Fresh from the Forums: Skins going full HD!
Creating Full HD (1920x1080) skins seems to be the new trend in skin design. Now MediaPortal can make the most of your Full HDTV!
Not long ago, mearly all skins were created with a resolution meant to fit "HD ready" TVs. At first, skins where made with a resolution of 1366x768, which normally is the native resolution for "HD ready" TVs. The problem was that most TVs would not accept their own native resolution. This meant that 1:1 pixelmapping was impossible, as 768 skins where first downscaled to 720, before they were re-scaled to 768! Therefore a 720 skin was often a better choice, as only one scaling was done. Another benefit of using 1280x720, is that it is a true 16:9 format, whilst 1366x768 is not. In theory, this should mean that a 720 skin would scale better to a "Full HD" TV (1920x1080).
As "Full HD" TVs have become more mainstream, it makes sense to create a skin with this resolution. The first skin (to my knowledge, anyway), that brought MediaPortal full HD resolution was SpinSafe, created by mirk back in 2008. Since then, not many full HD skins were created. One popular exception was Black & White 1080p, created by aj1405.
One of the reasons for skins not going Full HD, was that they simply were too resource hungry. Over time, CPUs have become more effective; but even more importantly, the MediaPortal GUI has become less resource demanding. In other words, everything should now be in place to create great Full HD skins - and this is exactly what has happened.
Here is a list of recent Full HD skins:
Black Glass HD & Glass Nova HD
So, how about MediaPortal 2?
MediaPortal 2 will be pixel perfect, regardless of resolution! The reason for this, is that MP 2 uses vector graphics. So whatever resolution future TVs offer, MP 2 is ready for it!
