (in particular) have different response than others.

cheers,
jonathan

[zer0fill]

i'd really like a tivo-like function, esp the 8sec repeat (that'd be really useful for subtitled anime )

how about left = 8sec repeat, right = 30sec skip

[edit]
or even better, let us customize the time frame in the xml file

[Bhellium]

i agree with gamester, 2x 4x etc is much better.

[rotomax]

sure! me too!!
and another real good feature is missing with xbmc: search by numeric pad on remote. way??

[FreQi]

i'm going with gamester17 on this ff/rw thing. stepping into the video is handy, but it's a little strange when nothing happens when i hit >> or >| on the remote. 2x 4x 8x etc fast forwarding is up there on my wish list.

[kraqh3d]

i mostly use the remote, and thought that the 2x, 4x, 8x, etc in xbmp was perfect.  it's inituitive, as even dvd players do it. this should be easy to add to the controller using the left and right triggers. click right once for 2x, click again and it jumps to 4x, etc.

and i like the idea of using the analog stick for fw/rw.  its similar to jog dials on editing equipment.  but theres no way do something like this with the remote as theres no kind of analog action.  i guess it could be "simulated" using the remote repeat, but it wouldnt be very granular.  

the current skip implemention is weird.  typically it would just be left and right, but because there's a "short" skip and a "long" skip, they're using up/down/left/right on the dpad and on the remote.  i actually remapped the remote skip+ and skip- keys to the 10 minute skip function.  a way of configuring the short skip and long skip through in one of the xml files would be cool.

it would be nice to jump around a video using the number keys. 1 would be the beginning, 0 the end, 5 the middle, etc.

but again, i cant see a way that this could then map back to the controller.  but maybe thats the trade off.  the controller allows "analog" fw/rw, and the remote allows jumping.

i havent really looked at the source, but is there a requirement that a function be mapped on both the controller and the remote?  can the <gamepad> or <remote> tags in the keymap.xml be left blank?

and one thing is sorely missing is being able to use the menu button on the remote to always jump back to the main menu. i'd expect that be a global option, but i found no such thing in the keymap.xml file.

ps, where are the button names defined?  i found the action ids in key.h, but i cant find the list of button names.

[jmarshall]

yes, the <gamepad> and <remote> tags don't need to be there. for instance, there is no <gamepad> key for the stop action in the <global> section of keymap.xml, so having separate remote only actions is no problem.

the button codes are defined in key.h, and the strings that we search keymap.xml for are in buttontranslator.cpp

cheers,
jonathan

[zer0fill]

what about changing the short skip from 1min to 5sec? is that something we can change and rebuild?

[kraqh3d]

thanks jonathan. i found the button nams in buttontranslator.cpp

is there a way to have a button call a window? i would like to map start and menu so that they jump directly to the main menu (window 0)