XBMC Aeon MQ5 V1.5.1 was released as final last week and can now be found in the official repository.

I am currently in the process of testing MQ5 with a view to update all my HTPC’s from MQ4. To read what’s new take a look at the first post on the MQ5 thread here.

THE SUPER SKIN THAT WORKS LIKE A LITE SKIN

“The Aeon MQ 5 uses in the base the Ace Skin code, with this was possible to include many resources in the code without sacrificing performance.
The Aeon MQ 5 has a performance a lot superior compared to its predecessor Aeon MQ 4.”

Allot seems to have changed under the hood with this new MQ5 skin, the way you customize the menu’s and submenus for example, is totally different to how it was done in MQ4 and seems to be easier to use.

You can see my previous post about the Aeon MQ4 Movie Library here to compare some of the screen shots between the two skins.

Main Movie Menu

The Recently Added / Random / In Progress titles feature, has been moved down from a top menu and can now be accessed right above the main XBMC movies menu.

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Upon highlighting a title from the list of Recently Added titles

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Upon selecting OK on a title, there are options to Play Movie or Play Trailer

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As with Aeon MQ4 there are many different views to choose from, some of these views are new to MQ5.

Glass List view

Aeon-MQ5-Movies-GlassList1

Right List view – I like this one for use with Music Artists where I would normally use Low List view in MQ4.

Aeon-MQ5-Movies-RightList1

Movie Info page – Things have been changed about a bit on the Info screen, the option “Director’s Movies” is new I believe and will list the movies in your collection by that particular director.

Aeon-MQ5-Movies-Info1

Movie Playback Info overlay – I love how the clear logo (Middle right side) is now just displayed over the actual video rather than in the darker overlay frame area.

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Movie Playback Pause

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When you pause initially it looks like the above and then after a few moments of inactivity it changes to look like the below screen shot.

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Wall view – This view now scrolls from up to down whereas in MQ4 I had it scrolling from left to right, not sure if you can change this in MQ5?

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New panel overlay that appears after a few moments of highlighting a movie title.

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Wall 3D view – This looks similar but with the default theme, there is now a nice red glow appearing around the currently selected title.

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Coverflow view

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Low List view

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Multiplex view

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Panel view

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Poster view

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Shelf view – Quite like this one now!

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Show Art view

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Showcase view – Fanart Style

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Showcase view – Thumbnail Style

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Wide view

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Summary

Just a quick peek at the movie library in the new Aeon MQ5 skin. I have only briefly used the MQ5 skin on a test machine, but I am hoping that some of the small navigation and UI bugs that are present in MQ4 are going to be all ironed out in MQ5?

Aeon MQ5 feels like a much more polished product compared with MQ4 and I am looking forward to deploying this new skin on to my HTPC’s once I am happy with the testing phase. I’ll probably throw up some more screen shots in later blog posts, showing the other areas of XBMC, especially the Live TV / EPG as that has been massively improved in MQ5 over MQ4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

www.phaze1digital.com

3 thoughts on “XBMC New Aeon MQ5 Skin – Movies UI sneak peek”
  1. Off the top of my head, you have to active the views you want first as most are deactivated, in the movie library push up arrow a few times then push left arrow to bring up the list of view you can activate. Then you can use the up arrow to get to the views and then use left or right to switch between them, something along those lines anyways!

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