MCE Flaws

This may need to be a living blog entry.

I’ve been using Vista Media Center for a couple months now and it has numerous annoyances and usability flaws.  It’s one thing to have a flaw that you only run into once in a long while.  But, these are flaws I see daily (maybe, I watch too much TV). 

 

My viewing habits are as follows…

• I rarely watch live content; I will wait until a show has been recording at least 30 minutes in before I begin watching it.
• I record 1-2 TV shows over the course of a night.
• I also have queued up downloaded content I watch occasionally.

 

Annoyance #1:

After I finish watching a video from a sub-folder in one of my watch folders, I am presented with the final menu options.  When I delete the show, the menu doesn’t go away.  It stays on the current video, as if I have more options with it.  In the root folder, when you delete a video, it will then load up the next video in the list, why can’t it do the same in a sub-folder?  Any UI that is designed to be navigated with an IR remote should be smart about guessing what your next action will be so I don’t have to click another button to get somewhere obvious.

 

Annoyance #2:

After I finish watching the last video from a sub-folder in one of my watch folders, when I back out of the folder, my focus is taken to an apparently random folder in tile screen of sub-folders.  It may be using the folder name to decide which folder to select next (I haven’t been paying attention), but that isn’t how I have my folders sorted.  It should return to the main tile screen and jump to the next folder in whatever method it was chosen to be sorted as (in my case, by date).

 

Annoyance #3:

After I launch Media Center for the first time, it takes upwards of 1-3 minutes from the moment I select an Xvid encoded video to watch, to when it actually starts playing.  A WMV or DVR-MS encoded file will start within a few seconds.

 

Annoyance #4:

Xvid videos can not be fast forwarded or resumed.  I can use other video players (VLC and GOM) and they have that ability.  Every DVR needs this ability.

I’ll give in to the fact that fast-forward/rewind don’t work in Windows Media Player with Xvids, so ok, I’ll accept grudgingly that MCE won’t either.  But, I can jump to any point in time in that same video, so bookmarking/resuming should be perfectly able to do.  I should be able to resume any video I am watching on a DVR.  TiVo did this wonderfully and I took that feature for granted.

 

Annoyance #5:

Occasionally when I go into the Video Library, none of my custom folders appear.  This isn’t reproducible all the time, but it is frustrating when it happens since all I have to do is go out and go back in for them to reappear.  Why does Media Center forget about these?

 

Annoyance #6 (added 4/26/09):

After pausing live TV, I’ll start to watch the next show on the same channel.  If it looks interesting, I may decide I want to record it.  So I click on Record.  What then happens is that the show will start recording at the current point in time, instead of from the beginning of the show.

It only makes sense that you wanted to record the show from the beginning, when you click record in the middle of watching queued TV.

I could accept that it will start recording at the beginning of the current moment in time, but at the moment you click record, it also throws away all the queued up live TV content.  I typically forget about this flaw and so I end losing the current TV I planned on watching.

 

Annoyance #7 (added 4/26/09):

If I am in the middle of watching a show that is recording and there is another show that will be recorded on a different channel following this one, my viewing experience is interrupted.  Yet again, MCE does not know how to allow the viewer to continue viewing the video they currently are in the middle of.

What happens is I get a warning that the channel will change when the next scheduled recording begins.  I click Ok (seems obvious).  Then at the moment the next scheduled recording begins, my screen blinks, and I am still watching my existing recorded show.  However, I am unable to FastFoward/Rewind/etc.  As soon as I touch one of those buttons, MCE jumps into the new show being recorded.

And to make matters even worse, when I go back to my recorded TV, I don’t get a Resume option.  I have to start playing the show I was watching from the beginning, and fast foward to where I was interrupted.

 

Wish #1:

I wish I could create shortcuts of my video watch folder onto the main menu.  When I start Media Center, I have to navigate to the “Pictures + Videos” bar –> arrow over to Video Library –> click on it –> arrow over to my custom watch folder –> click on it.  The ability to add my watch folder to the Pictures + Videos options would be useful.

 

Wish #2:

Ability to FastForward, Rewind, and Bookmark all playable video formats.  If this application is supposed to sit on my living room TV, it needs to have this as a core feature.