I must admit that I wish this had been released in a more stable state. I am familiar with Agile, but this is, perhaps, abusing the methodology. Regardless, it has some very good and positive features, and shows a lot of promise. Once this extended beta is over, I think it will be a good product.
OK, now for the issues...
I just built an HTPC. I was/am planning on making FabMP an important part of that, primarily because it can (or should be able to) play movies off the HDD. I like that. I can place my most-watched movies on the PC, and not have to worry about the disks, the disk-player noise, and so forth. So, this is an important feature for me.
1) My HTPC screen resolution is set to 1080P (1920x1080). This results in text that is, well, too small to see. So, I set the text size to 150%. FabMP doesn't play well with this. It starts off with about 67% of the program off the bottom right of the screen. It plays OK as long as I keep it windowed. Once I make it full screen, though, it resizes such that I only see a rather small portion of the movie. Windows MP doesn't have this problem - it resizes correctly. If I set my text size to 100%, everything is fine. So, this issue is definitely related to that setting. I suspect that a lot of people running an HTPC will have their font size set larger than normal, so this issue could end up trapping a lot of potential customers. I consider this issue to be Severe and Urgent.
2) On my HTPC, I have an admin account and a "general user" account. I set up FabMP under the admin account. I also registered it there. I then switched over to the general user account. I had to re-register. Why? Registration should be a computer setting (HKEY Local Machine), not a user setting (HKEY Current User). I consider this issue to be Annoying (Low).
3) I purchased the dual-format version of The Avenger's. It came with both the Blu-Ray and DVD format disks. I played the Blu-Ray. Simple Menus works, but Full Menus does not. I consider this issue to be Low to Moderate.
4) There were a few lock-ups, but not as many, nor as severe, as the lock-ups experienced with Windows MP. At least I was able to kill FabMP and restart it, without having to reboot the PC. I consider this issue (Program Stability) to be Severe.
5) I experienced some issues playing DVD's from my HDD. I used Fab8 QT to rip them. The issues ranged from not playing to crashing FabMP. Too much has happened for me to remember the steps that I did that caused these issues. Since this may be more of a stability issue (see item 4) than an issue directly related to playing from the HDD, I consider this to be Moderate.
6) I do not see a way to get to the Title or Root menus of a disk. I can't tell you how much this bothers me. Now, maybe I was playing disks that didn't allow for that. But, seeing as there doesn't appear to be any menu item to support this functionality, I tend to doubt it. Not having basic (and base) functionality like Root and Title Menu capability strikes me as odd, and a major feature oversight. I, personally, consider this issue to be High.
That's all I have for tonight!
OK, now for the issues...
I just built an HTPC. I was/am planning on making FabMP an important part of that, primarily because it can (or should be able to) play movies off the HDD. I like that. I can place my most-watched movies on the PC, and not have to worry about the disks, the disk-player noise, and so forth. So, this is an important feature for me.
1) My HTPC screen resolution is set to 1080P (1920x1080). This results in text that is, well, too small to see. So, I set the text size to 150%. FabMP doesn't play well with this. It starts off with about 67% of the program off the bottom right of the screen. It plays OK as long as I keep it windowed. Once I make it full screen, though, it resizes such that I only see a rather small portion of the movie. Windows MP doesn't have this problem - it resizes correctly. If I set my text size to 100%, everything is fine. So, this issue is definitely related to that setting. I suspect that a lot of people running an HTPC will have their font size set larger than normal, so this issue could end up trapping a lot of potential customers. I consider this issue to be Severe and Urgent.
2) On my HTPC, I have an admin account and a "general user" account. I set up FabMP under the admin account. I also registered it there. I then switched over to the general user account. I had to re-register. Why? Registration should be a computer setting (HKEY Local Machine), not a user setting (HKEY Current User). I consider this issue to be Annoying (Low).
3) I purchased the dual-format version of The Avenger's. It came with both the Blu-Ray and DVD format disks. I played the Blu-Ray. Simple Menus works, but Full Menus does not. I consider this issue to be Low to Moderate.
4) There were a few lock-ups, but not as many, nor as severe, as the lock-ups experienced with Windows MP. At least I was able to kill FabMP and restart it, without having to reboot the PC. I consider this issue (Program Stability) to be Severe.
5) I experienced some issues playing DVD's from my HDD. I used Fab8 QT to rip them. The issues ranged from not playing to crashing FabMP. Too much has happened for me to remember the steps that I did that caused these issues. Since this may be more of a stability issue (see item 4) than an issue directly related to playing from the HDD, I consider this to be Moderate.
6) I do not see a way to get to the Title or Root menus of a disk. I can't tell you how much this bothers me. Now, maybe I was playing disks that didn't allow for that. But, seeing as there doesn't appear to be any menu item to support this functionality, I tend to doubt it. Not having basic (and base) functionality like Root and Title Menu capability strikes me as odd, and a major feature oversight. I, personally, consider this issue to be High.
That's all I have for tonight!
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