Picture in picture (1 Viewer)

[AllenConquest]

Adding more options onto the context menu might be okay. That way you wouldn't need a special button on the remote. But if you setup keyboard shortcuts then people can configure their remotes as required.

 

[Stinky]

What about using the left/right (or up/down) arrows around the OK button to toggle through modes? IIRC, when the OSD is off, they's unused buttons. For example:

Watching one channel on full screen, press the left arrow once, and you get your previous channel (from the OK button) in a small PiP window. Press left again, PiP window is medium-sized. Press left once more, channels swap and PiP window is small (or should it still be medium?) with the original channel in PiP and the new channel full-screen. Press left once more and the PiP window is medium sized, press right arrow and the PiP window is gone.

So a list of modes for the left arrow would be
- PiP small window
- PiP med. window
- swap channels, PiP small window (here's where you could change the second channel)

and modes for the right arrow:
- PiP med. window
- PiP small window
- No PiP

So you could use the right button to back the PiP off to "off", leftie will let you setp through all the other modes. In no more than 2 right arrow clicks, PiP would be turned off. Two clicks from the left arrow will swap the channels (three if PiP is not on). And left and right are reasonably intuitive for controlling PiP.

Or even better, have a much more granular scaling. Just using one of the left/right buttons (when watching full-screen TV) turns PiP on and as you hold the button, the first channel's display gets smaller as the second's gets bigger. If you hold the left/right button until either channel is at 100%, then your PiP is effectively off. Scaling would be inversely proportional - 90%-10%, 80-20, 70-30,60/40, etc. Whichever channel is >50% of the screen is the window that gets focus for channel change signals from the remote. This is a bit different than PiP in the sense that both channels will be PiP windows and there won't really be a channel playing in the background. This might be the part that causes it to not work in VRM9, though.

Just thinking out loud, hope I made sense.

 

[mama]

Oops, missed that thread until now!

I asked this over a year ago too. I´ld simply want to use my baby phone´s monitor to plug it to MP. So I could watch my son or the new baby coming in december while watching TV. But using it to switch channels during ads is also fine.

Why not first implement it for keyboard usage only. I also use the european MCE remote, but the IR keyboard is always on the table, because I need it to start the PC and to surf or upgrade MP. I´m quite sure a keyboard is on a lot of tables of the users.

So the non-MCE users could program their remotes and the MCE users could use a keyboard until someone has the final idea how to solve this.

 

[Khris]

Sounds like there is some interest. Anyone have thoughts on how to control PIP via a remote?

My firefly remote has 4 unassigned buttons on the bottom labeled A, B, C, D and are just BEGGING to be used for PIP!

 

[rdb4133]

I second what Khris said! I have the Firefly also and could make some good use of the A B C D buttons! PIP during football season!!! I'd be

 

[Khris]

If done properly, you probably wouldn't need more then 1 extra button to "Enable" PIP and then use the standard arrow keys and enter keys to select various options such as Turn On/Off PIP, Change Channel, Position, etc.

 

[mama]

Nope, I think you need a section in the config to specify the position of the pip and then only two buttons. One to enable/disable pip and one to switch between fullscreen and pip. All other functions like channel change, popup menue or whatever should only affect the fullscreen. To change a pip chan, switch it to fullscreen (fullscreen goes pip then) and change to wherever you want, then switch the pip back.

[EDIT] Enable/disable could also be done with the popup menue in fullscreen TV, so no need for a second button. [/EDIT]

 

[Khris]

Nope, I think you need a section in the config to specify the position of the pip and then only two buttons. One to enable/disable pip and one to switch between fullscreen and pip. All other functions like channel change, popup menue or whatever should only affect the fullscreen. To change a pip chan, switch it to fullscreen (fullscreen goes pip then) and change to wherever you want, then switch the pip back.

[EDIT] Enable/disable could also be done with the popup menue in fullscreen TV, so no need for a second button. [/EDIT]

Sorry, but I don't like your idea at all. I would want to access all the PIP features while it's playing. I may want to watch a show fullscreen and then use my PIP to channel surf.