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[NEW APP] Film Theater - Feedback Please!

G

grabberslasher

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 2, 2002
409
1
Éire
Hi there,

Film Theater is a new app I am in the process of coding that just takes your ~/Movies folder and displays all the movies/folders in it and gives you simple playback controls and allows fullscreen playback. Also works with Apple Remote.

I'm putting it out there just to get some feedback on what I should add/change, please post here with suggestions - I'd be very grateful. I'm a student so don't be expecting too much in the way of advanced features! I designed this because I hate playing movies in iTunes - I recommend Perian and Flip4Mac WMV for optimal movie experience :)

Icon is not yet done. If anyone is willing to offer their services I would be more than happy to accept :D I have ideas for icons but can't as of yet acheive them in Photoshop
 

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Wow, looks really good. Congrats! I really hate iTunes can't catalog my movies in other formats than MPEG4.
It would really much more useful if it supported subtitles, as Quicktime does not and I currently use MovieTime (great player too) for that. It would be great also if it could fetch info and art from IMDB, so that could be used for art browsing, a bit like Frontrow online trailers or the ?TV browsers. This info could also be used to generate DVD covers as well. You can do really great stuff just fetching info from the internet.

A 'watched folder' behaviour and Apple remote sound great :)

Cheers.
 
Rokem said:
I like it. Are you using the quicktime engine to drive this?
Also try to integrate movies from the itunes library.
Click to expand...

Yes it uses Quicktime. Re iTunes - they're in the Movies folder in the iTunes Library folder, so I could add that. You could also symlink it.
 
Looks nifty!!

Please find a way to hack the Apple TV so it can playback DivX etc. too as well, since I would really like one, but the fact that it can only play back two formats is just lame :)

Wonders if that can really be done :)
 
Hi. Nice looking app, at first glance.

I'm still looking for my killer playback app. Things I'm looking for:

QT-like GUI, with (at least the option of) VLC engine. Even with Perian, Flip4Mac, and various other codecs installed, I still have trouble with some files in QT.
Large seek bar, for more accurate scrubbing of long movies (looks like you're already there on that one)
Lots of keyboard shortcuts
Playlists
Nested Folders
Fullscreen option, with OSD
Frame-by-frame advance option
Playback speed control

Quicktime, VLC, MPlayer, Cellulo, Niceplayer, Democracy Player, Xine, all have their plus points, but none of them are quite *the one* for me. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

The Void
.....................
Burning up
 
I LIKE it! I think the suggestions of others would be nice to see, but serves its purpose as-is. My only suggestion? Playtime in the bar would be nice to see, time elapsed on one side and time remaining on the other. Thanks for the app, though; I'm enjoying it!
 
seems pretty good..

one thing i couldn't get to work was the time seek bar doesn't show time elapsed/remaining - is this supposed to be like that?

well done, and keep us posted on its further development/enhancements :)
 
If you want i can help you integrate the Apple Remote into it, im working on a framework that should make it a few clicks to get working ;)
 
Here's a little sneak peak of what I'm adding next. I'm hoping to do to movies what iTunes does to music. Maybe if things work out right I might be able to add DVD backups to h264 using a modified version of handbrake or something.

No new download yet, just the pic.
 

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The Void said:
I'm still looking for my killer playback app. Things I'm looking for:

QT-like GUI, with (at least the option of) VLC engine. Even with Perian, Flip4Mac, and various other codecs installed, I still have trouble with some files in QT.
Click to expand...

What kinds of files are you having problems with with Perian installed? Part of the reason that VLC can play so many files is because users told the developers what couldn't play and gave sample files... there's only so many videos that the developers can view themselves.

The Void said:
Frame-by-frame advance option
Click to expand...

It looks like Film Theater already has this, just make sure to put the focus on the movie window. Of course, having left/right step frame-by-frame no matter the focus would be good. Also, last I checked the official word from the VLC devs about frame-by-frame stepping is that it would require a major re-architecture of VLC's core.

grabberslasher said:
Maybe if things work out right I might be able to add DVD backups to h264 using a modified version of handbrake or something.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that Handbrake is GPL, so you'd have to release your modifications to it, and if you use its code in your application, the source to your application as well.
 
Yuvi said:
Keep in mind that Handbrake is GPL, so you'd have to release your modifications to it, and if you use its code in your application, the source to your application as well.
Click to expand...

True, but couldn't i just as easily create a seperate executable in my bundle or a "handbrake framework" which is itself GPL and open source, but have my application link to it as a library or a background daemon?
 
grabberslasher said:
True, but couldn't i just as easily create a seperate executable in my bundle or a "handbrake framework" which is itself GPL and open source, but have my application link to it as a library or a background daemon?
Click to expand...

Linking to a handbrake framework wouldn't work, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL
You'd have to go the separate executable route; that's the only way to use GPL stuff in a closed-source app without getting exceptions from all the copyright holders of the code used (quite a few with handbrake.)
 
Thanks for the info Yuvi!

Quick update: DVD support is nearly finished, everything seems to be working fine right now and I'm just fixing last minute aspect ratio issues etc. Apple Remote support is fully working for DVDs, i.e. if you're on a DVD menu you can use the remote to navigate the buttons, otherwise they work as normal playback controls.

I have to prioritize things for completion, so maybe if you'd reply here with what you'd like to see most out of the following (or add your own ideas):

• HUD/On Screen Controls for fullscreen
• Collapsible nestled folder view
• Time elapsed/remaining visible
• Frame stepping control?
• Playlists
• Playback speed control
• Folder content updating?
• Drag movies into library?
• More information/metadata about tracks?
• Show what is "Now playing"
• Protected MP4 (iTunes Store) support?
• Smart playlists?
• Fullscreen navigation mode (a la Front Row maybe)?
• Movie streaming over Bonjour
• DVD Ripping (we'll see, I don't want to open a legal pandora's box)
 
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