New Man Rivet theme / frontend [ Edited ]

[JoeySmyth]

Looks good mannymiller,  kinda reminds me a little of "Vision2" for XBMC

Any Vacant Positions at your work ?  I would love to get paid by the Hour to do WDTV Live Hub Mods ...

[mannymiller]

@joey 

most of the work on the frontends are done at home, i just test them at work, if they need any tweaking then i will steal the hub for the evening. think if i threw overtime at the boss for doing these frontends, think i maybe looking for another job.lol.

[JoeySmyth]

@mannymiller

Any Regrets selling your Previous / Personally Owned WDTV Live Hub ?

Which Media Player do you use at your Home now ?

[mannymiller]

@Joey

To be honest i dont regret selling it. i hoped with all the fuss everyone was making, that WD would listen to its users regarding the PNG issue. i have had all of WD streamers and all of them were plagued with bad firmware updates. i didnt use it for online, or use the network facility. i used it souly for playing movies stored on the drive., BUT i wanted it to look nice doing so.. so the themes, as well as the moviesheets were important to me. At the moment my panasonic seems to have quite good media playback... divx, and mkv etc. doesnt play .iso but i dont have many.

I have a big electrical store quite close, a few of my good friends work there, so borrow bits every now and then. sometimes i give a review for there magazine. i was doing one on media streamers about a month ago. i was supposed to have the use of 5, but only got the boxee and the hub lol. i didnt like the boxee, and enough said about the hub. i havent been to the store for sometime, but have been told there are many new streamers out there that leave the hub in the shade.. to me it has to be customizable. and have moviesheets. so it needs good user backing, which reduces the choice of player to choose from. it wont be WD tho.. and im quite stubborn 

[DeVicious]

Manny i can see the frustration but keep in mind that the Live Hub is as close as it gets. It plays literally everything, I believe if i squeeze an old vynil record in it it would play it too

So there is the part where such a device is supposed to be functional, small and easy to use.... check check and check, they are selling large numbers and a tiny percentage of their customers is using custom themes, the mainstream customers have never heard of themes nor do they care. This is what WD is focussing on. (this still doesn't excuse the logically broken library)

At some point I was close to get rid off my device as well because there was a firmware period that was messing with the recognition of external drives, however I am so glad I didn't because all the other devices out there are either more pricey, have lower storage and can't do half the stuff. The PNG thing is sad but for the most things there is a work around and Joey did a good job finding the most of them so far.

[mannymiller]

@Devicious

It is a good player. but the likes of the gen 1 and live wouldnt have sold half as many if it wasnt for the moviesheets etc. it was the only reason why i and many of my friends purchased it. i waited for ages for them to fix the gen 2 firmware, not being able to play .mkvs with compressed headers. yet they worked fine on the live. Every other product in my house, TV, Amp. bluray player, xbox, ps3 etc etc that has a firmware i upgrade without hesitation to the latest firmware, knowing it will work and the only reason for the update is for an extra service that its users want. Unlike WD.. as for selling large numbers, those numbers are getting less. 2 stores im aware of have stopped stocking these players. and  there are lots of good replacements out there.

thought i would add a piccy of a work in progress....

[DeVicious]

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mannymiller wrote:

@Devicious

2 stores im aware of have stopped stocking these players. and  there are lots of good replacements out there.

thought i would add a piccy of a work in progress....

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thank god 2 locations aren't representative for the rest of the world

They are selling great were I live and they will continue to sell great. Tastes are different it is not even discuss worthy

[mannymiller]

@devicious.. As i said im quite stubborn. you only have to look at WD latest firmware update. one of the fixes  MLB.. they have to be kidding. Im in the uk and im sorry MLB is def NOT for me. and if you read through that post, as usual lots of unhappy people and a few threats to get rid of there players, all those ones and twos add up.

Anyway back to topic. Updated Blue ice 1.0 - 1.1 download on page 1 of this thread. Fixed over pixelated backdrops. caused by to much compression, in exchange for speed.

[Cosber]

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DeVicious wrote:

So there is the part where such a device is supposed to be functional, small and easy to use.... check check and check, they are selling large numbers and a tiny percentage of their customers is using custom themes, the mainstream customers have never heard of themes nor do they care. This is what WD is focussing on. (this still doesn't excuse the logically broken library)

I think you've said it all. So many complaints about the Hub mostly based on the fact that the few of us who use themes can't have it all. I've thought many times about just going with the default theme and upgrading to the latest firmware. After all, I bought it to play media, not to spend hours upon hours trying to get a look that I think is cool. Anyone who spends as much time as we do experimenting are doing it as a hobby, not as a watcher of movies. I spend way more time playing with themes than I do actually watching my movies. WD shouldn't be admonished so much because they aren't catering to the minority theme user. This sucker plays everything I throw at it, and I really love the machine. Yeah, the themes make it look so much better, but how much time do we really need to spend looking at graphics before we hit the play button.

[mannymiller]

Just a small update.  A quick remake on the Rivet front end. which can be downloaded on page one. hopefully tomorrow will release A new Hi-Fi front end, which is slightly different.