Moovida 3D media center: the future or gimmick?
I’ve read about Moovida before and I’ve even checked out their website, but anyone actually have any experience using it? I looked at its features, and it needs to do way more than just have a fancy interface for me to switch…but maybe I’m wrong. As I’ve said before, I think having more players in this space is a good thing either way.
In a step away from the flat, tile-based systems used by most of its immediate competitors, Moovida presents titles as a 3D wall of box art, undulating across the screen with every press of an arrow key. Highlight a title and the box art glides up into the foreground on the face of a 3D cube, with a mini player beside it showing a preview, mirrored on the reflective “floor” and everything. Button arrows flip the box around to show, related files, actors, and a synopsis, and the whole interface can be operated with the five-way directional pad on a generic remote control.
I watched the “TV side”
I watched the “TV side” tutorial and it looks rather easy to use. This would be a plus for non-techy users and family who comes over to find a movie in your collection. No matter how much I try… people still find MediaBrowser hard to use for the first time. It looks like if the movie isnt in their db you just stuck with an “unknown” movie… no way to create your own metadata. I have a lot of foreign films and that could pose a problem. Add a Win7MC plugin/integration and then we talking.
Turns out this seems to be a
Turns out this seems to be a fork of the Banshee project. Apparently they didn’t even bother to search and replace “Banshee” with “Moovida”. Granted the MIT X11 license doesn’t require them to acknowledge where the code came from but they aren’t being very respectable open source community citizens (like Apple).
I’m not a fan of the flashy
I’m not a fan of the flashy movie browsers. Since I already know the details of the movies I own I find the factory Media Center “tile display” is all I need. I can scroll through them faster. My HTPC just has a Pentium D so maybe that’s influencing my preferences.