new player available: StaxPlayer

[stax76]

Hi,
there is a new player project on SourceForge, it's not feature rich yet but maybe there are devs want to join development.

project: https://sourceforge.net/projects/staxmedia

requirements: .NET 3.5, DirectX 9

license: GPL

language: VB .NET

UI: simple WinForms UI

OSD and media center: to come using WPF

[tetsuo55]

Hi thanks for this new player.

Sorry for asking this, but what is the main difference when compared to MPC(-HC) ?

[stax76]

I'm intending to include a media center using WPF and I'm intending to include extensibility using MEF and DLR. What I currently use is MPC, DVBViewer, MediaPortal and MediaMonkey so I will use ideas from these applications or include frontends for applications with server capabilities like DVBViewer and MediaMonkey.

[tetsuo55]

Very interesting.

This might be another stupid question.
But instead of writing a new player from scratch(which might be a very good thing) is it at all possible to "upgrade" MPC-HC to support and work with these newer features?

I don't think anyone would mind a MediaCenter pluging for MPC-HC, the current media-center functions in MPC-HC could use some(read a lot of) polish and feature enhancements

[Midzuki]

requirements: .NET 3.5

language: VB .NET

No, thanks.

[stax76]

@tetsuo55

Anything is possible, from COM extensibility to .NET extensibility using C++/CLR, WPF like MeediOS or DirectX like XMBC. None of this is easy needless to say otherwise somebody would already have worked on it. I think the desktop UI has room for improvement style and usability wise too.

@Midzuki

It's true that languages and frameworks are different and most of the time it shows on what a application is built on because different languages and frameworks have different advantages and because of this many applications are a mixture of different languages and frameworks and often this makes a lot sense for different reasons. A player is actually a application where this makes a lot sense.

[tetsuo55]

Would you consider upgrading MPC-HC instead of building a completely new player?

[stax76]

Would you consider upgrading MPC-HC instead of building a completely new player?

Actually I have considered this for month! The main reason I decided against it is probably I didn't want to work with C++/COM/MFC/ATL/DirectX etc. but rather VB .NET, WinForms, WPF and generally .NET. Because of this I considered to contribute to MediaPortal or MeediOS for months as well, there were simply too many things I didn't like and would be too hard to go along with or to overcome. Having different applications has the advantage users and devs have more choices and the applications can benefit from each other in various ways.

[tetsuo55]

Actually I have considered this for month! The main reason I decided against it is probably I didn't want to work with C++/COM/MFC/ATL/DirectX etc. but rather VB .NET, WinForms, WPF and generally .NET. Because of this I considered to contribute to MediaPortal or MeediOS for months as well, there were simply too many things I didn't like and would be too hard to go along with or to overcome. Having different applications has the advantage users and devs have more choices and the applications can benefit from each other in various ways.

Yes i agree.

But i also feel MPC and ffdshow should embrace these new technology's and languages where possible and appropriate.

[stax76]

One possibility is to port the XMBC UI framework to MPC, it should be noted that Frodo, the founder of MediaPortal which has retired some months ago started with XMBC and left the project porting the XMBC UI framework from C++ to C# to build MediaPortal. The difficult part is probably to make the devs to agree to build media center features into MPC and to find somebody who actually builds it. If you really want to have this in MPC it might help to search hard for somebody who wants to build it. A fork would of course be also possible. MPC is the most powerful application if you look at the core dshow facilities, it's sad that it's stuck in other areas. Right now you have desktop players and media centers, my opinion is to have hybrid applications doing both. I don't see many reasons why it should be seperated. Some applications are already hybrids like Zoom Player but one part is usually half baked like Zoom Players skin and media center UI is GDI/bitmap based and not based on newer frameworks like DirectX or WPF which are more suitable for a media center UI. The best example for a hybrid application might be DVBViewer, one of the most impressive applications I'm using. It's a rock solid DVB application with a simple Win32 UI but optionally skinnable, it has a powerful media center built in and if that wasn't enough it has a powerful COM/scripting SDK.

[Leak]

But i also feel MPC and ffdshow should embrace these new technology's and languages where possible and appropriate.
Considering the existing codebases for both projects you're better off writing something new from the ground up - you can't just shove "these technologies" (i.e. VB .NET, WinForms, WPF and generally .NET) into an existing project, you'll have to design it around them.

Then again VB (.NET or not) needs to be shoved into an incinerator and replaced with C# for humanity's sake... :D

np: The Qemists - Drop Audio (Join The Q)

[stax76]

There are differences between VB .NET and C#, good and bad on both sides. Personally I know both very well and like VB .NET much more. If you don't count things like habit, popularity, reputation, prejeduce, syntax and code editing the differences are neglectable. VB .NET code can be translated to C# and vice versa easily, there are a couple of translation tools like SharpDevelop and 'Instant C#', the results are usually not perfect but very good most of the time since for most language features there are equivalents. My code could be translated to C# to build another player, shouldn't be a big issue!

[7o9]

stax, 2 of the 3 links in your initial post are broken. not that anything is there yet.

[stax76]

Thanks, I've removed the links. I didn't make a official release yet but getting code and binaries from svn is very easy:

go to project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/staxmedia
go to menu 'Code'
select 'SVN Browse'
go to directory you want to download, player debug binaries are at /trunk/StaxPlayer/bin
click on 'Download GNU tarball'
extract it using 7-Zip
run StaxPlayer :)

[sbp]

HI, this is interesting, I would like to try your new player, but in the downloaded GNU tarball, there is no Staxplayer.exe.
There are many other files, and probably if I was a programmer I could build it myself - but as I'm only a interested end-user - I can't figeure out how to go on.
I would suggest (if you want bug repoprts ect) that you provide an easier way of trying your Staxplayer.

Regards

[Leak]

HI, this is interesting, I would like to try your new player, but in the downloaded GNU tarball, there is no Staxplayer.exe.
I'm pretty sure you must have downloaded the tarball for the wrong directory then.

Try this link (http://staxmedia.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/staxmedia/trunk/StaxPlayer/bin.tar.gz?view=tar)...

[sbp]

Thanks, I will try it.

[Hypernova]

Interesting. I tried it and like it quite a bit. First feature request though, could you include a better scaling method? I have to relay on ffdshow doing that for now (which is not really a bad thing, of course).

[stax76]

Sure later but until it grows up only thing I accept are patches.

[sbp]

Hi I just played a little with the player. Very impressive.

I could play avi files as well as a DVD. I found one strange issue. Using Graphstudio - I could connect to the remote graph, when playing an avi file. But when playing my DVD - no graph was listed? Therefore it was not possible to connect (despite the fact that the DVD played just fine).

[awx]

I've done some projects in Wpf (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=138110) and would recommend that you begin your project with it if you plan to use it at all.

[stax76]

I've started to learn about WPF and MeediOS, this will take some time.

[Pirks]

Yeah, from my experience, starting to do media player project now in anything but WPF is a waste of time. Agreed with awx here. WPF will give you unparalleled abilities for building gorgeous UI. If you do some business app that may not matter but for multimedia stuff WPF is choice number 1 definitely.

[CruNcher]

looks WPF based www.loilo.tv :) ? it also uses the new .Net internet installation delivery, a Media Player in this kind of environment would also for sure rock :) but yeah playing something back is no creative process (unless you see it in a DJ or other creating context) but the way stuff is visualized could be better for faster content aggregation and visualization :) there where a lot of research with such user interfaces in the past now that GPUs became famous we see more and more practical used in applications to enhance the workflows, though i saw only 1 Media Player yet using a similar interface and that was the abounded juiceplayer (OpenGL 3d based, though it was rather more a simple OSD overlay like Splash player from mirillis with some 3d space manipulation capabilities) :) Maybe Stax Player could go this new intuitive (free playground) way ?.
I guess we will also see first Commercial Media Players with this kind of interfaces from Asia again they really go fast with developments it's crazy how many new stuff that was in research over years is now poping up from Asia to us and we see rarely any western final Products yet :( (it feels like our Creative Minds stand still somehow)

[Kazuya]

Hi ! :)
I'm very interested by a player with a "media center part".

I think KMPlayer is perfect for this (album art, functionnalities... and quality), but there's not much improvement now, no coder really want to work on it. :(
And for the video, I love Haali renderer, but it is in the same situation : no coder to improve it.
(I use CoreAVC + ffdshow + Haali + Reclock in KMP)

I think at this moment, there's 2 choices to have the most interesting video engine for the best smoothness and quality video : MPC-HC beliyaal or MadVideoRenderer.
They need either a lot of improvement but they seems in a good way. :cool:

If I can give my wishes, I would like in a player :
_ an album art like KMP's one : most simple and easy mediacenter possible (just an SWF file)
_ a nice skin (and maybe the possibility to make others)
_ a lot of hotkeys for incredible functions (like KMP)

Thanks a lot for all your work. :)

My KMPlayer :

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/1755/clip5resize.jpg

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/773/clip6resize.jpg

[Kazuya]

No news about this very interesting project ? :(

[stax76]

Unfortunately not, recently I've worked on StaxRip, my new website, a small image viewer, a backup application, a shell extension, a small application to change the default file association. A couple of these side projects can be found at my new website, since yesterday I've also a new forum on the website. I learn a bit more about C++/ATL/WTL for some reasons, I've learned a bit about WPF but for the player I will have to learn a lot more about it. At one time I hope I continue with the player, it's fun doing a player. Probably better not constantly starting new projects and switching projects and not spend to much time with small project and focus on the big ones like StaxRip and StaxPlayer. For the player I consider to remove the main menu and playback bar and add a transparent on top of video stuff like Win 7 WMP instead, since then there won't be much WinForms left in the main window so I might migrate the rest of the main window to WPF.

[Kazuya]

Hello Stax !
Ok, I will wait for your work impatiently ! :p

I have a lot of ideas if you want ! :D