MCE issues

[henri]

I first started considering a HTPC 3 years ago but the software available at the time was good enough for a PC to connect directly to a TV and be stable and easy to use, so i opted for a modded XBox running XBox Media Centre (XBMC).

XBMC has been a great piece of software allowing me to play Music, Divx, Pictures etc...(including XBox games) through a component connection to the TV.

The draw back has always been the obvious lack of PVR function. I've been using a normal PC in my study and record shows using DigiTV and a Nebula HDTV card. I can play recorded shows on the XBox.

The limitation here has been that the XBox 733MHz CPU and GPU are not up to scratch for HDTV (works fine for Divx and SDTV).

So this weekend i setup an MCE machine running MCE 2005 with rollup 2. Works fine for HDTV using the Nebula card and using IceTV.

BUT there are a few things that i haven't been able to do on MCE and it would be great i you could shed some light on it.

1. My Music - Album Art was fairly easy to setup and now have my full MP3 collection available. BUT is there a way to fast forward and rewind? (i don't mean skip to next track). With XBMC you can just hold down the RIGHT button and it rolls through the track at a faster speed...

2. My Videos - can you rewind/fast forward Divx files? All i can do at this stage is step forward and back (i think 30s)

3. My Movies - this sounded like a great addon to MCE. Does anyone know if it works on Rollup 2? For me it has a bug when looking up IMDB and adding a Divx file to the collection

4. Hardware MPEG2 decoder - While PowerDVD et al. are fine for playing back DVD, i think a hardware decoder would be much better. Does MCE support any hardware decoders? Interestingly the next line of Radeon cards (x1300, x1600, x1800) have built in hardware decoding for MPEG2, Divx, Xvid AND H.264 and VC-1 (the decoders for future HD-DVD and Blue-Ray). I think it these work with MCE, that would be a giant leap early next year

I'm buying a new Benq 37" LCD TV (displays 1080p from 1280x1024 DVI/VGA input). At this stage i won't be hooking up just the MCE machine. I'm going to keep the XBox XBMC to play video files and use MCE for pictures, music (if i can FF/RW), and HDTV.

The best thing about MCE is that MS has a SDK that lets you build addons relatively easily using the .NET framework. And that's something i plan to do...

some ideas i have:

* Control your lights/lamps/appliances through MCE using X10. Ie install X10 modules for all/some lights in the house and build an addon for MCE that'll let you control them.

* Skype/VoIP addin - let you have voice/video conversations using MCE

I hope this isn't too long and people wont read it.

[impact]

I read it...

And I'll answer a couple of items for ya...

1. My Music - I know I have done it... but cant remember how - are you using the Microsoft Remote....
2. MY Videos / Divx - no unfortunately you can not fast forward - just skip forward - bummer about that one eh!
3. My Movies - yes it is compatible with Rollup2 - although I would advise you not to run it until its officially available - there are many threads around here and discussion on Rollup2... I'd suggest living with SD for a few more weeks until this mess gets sorted - but My Movies is perfectly compatible with Rollup2. In fact the icons are made deliberately smaller in My Movies to fit into the theme of Rollup2. There was a new release of My Movies only a few days ago - 1.52 - So are you using the latest? What error are you getting - and seriously support issues for My Movies should be directed to the authors site in his forums - as you will get an answer in under 24 hrs there...
4. Hardware Mpeg decoder sounds like a great idea... but really it only adds 10-20% to your CPU so its not a big overhead. Actually recording a SD/HD broadcast typically uses 2-5% CPU - so there should be plenty of spare CPU capacity in your machine...
Your ideas are great - X10 although not popular in Aus would be interesting - I'd like to see this and cbus too!!! There are already a couple of plugins being developed along these lines (hae a looksie at thegreenbutton.com) and similarly there is also some voip plugins including skype available...

You've come a long way in one weekend - great work and keep it up... Join in the fun!

[schmeg]

too long, won't read it, sorry

With the ffwd/rew of divx - I installed ffdshow and I can do it - so maybe it makes the difference?

With my music ffwd/rew - are you using the MCE remote? I'm pretty sure the skip and replay buttons control the track selection, while the ffwd and rew buttons control the playback speed.

Not to rain on your parade ... but I think there's already a Skype plugin for MCE, I may be wrong but I'm sure I saw it somewhere

[schmeg]

Damn you impact, now it looks like I'm just repeating your answers lol

[impact]

Originally Posted by schmeg

Damn you impact, now it looks like I'm just repeating your answers lol

I'll wait 10 mins before I answer in future - just to give ya a fighting chance... But good news that ffdshow allows fast forwarding... first I had heard of that - GREAT

[henri]

OK i'm going to try ffdshow (what does it actually do?).

Strange that you can easily FF/RW in WMP10 for Divx etc... but can't do it in MCE. I thought its essentially the same engine.

I'll give My Movies aother chance. Also seems like it would be the only option for DVD changers once it supports that. That would mean no need to convert the DVDs to Divx.

Point taken about hardware decoding but my concern was mainly about the quality and not the processing power. I all honesty i dont think DVD quality on MCE (or XBMC) are as good as a standalone DVD player. For some reason they are always better quality and more responsive...i thought that's because they have hardware decoding...what's your experience with this?

X10 is not big here but you can get all the US stuff in AU versions (although it ends up costing about $50-$70 a light...ouch). Currently its the only feasible option for wirelessly controlling lights...until uPnP for lights is a reality.

Skype addin...great i'll try that out next...but the problem with Skype in AU is that we can't get Skype In yet (ie a local AU number for non-VoIP people). I'm going to get ADSL2+ once iiNet installs it in my area (hopefully soon) and you have to sign up to their VoIP system. Would be good to get that to work with MCE...

[schmeg]

hehe thanks impact

oops - I misread the divx bit, it does only allow you to skip and replay

My music you can definately rewind and fast forward - I just tried it

[schmeg]

ffdshow is a mpeg filter (afaik - correct me someone if I'm wrong) - it basically makes the divx content look better - it looks a hell of alot better than using the DIVX decoder imho, has a whole load of options to play with too, which is always nice

[simbot82]

Correct me if I am wrong but it is also a mpeg4 decoder in its own right with picture enhancement capabilities added it, great piece of kit to

And thanks alot schmeg you got me alllll excited about ff xvids

[schmeg]

correct simbot i just haven't played with all the goodies in it yet

from memory i think i saw a hotkeys option in ffdshow for fast forward etc - maybe you could set it up so that the ffwd remote key in mce is the hotkey for ffdshow fast forward (unless MCE throws away the "keypress") - I can't try it at the moment, gf is watching tele

PS. How much does it suck when you want to play with the settings, and the better half is watching something lol!

[impact]

schmeg - you got us all excited... about ffwd divx - oh well - one day...

henri - You do realise that with My Movies you do not need to convert them to divx (only to save space) - you can rip them to iso and have daemon tools installed to auto mount them, or you can just save the ts_video directory and habe my movies play them...

[henri]

ok just installed ffdshow...does make a different, got rid of some Divx/Xvid artefacts...and i'll play around with the settings to get it working better...but without smooth fast forwarding or even 2x/4x/8x play...honestly its useless to watch Divx on MCE unless you want to watch from the beginning to end.

DVD in .iso form sounds great (with 400GB going down in price soon, its a real option). OK i'm off to fix/test My Movies.

I'm using PowerDVD as the DVD decoder...whats the best on to use?

I'm using MCE with a keyboard and mouse for the time being. still can't find the right key to FF music...

[simbot82]

Originally Posted by schmeg

correct simbot i just haven't played with all the goodies in it yet

from memory i think i saw a hotkeys option in ffdshow for fast forward etc - maybe you could set it up so that the ffwd remote key in mce is the hotkey for ffdshow fast forward (unless MCE throws away the "keypress") - I can't try it at the moment, gf is watching tele

PS. How much does it suck when you want to play with the settings, and the better half is watching something lol!

Your telling me, Just spent the last 1 1/2 hours trying to watch the cricket whilst the lady friend watched Heartbeat and did pilates .

WIll have a look at that

[henri]

My Movies is working now - using the external "Edit collection" app rather than through MCE, that still gives a bug after i search for "Braveheart" select that movie from the list and click next...

My Movies is absolutely awesome! I can't believe how good it is. You guys already know that i guess

If only you could FF/RW easily for Divx files...there must be a way...but the whole weekend search this forum, TGB and Google...no luck besides 30s step through...would be awesome to create your own bookmarks at different points in the movie and return to it later.

So i'm going to buy some big HDD and copy all DVDs on to it. Does My Movies/MCE support menus, chapters etc? Can the files be on separate drives etc?