How to setup MCE remote for kmplayer, media player classic, powerDVd and Mediaportal

This is a little guide to get the mce remote working with kmplayer & MPC mainly, there is a built in plugin already installed in eventghost for zoomplayer, if thats your player of choice. The guide relies on eventghost to pass messages to the programs. Hope someone finds it useful.

How to get Vista to auto login
- UNcheck the box next to “Users should enter a username and password to use this computer”, and then press OK.
- Type the username and password for the user you want to automatically logon to Windows Vista when it boots up and press OK
- Reboot the computer

Tips and Tricks: Windows Vista Disable the green button starting MCE
GeneralUserGuides/GreenButton - MediaPortal Manual Documentation
or How to Disable (Uninstall and Remove) Windows Media Center in Vista My Digital Life

Install Mediaportal
Pretty self explainatory
Tv Server setup – see the mediaportal wiki pages.

MPTray: program to get media portal to launch with the green button
MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - MPTray

Mediaportal: Enable the MCE remote plugin
click "Mediaportal configuration" on the desktop > Remotes > tick use Microsoft MCE remote or keyboard

Job done

Install kmplayer and media player classic or zoomplayer
You know what to do!

*Only install the media player YOU WANT, you do not need to install all three!!*

Download and install eventghost
Index of /downloads
I’m using the 5th Dec 2008 build!

Kmplayer plugin for eventghost
KMPlayer plugin for Eventghost - The KMPlayer's Forums or get it from the attachment below.
Once downloaded copy to: C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\plugins

*You only need to install kmplayer if you want to use it as an external player in mediaportal [kmplayer is optional]*

Install your choice of xml file into eventghost
Download one of the xml files attached to this post.

mpv3.xml includes instructions for kmplayer, Media Player Classic, Media Player Classic - Home Theatre.

mp_mpc_v2.xml only includes instructions for media player classic. Use this xml file if you only want to use MPC/MPC-HT.

mp_kmplayer_v1.xml only includes instructions for kmplayer. Use this xml file if you only want to use kmplayer.

a Zoomplayer xml has been left out because it is enabled by default in eventghost!!

copy whichever xml file you use into > C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost

The xml file contains all the plugin and remote mapping info, it tells eventghost what to load.

Now, launch eventghost and go to File > open and select your_desired_file.xml. This will load all the correct plugins and key bindings for eventghost to use.

Lastly, in eventscript goto File > Options and tick launch at windows startup.

Job done, remote should be working for whichever player you have decided to use.

Mediaportal configuration for external players

click "Mediaportal configuration" on the desktop > Videos > Video Players > In the external players box tick "Use external players" & navigate to your player of choice .exe file on your HDD. In the Parameters field add the following:

Code:

%filename% /CLOSE

This enables the external player to exit and return to Mediaportal when the media has finished playback.

for DVD external players:

click "Mediaportal configuration" on the desktop > DVD > DVD Players > In the external players box tick "Use external players" & navigate to your player of choice .exe file on your HDD. In the Parameters field add the following:

Code:

/DVD /CLOSE

This enables the external player to exit and return to Mediaportal when the media has finished playback.

Addtional MediaPortal Fixes

Sometimes Mediaportal loses focus when returning from the external player. You may need to tick "always keep Mediaportal on top" and/or "hide task bar" from within Mediaportal configuration > general settings.

KMplayer & MPC-HC Oxy's mini tips that helped him

Just a couple of little tips that helped me to better integrate kmplayer/MPC-HC into my Mediaportal setup:

kmplayer - you may want to enable "always open media in fullscreen:

To do this: Launch kmplayer > options > preferences > General > when starting tab > Screen Status - set it to "go to Fullscreen"

kmplayer - I run a dual screen setup so to set kmplayer to always launch on the second screen set:

Launch kmplayer > options > preferences > General > Screen > "full screen to monitor" set to DISPLAY 2

Job done.

The same can be done in MPC-HT by going into:

View > options > playback > output > Fullscreen monitor > DISPLAY 2

and for full screen:

View > options > player > tick "launch files in fullscreen"

MPC-HT also has a cool feature, auto resume of files!

View > Options > Player screen you have to ensure that 'Keep history of recently opened files' is checked

View > Options > Miscellanous > tick "remember DVD position" and "remember file position"

EDIT: I also have to run the player in VMR9 renderless mode to get subtitle support. Your journey may vary depending on your OS.

Oxymoron08

Thanks for a great heads up on this - was beginning to think I might have to abandon MP, because of poor playback of HD mkv files and lack of remote support for MPC. This has made my day - with one exception - which I hope you can help me with. I have followed your instructions (including installation of the KMPlayer plugin, although I don't use this player). However, when I stop a movie/TV show by remote, the screen hangs and doesn't return to the StreamedMP screen - it just freezes - I need to exit using the mouse.

I am using MPC-HC with EVR enabled, are these instructions purely for the plain version of MPC? Just tried with the 'older' version of MPC and the same thing happens.

Any ideas on how to resolve.

yeh, if u press the power button on the mce remote for PC, it shuts down kmplayer/MPC. you have to press it again to shutdown mediaportal then re-launch mediaportal with greenbutton. thats my work around.

Glad someone found it useful! I was starting to think I wasted my time hehe.

I'll post a list of what buttons I mapped over the weekend, I forgot to do it.

Anymore questions just post back!

EDIT: sometimes just one press of the mce remote PC power button is enough, sometimes MP needs to be shutdown as well, another tap of the pc power button on mce remote & a relaunch of mp works.

oh yeh, give kmplayer a go, I find it better than MPC, up until last week I didn't use any of them. now fell in love with kmplayer. Its awesome, especially for dvd playback. it works with the mce remote so well.

ta Oxy

Hi Oxy

Thanks for the reply. Is this issue symptomatic of using EventGhost - or can it be fixed. I appreciate the work that goes into compiling such instructions etc., and that a lot of what goes on in MP is a 'work in progress', however, although I don't mind tinkering, I do require a system that has a high WAF. If this issue is unresolvable ie: to act in the manner expected (return to movie list on stop), then unfortunately I will be unable to use it as described.

That's really unfortunate, because I think your onto something here. I have no coding, skinning skills of any description - purely user driven - hell I sometimes have difficulty following the instructions - however should you be able to resolve the issue - if it is resolvable - I'd be more than a happy chappy.

KMPlayer - haven't used it, though I might consider it in the future - at the moment I have a CoreAVC/MPC set-up which plays everything I can throw at it. The only reason I use MPC is to achieve subtitle support. I have a few mkv files which contain subtitle files (for non-english speaking parts) and through MP, the only way I can get them to show is using MPC as the external player (no other combination works effectively for me).

Thanks again for all your hard work - its appreciated

yeh im just a normal bloke as well, but i spend hours reading and was determined to get it working as i fell in love with moving pictures & the Tv series plugin.

I'll have a think, hhhmmm just had an idea. Eventghost is really easy to configure, but abit difficult to explain without screenshots, maybe that can be part 2 of my guide for next week

What I can look at tonight is doing you a little file which maps the stop button with the STOP action in MPC & map it to close MPC as well. So ineffect pressing stop will stop the media playing in MPC and shutdown mpc.

I'll see what I can do tonight, tbh its not some mystical program, its basically drag and drop in eventghost

gimmie up till 10ish, as i formatted me pc this week so need to re-install MP & eventghost etc....


PS: So apart from this issue did all the buttons work in mpc that u need? like play, stop, RW, FW, dvd menu?

ok fixed it for you. So with this version (see attachment at bottom of this post) when u press STOP in MPC it stops playback & quits back to MP. High WAF I believe?

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS

1) Download steelman.xml
2) Copy to > C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost
3) Load eventghost. Goto > File > open > click steelman.xml
4) Maybe wanna reboot here to be safe.

Infact your way of setting STOP to quit MPC maybe the better way, its alot more fluid. hhmmmm think I will add it to my config.


EDIT: You also need to go into mediaportal configuration > general > TICK "Keep Mediaportal always on Top"
This brings the focus back to MP when MPC exits.

OK this now should be working bug free.

Post back if this works for you dude.

Hi Oxy

Thanks very much for taking the time to try and resolve these issues. I have tried the fix and we're almost there. Pressing 'stop' now reverts back to the previous MP page - "film details" (which is the launch page for the movies as I'm sure you know). On return, pressing the 'back' button skips the movies list page and goes directly to the home page.

I am presently using a standard MCE remote (though I have a Harmony One mapped to the MPC remote) and the 'i' button doesn't seem to function correctly - the context menus 'flicker' and on most occasions require a second key press to activate. The resume function when re-playing a part-watched movie also seems to have been rendered unusable, don't know if that is because I'm now using MPC-HC as the player as opposed to MP.

Perhaps it might be worthwhile me listing the issues and MP settings to see whether we are using the same versions etc:-

MP Version 1.0
Skin: StreamedMP-0.4.298
Moving-Pictures-0.6.5
MP-TV Series V2.0.3296
Standard MCE Remote

Issues:

1. No resume feature - MP Loads the splash screen to ask whether resume required, pressing yes just starts the movie at the beginning and not the desired resume point.
2. Back button skipping screens on return from movie/TV series play. 1 remote press seems to activate 2 actions.
3. MP losing focus on return from playback (thought that MPTray-Mod might resolve, but hasn't) - episode thumbnails and episode details fail to load on return from playback.
4. Pressing the 'i' button to enter the context menus doesn't seem to function correctly - the context menus 'flicker' and on most occasions require a second key press to activate.
5. Exiting MP using the right arrow key to enter the shutdown menu requires 2 keystrokes to return to desktop.

No doubt I will have forgotten something and sorry for such a long post, hopefully these can be resolved and revised to fine-tune your excellent article.

I don't know whether the set-up functions with DVD playback - I don't have a DVD player - all my media has been ripped to my HDD's in mkv format. The following remote keys operate effectively:-

Play - Play
Skip - Chapter Skip, where chapters exist in the mkv file
Replay - as Skip
Rew - in mkv file playback, seems to advance by approx 1.5 mins per key press
Fwd - as Rew
Stop - Stop
Pause - Pause
TV Power - Shuts down MP.

Thanks again for all your help - is this what's called beta-testing?

I cant seem to enable this feature yet. Maybe its because I haven't installed moving pictures or the Tv series plugin. Basically in my MP, I dont event get asked to resume playback lol

Now this one I did get to re-create, it does indeed flicker the first press, but I have fixed it! Here is how:
-open eventghost
-right hand column is called the configuration box. Right click on "Plugin: Mediaportal" and click disable item.
- File > save
- load Mediaportal configuration > remotes > tick the mce remote on

This solves the problem, it stops eventghost controlling the mce remote inside MP & uses the inhouse MP settings for the MCE remote, which is excellent btw!

mediaportal configuration > general > TICK "Keep Mediaportal always on Top"
This brings the focus back to MP when MPC exits.
Unsure if this will fix thumbnail issues, as I assume its a bug with using an external player, see if this fix does indeed help with thumbnails, stranger things have happened!

-open eventghost
-right hand column is called the configuration box. Right click on "Plugin: Mediaportal" and click disable item.
- File > save
- load Mediaportal configuration > remotes > tick the mce remote on

This solves the problem, it stops eventghost controlling the mce remote inside MP & uses the inhouse MP settings for the MCE remote, which is excellent btw!

PS: You can apply the fixes yourself, you will certainly have to turn MCE remote support inside MP on yourself or you can wait for me to produce mpv3.xml and update the guide for saturday.

oh yes, we are very much beta testing lol. Thanks for taking the time to post & make me aware of these issues, it helps us both as we both suffer the same glitches. I haven't fiddled much with mediaportal this week so haven't found any errors.

Good work! Anything else you find let me know!

OK never been a beta-tester before, here's some more findings:-

Been tinkering again this morning:-

Resume feature - can live without it, though might be interesting to find a fix.

Double Skip on return from playback - resolved, by either the original install of your mpv2.xml or the workaround provided this morning. There is an instruction in the MessagePlugin readme.txt to disable all remote plug-ins, unfortunately I didn't recognise the MCE remote as a 'plug-in' and didn't think that meant disabling the MCE remote by unchecking the 'Use Microsoft MCE remote or keyboard' in MP config. I was looking under plug-ins for other remote plug-ins.

Basically leaving your config in EventGhost alone and unchecking the 'Use Microsoft MCE remote or keyboard' resolved the issue - as did disabling in EventGhost and re-enabling MCE remote in MP config. So either works.

I did warn you that I had difficulty following instructions . The instruction is fairly well hidden and might be missed by others, therefore might be prudent to amend the instruction in post 1 to clarify that all remote instructions in MP should be disabled

MP losing focus on return from playback - this occurs only in MP-TV Series, therefore might be an issue with the plug-in. Again can live with it. Is this something I should perhaps bring up on the MP-TV series forum? Don't want to step on toes here.

Exiting - using arrow keys, resolved as well

Some fine tuning required, but I don't know that it is anything that can be looked at in this context. The transition from launch of a movie into MPC could be a bit smoother, some flickering occurs, during the transition, but this is a small price to pay for the benefits - WAF.

This is a great workaround for people who have difficulty with playback and require MPC. Now I have flawless playback, subtitles and the ability to use the remote, all in one package. You're a legend.

C'mon folks if you have used these instructions - leave a comment or thank the OP for the work he has done.

just nipped home for my lunch, so will process your post later tonight. I need to insdtall tv series plugin and see if I can recreate your problem.

all in all I think it runs sweet now, with mpc/kmplayer using the remote.


keep on eye out for more posts/updates to the guide this weekend.

ok had a quick fiddle and can get kmplayer to auto-resume outside mediaportal nicely. The problem is it doesnt auto-resume inside MP, much the same as your issue with MPC.

Maybe we need a flash parameter to launch the player?