Theater Mode: Rdio Background

[KennAyala]

I was wonderin if there's a way to make Rdio have a static album art artwork. Like, instead of picking a random position of the cover, pick the center, resize the cover to fill the width to the screen and still have the same aspect ratio, and always pick the same position. There's some examples that I did with Photoshop:
http://imgur.com/hr5cobJ
http://imgur.com/p1oNd7K
http://imgur.com/kOhGivp
Thanks!

[redwing]

All you said can be easily done. But you didn't mention the most important part in your mockups: blurring effect. That's not supported and that's why it's currently using extremely high magnification to get something similar to the effect.

Anyway the following code will draw the background cover image as you described:

<element type="AlbumCover" xAnchor="Panel.Center" x="0" yAnchor="Panel.Center" y="0" align="Middle.Center" widthDock="Panel.Width.100" width="0" heightDock="Panel.Width.100" height="0" brightness="0.5"></element>

If you can, try creating an overlay image that could give blurring effect. Then you can add the following code with the image placed under TheaterMode.List\Images folder:

<element type="Icon" image="Images\blur.png" x="-1" y="-1" widthDock="Panel" width="2" heightDock="Panel" height="2" ></element>

[KennAyala]

omg dude thank you very much for this! The blurry overlay didn't work, but anyway, I just set brightness to "0.1" and it looks pretty well! Again, thanks!

[Steven]

i have had a few negative comments about the album colour mix view in the Now Playing panel - the Rdio theater mode plugin uses the same method.
For v3.1 i have already made a change to use a blurring approach rather than high magnification and i think it looks much better.
I am willing to put the change in v3 for you guys to try out and if its OK then i will change the handling for the theater mode plugin to do the same.
I will post a link later

[redwing]

That sounds great! For TM, maybe you could just add the function rather than replacing the current one. That way we could have more choices for cover color effects.

[Steven]

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_0/MusicBee3_Patched.zip

unzip into the folder MB is installed (assuming you are already using v3.0)
In the now playing tab, change the view to "Album Colour Mix".
The theater mode plugin (Rdio background) is not done yet - i will see what you guys think

[Steven]

i've done the theater mode plugin as well now:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_0/mb_TheaterModePlugin.zip

unzip into the Plugins folder

[redwing]

I think overall it looks better. It represents overall color schemes in the entire cover image better (by much lower magnification) than the previous algorithm which sometimes looks irrelevant to the cover when it's magnifying an inessential area. Also the patterns and color tones are more homogeneous without many anomalies. To some extent, it could feel a little boring without much variations. But it would work better in most cases.
One thing you could improve is it currently only magnifies central area of the cover by going up and down. Maybe it could show outer areas as well.
If possible, I'd like to have more control over the function for TM: blur intensity, magnification power, interval, etc.

[Steven]

i will look at the requests at a future date. They seem ok.
I have made another tweak where it now blurs only half the album, so giving more room to show a random location.
Same links as before

[redwing]

Some covers always give this kind of pattern (more noticeable with TM):



(Fleetwood Mac's "Tango in the Night" album)

Can you make those distinctive lines blurred out?

[Steven]

Some covers always give this kind of pattern (more noticeable with TM):

did you use the very latest version?

[redwing]

It's same with the new one.

[Steven]

i assume those are 2 separate screenshots. I am not sure what you mean by looking at your screenshot but i do notice sometimes there is sort of a ring effect. I am not sure if i can do anything about that

[redwing]

I have made another tweak where it now blurs only half the album, so giving more room to show a random location.

I can see this improvement. Looks better.

[redwing]

i assume those are 2 separate screenshots. I am not sure what you mean by looking at your screenshot but i do notice sometimes there is sort of a ring effect. I am not sure if i can do anything about that

I would say Now Playing mode has improved a lot, but I'm not sure about TM. Rdio skin sometimes showed those patterns before as well, but now those patterns show more often and more noticeable with many covers.