OSD usability

[Mortten]

I think that DVBViewer is a fantastic piece of software as a PVR. But there is no way I could install it into my living room as an HTPC application. And that is because of the OSD.

 

What I need is a HTPC UI similar to MCE (or Meedio, or MediaPortal...) which is intuitive, good looking and not a mix of my choice of language and German. And would be suitable for 16:9 screen.

 

Yes, I know there is a OSD skin editor. But for me it is not a very good option because I simply cannot comprehend the amount of (undocumented) information and elements that is needed in various parts of the OSD.

[dgdg]

Hi Mortten,

 

same problem her. I was very happy about the OSD (I didn't expect this feature because I used ProgDVB before). So I made the living room test together with the family.

 

But this was not very successfull

 

It's not only the language mix (I did not have that problem because I used it in German).

It's the whole structure and the key assignments.

 

Their are some basics that have to be considered if you design a intuitive user interface. Non of them was considered in the DVBViewer OSD

 

The OSD may be ok for experts that use it every evening for some hours and than after 4 weeks know how to handle all the different key assignments in all the differents dialogs (I guess their are not to dialogs with the same key assignment ).

 

I had a look at the skin editor, but I think it will not fix the problem. Because you can only redefine existing pages and dialogs - to many things are hardcoded. Maybe the confusing key assignments can be fixed and the language problem - but that's only half the battle.

 

So I sadly switched back to Pinnacle Media Center, which is slow and causes a lot of trouble - but it's easy. Another good example (looks very similar to Pinnacle) is the software, that comes with the Freecom DVB-T stick. I don't know the Windows Media Center, but I think it follows the same philosophy. Propably it was used as draft for all the others - except for DVBViewer

 

But from technical point of view DVBViewer it's an exellent software.

 

regards

dgdg

Edited July 21, 2006 by dgdg