Re: [Banshee-List] Re move the video portion of Banshee?

[tretle <tretle gmail com>]

Well my opinion on the video section is that instead of removing it improve
it. Banshee can play videos right now quite well. The problem arises when
you try and organize them. Should be organized into tv shows, movies and
music videos. Makes finding things incredibly easier for people who collect
tv shows movies and music videos along with the music itself. 
The problem right now is that banshee isn't cutting it in terms of large
video libraries compared to music libraries. Seeing as banshee is all about
organizing your library I am sure that it will be resolved in the future. It
would bee a killer feature though as no other media player on Linux supports
organizing videos into these three categories and it makes life so much
easier for us collectors. 

Charlie.M wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 8:41 PM, comomolo <comomolo loquecreas com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> andrewski wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi comomolo,
>>> Thanks for your feedback. Since the video support in Banshee is
>>> relatively
>>> new, it is pretty light (feature-wise) and also hasn't gotten as much
>>> feedback from users as has its audio support. So your feedback is
>>> certainly
>>> valued.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 8:33 PM, comomolo <comomolo loquecreas com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> > 2- Open the preferences dialog. You will find settings for all audio
>>>> > related things. None for video... as expected for a music library
>>>> manager.
>>>
>>>
>>> Since Banshee manages both, you'd expect to find audio-related
>>> preferences.
>>> Simply put, as of yet there are no preferences for videos. What would
>>> you
>>> expect/want to see here for video support?
>>>
>>>> 3- Scan all the menu entries and try to find video-related ones.
>>>> There's
>>>> > none. Why? This is a music library manager, which is quite OK until
>>>> you
>>>> > put a video section there that looks completely out of place.
>>>
>>>
>>> Again, there are simply no video-specific actions. Everything about
>>> playback
>>> sources, playback actions, the Now Playing area, and library management
>>> are
>>> all generic, so they would work for both types of media. What would you
>>> expect/want to see here?
>>>
>>>> I'm just stating the obvious. There's nothing I really would do to
>>>> improve
>>>> > Banshee's video section except removing it, because I think Banshee
>>>> has
>>>> > been designed to be a music library manager, and that's where it
>>>> shines.
>>>
>>>
>>> (I won't assume your answers to my questions above are "remove the
>>> existing
>>> video support", so please say so if that's what you're proposing.)
>>>
>>>
>>>> > If you really really really want to turn Banshee from a music library
>>>> > manager into a media library manager, then redesign it accordingly...
>>>> from
>>>> > the start. Rethink the whole thing and get a proper design for
>>>> general
>>>> > media.
>>>
>>>
>>> Certainly an option, but what exactly is "proper" in this case? Do you
>>> have
>>> any specific ideas?
>>>
>>>> Just putting there a video section because Gstreamer will handle
>>>> > that media, has little to do with that and makes it an ugly and wrong
>>>> > decision.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's certainly not the mentality of what was done, for what it's
>>> worth.
>>>
>>>
>>>> > Now, really, I don't want to get involved in Banshee's design. I'm
>>>> only
>>>> > saying all this because you asked. All I need is to get rid of those
>>>> lines
>>>> > of code that put that video thingy in the middle of my music
>>>> collection,
>>>> > or if the devs are so gentle, a switch that will hide it somehow
>>>> (command
>>>> > line options, preferences switch, anything).
>>>
>>>
>>> Binbin's idea of converting it to an extension would certainly be
>>> useful,
>>> regardless of any design changes or suggestions. There's actually been a
>>> bug
>>> filed on that specific request:
>>> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=536656.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Andrew Conkling
>>> http://andrewski.net
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> banshee-list mailing list
>>> banshee-list gnome org
>>> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-list
>>>
>>>
>> OK, my honest opinion is that you definitely should remove the video
>> portion
>> of a music library, but since you're willing to turn Banshee into a
>> "media
>> library" (I surely hope you don't include pictures soon...) here are a
>> few
>> examples of what you would want to add to the menus and preferences:
>>
>> 1- In "Preferences", "General" tab is really a "Music Library" tab. It
>> allows you to set the folder to find and watch for music, how you name
>> the
>> hierarchy and files when importing music, etc. It must be changed to
>> "Media
>> Library" and search for all types of media files (then putting them in
>> the
>> right section of Banshee according to type), or you will need separated
>> "Music" and "Video" "general" tabs. You don't name movies or clips by
>> "Artist/Album/Number. Title" or anything resembling that.
>>
>> 2- Audio CD: You don't convert DVDs in the same way you import a CD, so
>> you'll need a "Video DVD" tab and/or maybe a "Video BluRay" tab or just a
>> "Video import" tab, with it's own set of settings. I can't see it as a
>> good
>> idea to have a full video ripper inside Banshee but then again I don't
>> think
>> it's a good idea to have video in it at all...
>>
>> 3- "Tools->Rescan music library" must be either become "Tools->Rescan
>> media
>> library" or be split in two, one for audio, other for video.
>>
>> 4- Selecting "Edit track information" on a video clip brings up a dialog
>> asking for music-like tags. Video clips and movies have different
>> features.
>> I don't even think there's a standard like ID3 to save that info, but
>> anyway, there's definitely no "composer" in my porn clips... ;-)
>>
>> 5- When importing video-clips, the Mirage extension is doing exactly
>> what? I
>> know it's not a core developers issue but the reason why it tries to do
>> something with video clips is probably because there's nothing telling it
>> that video can't be classified by its audio features.
>>
>> 6- In the same way you have Radio, you might consider adding TV for
>> video.
>> Again, this looks like a major and worrisome move to me, but it's only a
>> logical next step if you really want video in Banshee. You probably want
>> to
>> access YouTube directly and other sources similar to that too (Totem is
>> doing it right now). Take a look at Songbird for adding even more
>> internet
>> media content features (good luck with keeping the UI all tight and
>> clear...)
>>
>> I guess I could be more thorough, but I think these examples show how
>> video
>> is bolted on and half baked in Banshee. I wish they would also show you
>> that
>> video is a whole different thing from audio and having separate
>> applications
>> to handle music and video libraries and online content is the way to go,
>> but
>> you're probably convinced that putting it all in one place is a great
>> idea,
>> so I won't insist on that. I'm a fan of the old Unix way of having one
>> application for one task and profoundly dislike "swiss knife" software
>> design (Evolution being the worst example) so prevalent in other
>> platforms,
>> like Windows. I still have a little hope that you reconsider video in
>> Banshee or at least allow your users to remove it at application
>> launch/compilation, but given the harsh replies to my request, I don't
>> expect much.
>>
>> It's a shame, because Banshee was going in the right direction of making
>> a
>> clever and clean music library manager.
> 
> From an interface design point of view it depends what you think
> Banshee is for. This will be slightly different for every user. For
> instance you clearly see it as solely for listening to music. Many
> will see it as primarily a way to sync their audio player. To them if
> they have a Video iPod why can't they manage their audio and video in
> one place. After all Banshee already had virtually all the
> infrastructure in place to handle that. Just no Video Library GUI.
> 
> What about people who have a collection of Music Videos. Many online
> music stores sell them so it stands to reason some people genuinely
> download and enjoy them in the same way as people listen to
> traditional mp3 tracks. It also stands to reason that they won't need
> many special video features since they represent a piece of music in
> the same way an MP3 does.
> 
> To be honest I see no reason why anyone should want to remove the
> video functionality, because it doesn't affect them if they only use
> Banshee as a music library. After all the percentage of pixels it
> takes up on the main window is tiny. Its just one entry and an icon on
> the side bar.
> 
> There's no bloat added to the code base for it because as you said
> GStreamer handles all the decoding and its up to you if you don't
> install any video codecs. Its not doing anything when you are just
> using it as a music library. Its hardly stealing CPU cycles to keep
> your none existent video library in order.
> 
> It seems to me your objection is based on the principle of adding
> video support because you don't personally want to use it. At the
> moment the video related features arn't very extensive but I am sure
> they will be eventually.
> 
> If you really want that side bar entry and icon space back, make a
> patch to remove it and build your self a "video free" build.
> 
> I am not sure what you will do if iPod users want to be able to sync
> their photos or worse still G1 users want to be able to sync their
> ring tones. That's three icons your "video free" patch will need to
> remove.
> 
> 
> Charlie M
> _______________________________________________
> banshee-list mailing list
> banshee-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-list
> 
> 

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