Observations, Compliments and Critiques of the Gizmoplex

[Robin0928]

So, I’ve finally started using the Virtual Theater, and I’ve got a little bit of feedback, positive and negative. This is all coming from the Chrome Browser form of the website.

-The Cambot directory is great, but not super clear as to what its purpose is from the home. Maybe some kind of indicator for first time viewers to know “Hey, this is how you see what’s on here”
-All of the art made for it is fantastic, although I wish I didn’t have to see some of the art with the Gizmoplex Member Pass not loading
-The virtual theater “Zoomed in” View should probably be the default, as the episodes look particularly small when starting an episode.
-I wish the curtains were slightly tighter to better frame classic episodes. The effect looks great on 16:9 episodes, but the classic ones have weird black void borders that break the illusion of a virtual theater.
-Video Vault should be one of the main Cambot Navigation methods.
-Season 13 episodes aren’t listed in the vault unless you directly look for Season 13 or Jonah as your host criteria
-I don’t know about everyone, but I’m in favor of ordering episode by date released than by A-Z.

Overall, I love this concept and this beta form of the site is great, but I think that the small inconveniences hold it back slightly and I hope those are fixed before a final release in May.

[joeyd305]

I agree with most of your points, especially being in favor of ordering episodes by release date rather than A-Z. Release date should be the default.

Although I don’t necessarily disagree with what you wrote about the curtains being tighter for the 1.33:1 episodes, I hope the “fix” isn’t to stretch it to fill the 16:9 aspect ratio. When I use Chromecast to watch 1.33:1 episodes on my TV from the Gizmoplex Virtual Theater, it does that, and it’s too distracting to watch. I MUCH prefer the black void borders on the side over stretching the image to fill the screen.

[Robin0928]

Fair point, IDK much about app development so maybe the simplest thing is just to upload the 4:3 episodes into the 16:9 player and live with the voids, but if there is some way for the player to know that a video is in 4:3 and change the background to match it, that would be swell. The “Virtual Theater” concept is so cool that I’d love to see it aesthetically improve. And yeah, adjusting all of the videos to be 16:9 would be the worst thing they could do to the episodes. If it comes between making this tiny aesthetic change and ruining all of classic MST3K with the stretching, I’ll take some void for that.

[abunch1]

I love the layout of the Gizmoplex. It really fits with the MST3K theme of going to a special theater. When viewing a movie, I think a full-screen mode that disables the theater outline would be beneficial for those viewing it on small screens

[euphoriafish]

I am able to access VHX, Gizmoplex, and Virtual Theater. Very happy to have achieved beta access. It was confusing at first since it’s across multiple sites, and I’m sorry to have missed the Robot Wars event but Atlantis is on my calendar.

I am super happy:
with the menu navigation, both with escalator graphics and the floor map.
With signs of backer thanks wall in the future
That I hit play in Gizmoplex on Fugitive Alien, paused it 17 minutes in, stopped watching, went to Virtual Theatre and hit play another day, and it resumed playing at 17 minutes in where I left off! Huzzah! That means to me I can queue specific scenes like the guitar solo in The Dead Talk Back, invite friends to a watch party, and start a dance party for that host segment in the future when there are virtual avatars in the Theatre.
That Theatre of course gives a proper MOVIE SIGN every time I hit play in the Theatre, but not ever in Gizmoplex where I just want to screen the movie.
There are rows of theater seats in Theatre which reminds me of the virtual theater space I found on Gaia Online and used for YouTube parties in 2010 without being quite the Second Life fan made space.

I’m puzzled by:
There is a graphic for four doors to viewing rooms. Whichever one I click goes to page 1 of my videos in the Video Fridge. It seems like an illusion of different viewing party rooms that aren’t up yet.
I expected: to be taken either to a page 1-4 in Video Fridge, OR to a viewing party room to invite friends to with a share link through my user ID number to one of my four room virtual space options.
ACTUAL RESULT: Consistently loads Video Fridge pg 1 of all my videos.
Feelings: Confusion about doors being plural semiotic graphic for single functional result.

Some subtitles are incorrect like they were auto-transcribed.

The player doesn’t have back 15 seconds / forward 15 seconds. Is this a Vimeo interface that is beyond our control or can we ever petition them with giant tribe influence? Is there any scripting over it a la Grease Monkey to insert jump points to host segment chapter markers?
I’m still redeeming codes and think I lost my reading place in the Backerkit list.

WISHFUL THINKING:
Can we offer suggestions to correct subtitles? Is there a way to do this without MSTie fights over Grateful Dead song titles (e.g. is it Sugary, Sugar Ray, or Sugar Magnolia? Sugar Magnolia is definitely a Grateful Dead song but is not at all what Gypsy said which sounded like “Sugar-REEEEE!!” I heard something off in the fire drill opening and invention exchange too.
Are transcriptions just riffs or also movie audio? Can there be a different colored cobalt blue line at the top of the screen for the film, and consistent color coding red, burgundy, orange, forest green, neon green, purple, lavender per riffer for riffing?
Chapter markers for host segments. Though I am pretty good at eyeballing and clicking time code.
Chat/msg feature I wish I could get a heart count for the day that expands as a dropdown list so I only have to scroll through days and not all the times I was liked. I don’t know how much chat and messaging there will be on this site or how far off in the future. Avatar chat with 3D glasses for my character and an ability to throw popcorn and tomatoes at the screen was super fun on Gaia Online.

I see a lot of potential here. My compliments to the devs and particularly the artist and interface designer.

[Ryanxpark]

There is another thread for subtitle fixes, and the video doors are going to eventually be individual locations.

[Baphomet]

I felt that navigating through the Gizmoplex was quite easy and intuitive. I love the concept and the execution is coming along nicely.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to exit the Gizmoplex once you enter. I wanted to pop back outside and admire the marquee and the spotlights, but I couldn’t find a way to do that aside from logging out and back in again. Would love a little exit button that kicks me back outside the building.

[euphoriafish]

Yay! I thought probability was high for two future features. Thanks! I hope to find and read the subtitle thread.

[euphoriafish]

Add to this, there is one deadend where I have to click Cambot which should be half intuitive, but I had been clicking escalators and Exit sign, so when I deadend at Usher Uniformed Crow T. Robot’s error message about events or that I wasn’t there so i would have to purchase the live event to see the video…

I’m expecting an Exit Sign back down from the top room but I think have to click Cambot or go back to Video Fridge, when I wanted to be back in the room I was in before I had to “Talk” to Ushering Crow.

[euphoriafish]

I definitely think HDMI cable connecting my laptop via USB-C to HDMI adapter to the TV is the best way to use the Virtual Theater. It definitely worked with no issues in playback or sleeping device with the lid down. It didn’t sleep till a few minutes after the movie ended.

Not currently ready to test but am curious about wireless keyboad control of my laptop and attempting to play more than one movie.

And hoping for a feature to queue three movies in a row in a playlist.

[Ajax]

I am pretty impressed with the Gizmoplex so far, but I do have a tiny little issue: listing the episodes in numerical order from #1 to #X doesn’t feel natural to me yet, as I’m still used to breaking down the episode numbers by season.

For example, the “Last Clear Chance” short is listed as part of episode 115, which my head instantly converts into Season 1, episode 15 and thus there’s a moment of confusion when I see it’s a Mike-hosted episode.

It’s not a big deal, but maybe down the line we could think about a setting on our profiles to enable alternate skins for our movie fridge titles which number the episodes by Season/Episode rather than counting up from 001? Just a thought.

[Psychotronic]

To escape, you’ll need to locate a crate of Hamdingers