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My Channel Logos Version 2
 

How time flies! We were just beginning the summer of 2010 when the last version of My Channel Logos was released. But in reality, we were already preparing a wishlist for MCL V2. “What can you possibly add to enhance MCL?” we were asked. Well, if you’ve paid attention to our philosophy, you know that our goal is to dig deep into the darkest recesses of Media Center code, and bring complicated fixes and enhancements to the masses in an easy, user-friendly interface. You saw it with the original MCL, and you saw it with TunerSalad too. I’ve been hinting at the evolution of MCL for a while. In fact, you could see it in every post I made at TheGreenButton (RIP). With MCL V2, now the guide is really in your hands. It’s time to “Get your Guide Looking Good”.

 

 

What new features are in Version 2?

  • Alter the logo cell to your own liking- Have you ever lamented the loss of callsigns? Whined over the wasted width in the logo cell? Oppose the order of the logo cell? Now, if you want both the logo and the callsign there, you can do it. If you don’t care what the channel number is, you can delete it. If you’d rather the logo appear to the left of the channel number, go ahead. If you think the logos should be centered in your guide instead of right justified, you can center it. With our simple new user interface, you can select which components you want to see in the logo cell, which order they appear in, whether the logo is centered, and how wide the logo cell is. And in an instant, we make all the changes needed to make your guide perfect for you.

  • Increase the number of rows in the guide and mini-guide- Now with just the click of a slider, you can add up to eleven rows to your guide, and 4 rows to your mini-guide. These changes have been carefully adjusted to keep the professional look in Media Center, including a well aligned “View Categories” bar, layout adjustments to fit all the important information, and an extension of the blue fade for those adjusting the mini-guide. These tweaks were originally championed by the Australian Media Center community.

  • Actually automatically update logos- You may have noticed that although the option was in earlier versions of MCL, it never really worked. Sorry about that. But now, MCL will automatically download new logos if available, and then autopopulate, without having to open MCL. So if a new channel comes to your guide, the logo will be downloaded and added without lifting a finger.

  • Help make MCL Better- Now you can create a spreadsheet to send to the MCL team so that we can work on better matching with autopopulate. Not only will this alert us to new channels, but it will give better matches for existing channels, as they can have different callsigns depending on the region and cable provider.

  • Brand new overall user interface- Gone is the utilitarian look of MCL from the past. Without losing the user-friendliness of the previous version, MCL now has a better graphical interface, with new buttons and tabs to better let you leverage all the functions.

  • Brand new Logo user interface that gives you a better idea of what your logo will look like in the guide. It presents the information in a prettier, more informative way.

  • New separate list of callsigns: We’ve also transitioned from the tree-view to separate lists, so that manually adding logos doesn’t collapse the list every time.

  • New Download Screen- Tells you exactly how many logos you will be downloading, as well as a progress bar.

  • Far fewer flakey servers- Our logos and system checks are on much more stable servers now, so hopefully this will mean less problems for everyone.

What’s the same in Version 2?

  • Fast Autopopulate- the same algorithm from V2 will add your logos in seconds.

  • Drag and drop logo assignment- To manually add logos quicker.

  • Exemptions- Choose which logos stay the same during automatic updates or Autopopulate clicks.

  • Logos, Logos everywhere- Access our database of over 1800 unique logos, designed especially for Media Center. We’ve got logos from USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand.

Good news, bad news.

First the bad news: Due to a disappointing proportion of people donating to our project, we have made the difficult decision to transition My Channel Logos to paid software. For $3.40 (or more if you’re feeling generous), you can purchase the full MCL Version 2.  After paypal fees, it will be a $3 donation. If you're someone who simply can't live without this software, consider showing your appreciation with a higher donation.

The good news: If you have donated $3 or more to us in the past, you will be eligible for a free upgrade to MCL Version 2 for a limited time. You should receive an email about this at your paypal address in the near future. This full version of MCL will have no nags, no “donate” symbols. Just pay through paypal, and get MCL. If course, if it's been a while since you've donate, and you're feeling generous again, consider donating again.

For those who would rather not pay, then they will be able to use MCL Lite. This version will not have new features, such as guide tweaks or automatic logo updates. Autopopulate will only be available in the full version, however you will still be able to download logos and add them to your guide manually. We really hated crippling the free version of MCL, but we had to make some extra incentive for the upgrade. Simply put, Autopopulate is a feature that saves you time. So if you value your time enough to match logos in an instant, then you should value us programmers’ time enough to pay for the software.

We are hoping that everything will work perfectly from the get-go. But this is a major redesign, and we only have a few computers to test this on, so we may not have encountered every potential issue. Hopefully we can get any issues ironed out quickly.