The ONLY thing i beg of you is to PLEASE consider open sourcing your application. Too many times i see great concepts fizzle - especially in times of tough economy where someone loses a job or gets hired by microsoft and the project dissapears completely or the original author burns out because demand is to high.

I'd love to see this take off and i think opening up the code would not only enhance the project but also stem off others who may want to build similar platforms and invigorate the MCE development arena once again.

ty :)

byronm:

The ONLY thing i beg of you is to PLEASE consider open sourcing your application. Too many times i see great concepts fizzle - especially in times of tough economy where someone loses a job or gets hired by microsoft and the project dissapears completely or the original author burns out because demand is to high. I'd love to see this take off and i think opening up the code would not only enhance the project but also stem off others who may want to build similar platforms and invigorate the MCE development arena once again. ty :)

+1

Couldn't agree more with what you have just said!

byronm:

The ONLY thing i beg of you is to PLEASE consider open sourcing your application. Too many times i see great concepts fizzle - especially in times of tough economy where someone loses a job or gets hired by microsoft and the project dissapears completely or the original author burns out because demand is to high. I'd love to see this take off and i think opening up the code would not only enhance the project but also stem off others who may want to build similar platforms and invigorate the MCE development arena once again. ty :)

That will certainly be a consideration! I haven't even begun to think about those kinds of things yet... but dont worry... this project wont fizzle anytime soon! 

Just checked out your site and the video.  Looks great!  Keep up the good work.  I would be interested in testing it too.  Love the artwork and layout from the TV database.

Yaggs, your project more than any other VMC add-on I've seen for a while, has the potential for a ton of feedback. Unless you're superhuman I would be surprised if you were able to efficiently and effectively catalog, prioritize and track this feedback if it all comes in via Forum posts, PM and/or email. I'm also concerned that we could avoid a lot of unnecessary churn and duplication (which I've obseved in the vmcNetflix project) if there was a structured, central and scalable bugs repository from day one (and which all downloaders knew was there to use).

I would be happy to help you setup this bugs/features repository, and it should be fairly trivial for me as I've done this for many of my own projects.

On the optimistic assumption that you may end up open sourcing some or all of your code, and because free is always a good price, I'd recommend setting up a project on one of Codeplex, Sourceforge or Google Code. I happen to like the user-friendly metadata and easy "voting" system (to see how popular/common each issue is) of Codeplex - plus the ability to use a great OSS tool for managing/updating/closing those bugs. However if you have a preference for one of the others (or something else entirely) I'll gladly support whatever works best for you.

Here's what I'm thinking: I could send you a link to the project setup page (so it would be owned by your account), then you could add me to the "developers" group and I would fill in the rest of the details. Once the first release goes live, you could direct all bug reports, feedback and feature requests to the project site, and I would gladly scrub, fill in and triage the issues for you. Time permitting, I would even go back through this thread to capture the feedback submitted so far.

like many here, I'd love to help however I can so you can stay focused on just cranking the code.

PM with your thoughts and I'll help make sure it's ready for tomorrow's launch.

Cheers, Mike

vapore0n:

Cant wait

I will sign up as beta tester too. Make sure to provide means of enabling debug output so we can sent it to you.

This is a great idea.

Yaggs, even if you haven't harnessed the code with trace or debug logging, you could post both a Debug and a Release build of the add-on, so that folks who want to collect and submit output can gather far more detailed and root-cause'able debug/crash output.

You/we could further publish instructions and/or scripts to automate the setup & collection of that data, to reduce the "activation barrier" for more time-constrained users.

Happy to help with any or all aspects of this.

Does/will this plug-in have access to YouTube/RSS feeds to video podcasts?

I presume not, but this isn't yet intended to be using in Windows 7 correct?

What about will there be an x64 version?

Another reference to this project:

http://onten.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Hulu-Coming-Soon-to-Media-Center-via-SecondRuntv/

Codeplex would be the best place since it's a .NET application too, and I agree with needing a Bug tracking system from day 1.  Boxee is having problems dealing with feature requests and bug tracking right now.  They might not admit it, but they have to be.  They're using getsatisfaction.com for all feature requests and bug tracking, which just doesn't scale in my mind. 

I already said it in my previous post but +1 again to ParanoidCanuck's motion to open this thing up.  I need an open source project to contribute to in order to keep my .NET skills sharpened since it's not what I'm working with on a day to day basis anymore.  And remember, by no means do we want to steal your thunder, we just want to support something we believe in :).  I look forward to trying this out.

The developer has not even released the first beta yet and everyone wants more more and more and more and more ..... Like a 5 year old crying about why he doesnt have all the toys in the world....

I for one am just happy someone is working on a Hula plugin , kudos to the developer.

We're not complaining, just giving our suggestions.  That's how software evolves.

Without extender support it is of my opinion that any plug-in attempting to view Hulu, ABC, Fox, etc will not be fully appreciated or realize any significant market share.  As it is many of us sit at a computer way too many hours, making sitting there more to look at a tiny screen (compared to the 46" + screens in the media rooms, etc) of little interest.

*Sigh* Why is it that standards for all extenders do not include support for flash and other major internet and media standards?  Do MS, Linksys, HP and the other handful of hardware makers creating the hardware and standards for extenders simply not get it? 

Free Man:

Without extender support it is of my opinion that any plug-in attempting to view Hulu, ABC, Fox, etc will not be fully appreciated or realize any significant market share.  As it is many of us sit at a computer way too many hours, making sitting there more to look at a tiny screen (compared to the 46" + screens in the media rooms, etc) of little interest.

*Sigh* Why is it that standards for all extenders do not include support for flash and other major internet and media standards?  Do MS, Linksys, HP and the other handful of hardware makers creating the hardware and standards for extenders simply not get it? 

I did some early testing with my 360 last night and the app works and the extender will open hulu and start playing the video but it was a little choppy and there was no sound... no granted I didn't do the network tuning wizard in media center and my 360 is on a wireless connection and so is my notebook that I am developing on... but again... i do fully intend to support them... I will most likely have to do some transcoding of the flash video some how... that just wont be in the first release tonight or tomorrow.

Remember too that many people who have Media Center have it running on a PC that is attached to a TV with a remote control... so it will be very useful right out of the gate for those folks!  I have a little mac mini plugged into my TV running media center and the app works great on it!