PictureFlow questions

[sammienator]

Yes I did a bug report  
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/8347

[danmint]

I'm having a problem running pictureflow.  I am running an ipod video 80 gig with a 120 gb hard drive.  Anyhow I install rockbox and I build the database and I try to run picture flow, I then get a message "Not Enough Memory For album names"  followed by "plugin returned error".  I have gotten this running the daily builds as well as tdtookes build.  I have tried deleting the pictureflow directory under /.rockbox/rocks/demos.  I have my cover.bmp's in the right place.  Any ideas?  Thanks, JD

[GodEater]

Are you trying to run the plugin whilst you're listening to music ? You need to make sure playback is *stopped*, not just paused in order for the plugin to load properly.

[danmint]

Yes, it happens when music is not playing, (nothing to resume).  Thanks for the reply.

[jswetzen]

I think it would be good if you could choose what image size you prefer instead of 100x100. 100x100 is a good size for a wps, but it looks very small when you use it for PictureFlow (at least if you have an iPod video).

My ideal settings would be 200x200 sized album art and 70% zoom. It will look big enough, but it won't be pixelated when the album flips over to show the songs.

EDIT:
I've made a patch that adds "Preferred image width" and "Preferred image height" to the settings menu. It will search for images with the selected with/height (for example cover.200x200.bmp) first, and then it looks for cover.100x100.bmp, cover.bmp etc.
I'll probably post a patch later today, if anyone is interested in it.

[psycho_maniac]

Not saying thats bad, but I wouldnt mind seeing a auto resize to the selected album art size you chose like in your patch. I dont think we will see that until bmp resize is in svn though.

[jswetzen]

This patch only matters as long as bmp resize isn't in svn, with bmp resize you can have a 200x200 pixel image for both PictureFlow and the wps. (Soo much easier..  )
The thing is, I want PictureFlow to look good NOW, and still have good looking album art in the wps.

I have posted a first rough patch now, it can be found here: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/8382

[Llorean]

Why do you post a patch that you know is going to be rejected, because it's not the right solution? (the right solution being BMP resize done properly)

The tracker is for patches that are seeking inclusion.

[jswetzen]

All right, forget what I said. It can still be useful when bmp resize is included because you might want to resize the images before you put them on your player.
You can save some battery life when rockbox doesn't have to scale all album art images, and, more importantly, scaling them on the computer will probably result in better looking images.

[Llorean]

If you resize the images before you put them on the player, it'll still work differently. There will be one file, cover.bmp, resized to what you've chosen as appropriate for your WPS. Then Coverflow will resize that image to what it needs to display, and other WPSes will resize to what they need to display if you change WPSes without resizing your images again.

Unless you're talking about having multiple copies of album art (one for each WPS, and one separate one for pictureflow) even after BMP resizing is available, which seems rather wasteful of disk space all things considered?

[jswetzen]

I was referring to multiple copies of the same image, but how much you consider it a waste of disk space depends on how many albums you have and how big your hard drive is. I would like having pre-resized images because I don't have that many albums and I like to see the album art clearly.
It's all a matter of personal preference, of course.

[Llorean]

The whole point in waiting on a scaler is that among other things it needed to have decent image quality. At the size of these screens, it shouldn't be impossible to keep the images looking reasonable.

[jswetzen]

I'll just keep on waiting then, and use multiple images until the resizing algorithm is good enough.

[Llorean]

If the picture resize patch does end up with a significant quality penalty, the idea can be revisited, I'm sure, but the entire point of bitmap resize is "it should be done, but it should only be done once it can successfully replace having multiple images"

[kisso65]

hi i'm a noob at this forum crap so um what is WPS and all this stuff you guyz are talkin of????btw i'm an ipodmodder so yes i know how to mod some stuff but not alot is known of rockbock for meh...so any help identifyin dis would help alot thanx