win xp pro and media portal questions

[detroit54]

I built a HTPC using some spare parts, and have some questions about getting everything to work together the way I want...

1) I am using a Sapphire Radeon X600XT with VIVO connected to a Panasonic 27" television (old type, S-VIDEO input). I will be switching to the Catalyst 6.5 drivers as I occasionally have lockups in MediaPortal when there is a preview video running in a window in the My Videos section with the latest Catalyst 7.2 drivers. The TV display rolls vertically when the PC first boots up and shows the BIOS messages, and does not stabilize until WinXP boots and presumably loads the display drivers. If I turn the TV off during boot up, the PC does not recognize the TV once I turn it on and I am left with no display at all. Will "force TV detection" in the Catalyst control panel fix this? Is there any way to fix the rolling display during boot up? As is, I can't access or change BIOS settings without dragging an old CRT out and connecting it to the HTPC.

2) I recently bought and installed a Microsoft MCE Remote (V2) and it works very nicely in MediaPortal! I would like to be able to navigate the desktop, start, and shut down Windows XP Pro SP2 without having to use a keyboard, and noticed if the focus is on the desktop icons that the arrow keys on the MCE remote will allow me to navigate and start programs. Is there a way to force the focus to stay there so I can use the remote alone? Also, how can I make the remote start/shut down windows? The green button on the remote doesn't seem to do anything under XP Pro SP2. Even better would be if the remote would allow me to navigate the Start menu items.

3) Does anyone know how to get the animated Weather.com satellite image to load in the My Weather\Images area? I found one I could copy from AccuWeather, but I like the Weather.com image better. It seems like they do some sort of JAVA thing to animate the map rather than using an animated GIF like AccuWeather.

4) Is there an IMDB sort of database for TV episodes that can be used with MediaPortal?

MediaPortal rocks!

[gxtracker]

1) force tv detection should fix all of those problems.

2) You can use the PC button on the remote to put the computer to sleep or hibernate. as for keeping the focus on the desktop icons, you would have to look for a 3rd party program to do that, or you could use the MCE replacement plugin in the hot plugins subforum here. it comes with MCE tray, which will let you launch mediaportal with the green button and from there you can navigate within MP to shutdown/restart/etc...

3 The animated satellite image from weather.com cant be used. its doing exactly what you describe, and MP will only load an animated .gif file for usage. Someone else may know a workaround, but I havent found a solution yet.

4) Check out the TV series plugin in the hot plugins forum. It connects to a user maintained database with episode info and even graphic banners for plpular TV shows.

[detroit54]

Thanks for the reply! I'll try that MCE replacement plugin. When you say the PC button on the remote, you mean the little one up in the upper right corner next to the TV button? I've tried this in XP but it doesn't seem to have a function. Do I need to do something special to enable it? I'm using the stock drivers that came with XP SP2 right now (not media center 2005).

I just read about that TV plugin and I'd love to try it, but I just got a DMCA notice from my ISP for downloading an episode of Battlestar Galactica over Bittorrent and I'm scared to death of being sued for everything I'm worth over something stupid...

[detroit54]

Actually, that plugin isn't what I thought when I posted my reply -- I read about another one somewhere else today that automatically downloads episodes for you and adds them to the catalog...

That's exactly what I was looking for

[Marcusb]

that sucks abut the DMCA notice. Like an episode of BG makes you a criminal.

Welcome to the forums and have fun with MP though