(New user) Several varied UI/menu/DVD quirks, bugs? (1 Viewer)

[awol]

After a rough start, I've been using MCE2005:RU2 flawlessly for the past year or so on my HTPC. No errors, no driver problems - only flawless operation.

Recently started playing with Media Portal 0.2.2.0 (stable) and it's pretty much working. Got my tuners setup, Zap2It EPG going, ripped DVDs playing, etc. But I have a number of quirks (and questions). If another forum is more appropriate, feel free to point me in the right direction.

1. When playing a 5.1 DVD (regardless of audio decoder) and MP is set to control "Wave" audio (the default), only R/L channels are affected by volume control. Center & surround stay at full volume. If MP is not the active window, my MCE remote "MUTE" affects ALL channels, but inside MP it only mutes R/L. Setting MP to "Master Volume" resolves this quirk. Is this a bug? a feature? a design flaw?

2. When in "My Videos", I am viewing by genre, select a genre (Action), select "Big Icons", go back to genre list, then pick a genre again. When displaying the available movies, It says "Big Icons", but videos are actually in "list" format. Again, bug? feature? any workaround? I would prefer genres be a "list" and movies be "Big Icons", but would be happy if Big Icons would just work for everything.

3. In MCE, going back to full screen playback (of currently playing video/TV/DVD) is ALWAYS available via remote, by just selecting the video preview window. In MP, the video preview window is not "highlight-able" from a remote on most menus. Is there an easy way to go directly to full screen playback, via remote?

4. There appear to numerous bugs in the DVD playback engine. (I) With either of the included MPEG-2 decoders, some movies lockup after 2 seconds . Some play sound but no audio. Of these, some display video if menu is blindly used to select main movie, some still play only audio. If my NVIDIA decoder is used, most problems go away. (II) I've had several times where, if DVD's menus are not yet active/selectable, and "BACK" is pressed (putting DVD in preview window), as soon as DVD menu becomes active, MP stops responding to remote input. I've walked away for several minutes, and when i came back, remote control worked again. (III). I have a 16x9 screen. If a 4x3 DVD is played, portions of MP are visible for a second or so in the unused area on the left of the screen. Is any one else having these problems?

5. When watching fullscreen Live TV, remote's "STOP" button (& "B" on keyboard) have no effect. If I go back to the guide (or "MyTV" screen), "STOP" halts playback for 1/2 second, then it starts again. If I go to the main screen, "STOP" works. Frickin' weird.

Any input is welcome!

Awol

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.2.0 (stable)
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo wide
Windows Version: XP MCE 2005 w/ RU2
CPU Type: Pentium D 820
HDD: WD 250GB SATA
Memory: 1GB DDR2 dual channel
Motherboard: Intel D945GTP
Video Card: Nvidia 6600GT
Video Card Driver: 81.98
Sound Card: On-board Intel HD connected to Harman Kardon receiver via optical
1. TV Card: Hauppage PVR500
1. TV Card Driver: 2.0.35.23348 (per Device Manager)
MPEG2 Video Codec: Nvidia PureVideo 1.02.223
MPEG2 Audio Codec: Nvidia PureVideo 1.02.223
Remote: MCE
TV: DLP 1280x720 projector
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI

 

[joboehl]

Awol,

I do see some navigations playback problems with DVD. I think it would be nice to try to repro this issus and post on thread for each of them, with the logs.

For your itens 3 and 5, MP allows you to map buttons to specific actions. I think you can map the STOP button to the Fullscreen TV. I'am sure you can map a button to toggle between fullscreen video, so don't even need to navigate to the video preview window.

I use the 5.1 output only trough SPDIF, so can't tell you about this problem. The other one I never tested, but since I use a different version (recent SVN) it might be already fixed.

 

[tomtom21000]

5. The "pause" button will do what you want

tomtom