Firefly Remote - DVD navigation (1 Viewer)

[slammo]

Hello - I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I've been playing with Media Portal for about 3 weeks now, and generally I love it. I use it primarily for watching video files and DVD playback. I've searched thoroughly and can't seem to find a solution to the following problem:

When using my Firefly remote and while playing physical DVDs or ISO files (mounted using Daemon tools), there appears to be no way to skip chapters, except for clicking the remote's "menu" button (or left-mouse button) twice and then selecting "next chapter" from the options. The "Next" and "Prev" buttons don't seem to be mapped.

I'm using Cyberlink Power DVD 7 as my codec, and the internal MP player.

I know that the Up and Down arrow buttons are mapped but whenever I use them, I can use them once. Then my system locks up, allowing no input from any source (remote/keyboard/mouse), while the DVD continues to play. If I physically eject the disk, the image freezes, but still no input device seems to respond. At this point I have to power down.

I've tried using various XML files I've found on the boards for mapping the Firefly, but they all seem to be the same as the "default" that is included with the current MP installation (0.2.3 RC3). I've un-installed and re-installed both MP and the Firefly (X10) drivers. I've disabled the Firefly software from running. I have not tried creating my own mappings because I'm not really clear on what command I'm supposed to be sending to the player. I have no other USB Human Interface Devices attached, no other remotes or receivers that would interfere.

Other things I've tried include specifying no remote in MP and using the Firefly program. I've also tried using Cyberlink PowerDVD as the external player but I can't seem to get it to respond at all to the Firefly, even when I run it by itself with the Firefly software running, and MP is not running. Harsh language doesn't seem to work at all.

Can anyone give me some advice or guidance here?

Thanks in advance

 

[slammo]

This is an update to my previous post - I was incorrect when stating that the lockup included the keyboard - I can ctrl-alt-del and get task manager up, and shut down MP when the error occurs.

The lockup (or whatever) is caused by not only the up and down arrows but by pressing the left and right arrows as well.

It occurs when using any codec, not just Cyberlink.

When this occurs, slider bar at the top of the screen displays (showing how much time has elapsed/remains) and the DVD continues to play. The slider bar remains on top, but does not update, while the remote remains unresponsive.

I'm really hoping someone can help me out here - I realize DVD playback is close to the bottom of the pile when it comes to popularity amongst features. But can anyone with a Firefly remote tell me if they can successfully skip to the next or previous chapter while playing a DVD? If so can you post your setup or XML file?

 

[slammo]

Hi, it's me again. Got my own little thread going on here, don't I?. If I'm wasting space on a topic that has been covered, or this is something that everyone else already knows about, I apologize. Feel free to purge this. Otherwise maybe someone else can benefit from my learnings.

I was finally able to figure out what to do to get this resolved - first off, the X10 key codes for the Firefly that I have are different than what is being included as part of the Firefly profile. I had to go in and re-learn quite a few of the buttons. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but as an example the numeric 0-9 buttons had different "Current X10 Key" values assigned to them than what showed up when I I went through and programmed or learned each one. Maybe there are different versions of the Firefly out there? Mine is an RF version, not an IR. Anyways, after re-learning the buttons I still was not getting the correct results. I could not skip chapters and the up/down or left/right arrow usage was causing MP to freeze while the DVD played on.

While a DVD is playing I realized that the F7 and F8 keys on the keyboard performed the same functionality I was looking for (Next and Previous chapters). So I figured it was just a matter of figuring out how to assign these keys to the buttons on the remote. I messed around with Girder and EventGhost before finally realizing I could do it all in the MP configuration.

I used the excellent KeyBoardInputPlugin plugin to identify which numeric codes were being passed via the F7 and F8 keys (118 and 119 respectively). With that information I was able to add a condition to the Up and Down buttons, specifically for a new DVD playback layer. I had to make sure the new condition was first in the list. The layer is for "all", the condition is for "DVD is Playing" and the Action is "Key Pressed". I put the codes in BOTH boxes (118 in both boxes for Prev which I assigned to Up arrow, and 119 for Next which I assigned to the Down arrow). I saved the configuration and tested it out - happyhappy joyjoy!

So then I went ahead and assigned the same condition to the SKIP_UP and SKIP_DN actions, which I had assigned to the to the Prev (|<<_) and Next (>>|) keys on the remote, and those are now working too. I'm so pleased with myself.

I will eventually go in and assign codes to the left and right arrows which will prevent accidentally hitting these buttons and causing the remote and MP to stop responding during DVD playback . But for now, I award myself 4 attaboys for excellent problem solving skills and customer support.