Using VLC with mediaportal

[quake74]

Hi all!

I'm using MediaPortal Version 0.2.2.0 but I have issues with mp4 subtitles. For this reason, and many others, I'd like to use VLC to play certain files. Since most of the files are fine, I messed around the "My Programs" plugin, but lauching VLC thorugh that doesn't work: on the screen I still see the browsed directory, I can hear the audio of the file being played and the remote does not control either MP or VLC. So I came up with a hacked solution by calling a bat file which shuts down MP and starts VLC:

taskkill /F /IM Mediaportal.exe
"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\VLC.exe" "%~f1"
taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
explorer.exe

I have to restart explorer because killing MP makes the task bar disappear.

Is there a more "elegant" solution? Do you know why the VLC video is hidden behind MP?

[aggi]

Do you know why the VLC video is hidden behind MP?

mp setup- general - mp alway on top???

[quake74]

Originally Posted by aggi

mp setup- general - mp alway on top???

Wrong answer! It does it with or without "always on top". Thanks for playing!

[wewe]

exclusive directx!

thanks+regards
WeWe

(more elegant solution: use the inbuild funtion "external player" of MP)

[samundsen]

Here is what I do... I don't use built in MP video player because I need to use different players for different file types (and MP only allows one external player to be set up), so I use a small VB script. The script is called MoviePlayer.vbs, and that is the "program" I set up as an external player in MP. The contents of the script is as follows:

Set oArgs = WScript.Arguments
sFilePath = oArgs(0)
Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

iRC = oShell.Run("""" & sFilePath & """")

Wscript.Quit iRC

This will take the file name of the movie file and launch it. The beauty of this is two-fold. First, when you use a regular batch file, it opens up a Command prompt window. This does not happen with this script, so your external player gains focus directly.

Second, it does not launch the external player directly, it launches the movie file, so you have to use file associations in Windows. I have Zoom Player associated with AVI files in windows, and QuickTime player associated with M4V files (iTunes downloads).

So all I do in MP is click on the movie, the script launches the associated movie in the right player. Zoom Player launches directly into full-screen, so you don't even notice it's there. QuickTime launches in a window, but I have mapped a key to my remote that switches it to full-screen with a key press.

Btw, I don't take credit for writing that script, I found it using Google, I've just modified it for my needs.

[quake74]

Originally Posted by wewe

exclusive directx!

thanks+regards
WeWe

(more elegant solution: use the inbuild funtion "external player" of MP)

Sorry for not following up, but neither the "exclusive directx" nor the "external player" option solved the problem for me, I already tried. I am converting to mkv whenever possible to solve the issue. (It's just a remux, not a re-compression so it's fairly speedy.)

Thnx to samundsen for the alternative solution!