Alaska Theme for WDTV Live Streaming (for firmware 1.04.12)

[desertwedge]

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jwlyons wrote:

Love this theme. Very clean yet at the same time full featured.

Couple of questions:

- This uses the same metadata to display as the WDTV default Mochi theme, right? So no moviesheets?

- By default the theme doesn't display the time all the way. Setting the screen to 75% in display settings on the WDTV seems to fix this. Just a clarification, this doesn't change the resolution of videos played, does it?

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@jwlyons:

What fennec replied is correct.  

1. No movie sheets, it just utilizes the data that the device downloads.

2. Regarding the display of the theme, if part of the theme is getting cutoff, your tv may have overscan enabled.  On the TV (37" Sharp LCD 720p from 2008)  I have had my device  connected to I also experienced portions of the theme being cutoff.  This was due to overscan on my TV.  The overscan basically stretches the picture several percent in each direction.  They do this to remove picture noise that can be found on some TV channels.  Newer HDTVs have a setting typically to view full or screen fit (on Samsung TVs) or something similar to this.  This will display the exact image w/o overscan.  

Hope this helps & thanks for the kind words.

[Fennec]

@desertwedge

Were the cover art thumbnails in the downloadable Alaska images really generated with the 'Get Content Info' option? 'cause they look higher quality than what I am working with when I use that feature. *shrugs*

Increasing the icon size of the selected file would work, but I am partial to borders. I like the white synopsis border against the red chairs. It's simple, It's sharp, it contrasts with the red chairs and your eyes are drawn to it. I want to make changes that will help put emphasis on other parts of the gallery view as well.

It's preference, but I think that's the way I'd feel about having a border around the highlighted cover art thumbnail. Perhaps a nice white borer to match the synopsis border. I'd also consider putting a white border around the LARGE cover art thumbnail directly left of the synopsis. But I'd want the synopsis border and the large cover art border to align perfectly, so that may entail making the thumbnail larger so they are flush. But small changes like these *I think would give the video gallery view a little more pop.

And yes, depending on the background the border might get washed out, but I happen to like the movie theater background so I doubt I would change it. 

While I do have artistic ability I do not know how to use graphic editing software, but my roomie knows how to use Photoshop, so I would just enlist his help to modify the graphics of the interface. I could probably get him to create multiple border colors for the cover art thumbnails along with other graphics for the theme so people could mix and match depending on the background.

I will be playing around with it this weekend and probably have it working by that time as well. I'll post some screen shots.

I have some questions though which would greatly help me in making alterations to the theme.

1.) Just to clarify once again - you aren't certain where to find or how to alter the default Mochi backdrop?

2.) Where do I go to find/alter the theater backdrop for the video gallery?

3.) As an example ONLY - would it be possible to put white borders around every cover art thumbnail in video gallery mode and have a red border for the highlighted cover art thumbnail? If so what would I need to alter?

4.) Is it possible to make the larger cover art thumbnail to the left of the Synopsis a bit bigger?

5.) Once I've made all the changes do I need to delete the Alaska theme from my SMP - zip up the new files in the Alaska zip you provided - and re-up the theme to the SMP again?

6.) Is there a way to take a screen shot from the SMP? I think you can do this on the HUB, but I am uncertain on the SMP.

[desertwedge]

@Fennec:

Regarding thumbs, yes they are the ones downloaded by the "Get Content Info" or "scanning media....".

Regarding the cover art borders for the selected & large are next to the synopsis, they can pretty easily be changed.  You would want to modify the file "video_browse_gallery_thumbnail_f.png" and the file "frame.png" in the Gallery folder of the theme. In terms of the thumb sizes, the file "rv_gallery_browse_page.xml" controls the size and position of all the thumbs. Right now the selected thumb is 180(w)x254(h).  I would keep the width to height ratio constant or else you might get distortion in the thumb.  Also, if you do change the thumbnail size, you'll also need to increase the border size as well.

On your other questions:

1. The default image I believe is called RV_BG.png & is located in the image folder.  If you replace this whatever you want to use, it should replace all the default MOCHI backdrops.  The image should be 1280x720 in size.

2. The theater backdrop image is a file named "video_gallery_video_icon.png" located in the image folder.  You can replace this image with whatever you choose just make sure to use this same name and a image size of 1280x720.  Also you will need to adjust the image "frame.png" I mentioned above as it is specific to the backdrop currently being used.

3. This is certainly doable. You would need to modify the image "video_browse_gallery_thumbnail_holder_n.png" for the regular thumbnail's border & the image "video_browse_gallery_thumbnail_f.png" for the selected thumbnail border.

4. Yes.  You would need to modify the file "rv_gallery_browse_page.xml" and specifically this information:

<!--egg poster thumbnail-->
<image image="image/Gallery/frame_background.png" x="57" y="155" w="176" h="261" bg="1"/>
<image image="@@poster" x="57" y="155" w="176" h="261" align="hcenter" scale_type="pan" scale="100"/>
<image image="image/Gallery/frame.png" x="57" y="155" w="176" h="261" bg="1"/>

5. To upload your changes, just make a zip of the files INSIDE the "alaska" folder.  If you make a zip of the folder "alaska", it will not work.  Then just upload via the web interface.  If all goes well it should give you a message that the upload was successful.

6. You can take screen shots (all the images I posted are screen shots) but you need to setup your remote to do so.  If you go to setup>operation>remote settings you can assign functions to the remote keys.  If you scroll down you should see something that says "screen shots".  Assign this function to a button on the remote.  You also need to have a usb hard drive or flash drive connected to your device.  Once you have done both of these, then just hit the button on the remote you assigned to take screen shots.  The screen shots will be saved to the root of your usb device.

Good Luck!

[Fennec]

Great! Thanks for the response. I'm sure it has helped others as well.

I forgot to ask a question -

1.) What is the file name for the selected dashboard icon? As I may tinker with a border around that image.

2.) Reading over your response - With regards to question #4 - What do these values stand for? x="57" y="155"

[desertwedge]

@Fennec:

1. Not sure what image is used for the dahboard select.  It might be one of these three though:

    dashboard_favorite_selected.png

    dashboard_title_select_bar_01.png

    dashboard_title_select_bar_02.png

2. The x & y values are the position of the icons on the screen.  If you assume the upper-left hand corner of the screen is x="0" y="0" and the bottom right hand corner is x="1280" y="720".  So for example, 

<image image="@@info_icon" x="0" y="0" w="1280" h="720" bg="1" />

would tell you that your image starts at location 0,0 and is 1280 x 720.  Just make sure that the values of your x+w don't exceed 1280 or y+h doesn't exceed 720 or your images will be off the screen.  Below is a link to further information on this.  Look down about five posts.

Icon Position

[Fennec]

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desertwedge wrote:

 5. To upload your changes, just make a zip of the files INSIDE the "alaska" folder.  If you make a zip of the folder "alaska", it will not work.  Then just upload via the web interface.  If all goes well it should give you a message that the upload was successful.

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1.) So I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this....

Your theme is titled "Alaska_1.zip"

There is no Alaska folder in the Alaska_1.zip file. So I don't know where to place my edited files.

As an alternative means to get this working I just deleted the theme from my SMP, dragged and dropped my edited graphics into Alaska_1.zip to over-write the other files and re-upped it to the SMP, though that seems very tedious and impractical. There must be a quicker way to do it without having to delete and reinstall the theme on the SMP. Which I'm sure you tried to explain it to me, but I just don't understand.

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 2.) What XML file and text changes the positioning of the synopsis border and text?

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3.) I don't think any of these png's operate as a dashboard select for the dashboard icons.

"dashboard_title_select_bar_02.png"

"dashboard_favorite_selected.png"

"dashboard_title_select_bar_01.png"

I don't think there is a dashboard select for the dashboard icons. If there is one, I'd like to know - Or is there a way to create a dashboard select in the XML?

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Edit - Yeah, I figured out a few things since this post.

There's an overlay image to fade the bottom portion of the theater image black.

And I read a post by Tinwarble http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-Themes/Some-tips-on-theming/td-p/144024/highlight/true So I changed the dashboard picture name to -  "RV-BG.jpg" and it works.

So desertwedge, if you're reading this - you need to rename that dashboard file in the "Alaska_1.zip" so people can use it. 

Thanks for all the help!

[cbram]

to 3: give it a try with RV-BG.jpg as filename for the default background.

If this doesn't work, also you can still use the WD function assigning any image as background. The HOWTO can be found in the manual.

Good luck

[desertwedge]

@Fennec

1. That works to update the theme.  Sorry if my previous answer was convoluted.

2. The xml file to change the synopsis border & text (gallery view?) is rv_gallery_browse_page.xml.

3.  I'll have to look around and compare my theme to the original to see what happen to the dashboard select icon.

Thanks.

[Bohemus]

Does this theme work with the new 1.06 firmware?

[desertwedge]

@Bohemus

It does work w/ 1.06 but there might be a few kinks.  I'm currently using it with the 1.06 firmware version.