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[jimmy neutron]

In the config of MC17 under the GENERAL section there is a heading labeled ENABLE SHELL INTEGRATION. What is this?

Also, does MC17 support a dual monitor setup? In my current HTPC I have a touchscreen at my desk that I want to use as a "remote control" while the actual movie plays on my main monitor. On this 1st touchscreen monitor I'd like the THEATER VIEW to be constantly on so I can access things like PLAY, FF, FRW, PAUSE, movie navigation, etc. I don't want any of this info on the 2nd MAIN monitor except the movie, or the NOW PLAYING screen. Can this be done? My video card does support a dual monitor setup and allows me the option to CLONE desktop, EXTEND desktop, have multiple resolutions for each monitor, is currently running a dual monitor MIRROR setup, and is currently correctly identified both of my connected monitors ( an ELO touchscreen and an Optima HD projector).
Can this be done?

Jimmy

[Scolex]

Shell integration adds a MC section to the right click menu.
As far as I know you can accomplish your desired behavior in Theater mode.
I know you can in standard by clicking ctrl + 6 to detach the MC display.
I could verify the Theater mode but I am not at home where my multi display system is.

[glynor]

MC handles multiple monitors better than any other media player in the world.  Or, at least, better than any other player I've ever seen or heard about.

Proof:

Old photos using MC14 (I think): http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43649.0
More recent photos using MC16: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=64684.0

What you want to do can certainly be done.

[jimmy neutron]

That is great Glynor!!!  That's what I want.....but how do I do it? I've been trying a few different settings in the config but I'm getting nowhere really fast, and the Wiki is no help.

Jimmy

[glynor]

First of all, you will want to put your computer into Extended Desktop mode.  If Mirroring is enabled, or any of the fancy GPU-driver-provided "make these monitors into one display" features like EyeFinity are enabled, then MC won't know there are multiple monitors connected and won't be able to enumerate them.  So, use the regular Windows extended desktop, where your Screen Resolution Control Panel shows the individual monitors you have connected, can identify them individually, and set their settings independently.

That settled... To explain some of the multi-monitor choices you have.

Full Screen Views (Display View, Theater View, etc):

Options -> Tree & View -> Full Screen:
Monitor: The default is "Nearest Monitor".  You can also explicitly pick a particular monitor, labeled Monitor 1, 2, 3, etc and then Theater View and Display View will always open there no matter what.
Resolution: The default is Desktop Settings.  You can also pick an explicit supported resolution, color depth, and refresh rate using this popup.

These work independently of where Standard View is at any one time.  So, for example, say you have two monitors in the same room hooked up to a PC.  One is a normal PC monitor, which is best viewed up close and accessed with a regular PC mouse/keyboard setup.  The other is a HDTV that you use to watch video.  You can set this option to Monitor 2 (assuming the TV is the secondary monitor), and then you can open MC up in Standard View on the regular monitor.  When you play videos using Standard View, they'll automatically play fullscreen on the HDTV.  Likewise, when you switch to Theater View it will show up on the HDTV (where you probably want it so you can sit back and use your remote).

It may, at first, seem to be a limitation that Display View (the normal full-screen video playback mode) is linked to the same monitor as Theater View.  It is not, however, because of...

Detached Displays:

You can also "detach" any regular video/playback window in MC and move it around independently of the rest of the UI.  This Detached Display window can be moved to any monitor, and made to go fullscreen on that monitor, and it will remember its last-used position (and fullscreen/non status) when you close and reopen it, on a per-zone basis.

That's a mouthful, but what it means is awesome.  The best way to understand it is to try it.

To do this, first of all, you want the options I described above set to their defaults.  So, if you changed it, put it back to Nearest Monitor.  Then, start a video playing back from Standard View.  Unless you've changed the default, MC will open the video in Display View (the normal fullscreen mode).  Exit Display View but don't stop playback (just hit ESC).

Now, wherever you see the video playing in MC's Standard View UI (either in the little video Action Window, or in Playing Now, it doesn't matter), right click on the video and choose Detach Display.  This will "pop out" the video into its own separate window.


Click to embiggen.

You can now move that window wherever you want.  If you double click on it (or use the maximize button), it'll go fullscreen on the current monitor.  You can even (with a good enough GPU), scale it across monitor borders if you need to.  And, if you play something new on the still open Standard View, it'll play in that detached display, wherever it is.  Even better?

You can still switch the Standard View part into Theater View and control the external Detached Display with it.

Even crazier?

This works per-zone.  So, you can have multiple different detached displays (one per Zone) each simultaneously playing different videos, each in their own detached displays.  And all of the positioning settings for these Detached Displays are remembered per-zone.  So you can have one open fullscreen on your primary monitor, another to be positioned just-so on a side monitor, a third fullscreen on the HDTV or projector, and two more "sized ones" on the primary monitor all running simultaneously and the one MC UI can control them all by just switching Zones under Playing Now.  You can truly go crazy.

EDIT:  Patience, grasshopper.  This is taking a bit to write up.  

[glynor]

So, for your particular situation, this is what I'd do:

1. Switch your computer to use these monitors as an extended desktop.
2. Make sure Options -> Tree & View -> Full Screen is set to the default:  Same as Desktop.
3. Set Options -> Theater View -> Behavior -> Jump on Play (video) to Playing Now (or maybe None, depending on how you want Theater View to react, try them both).
4. For now, at least, also change Options -> General -> Behavior -> Jump on Play (video) to Playing Now.  You can change this to None later if you want.
5. Now, drag the Standard View UI window of MC over to the touchscreen.  Start a video file playing (just keep using your mouse for now if the touchscreen is too hard to use in Standard View).  It should open in Playing Now, right on that touchscreen monitor, if you followed the above instructions (rather than opening fullscreen in Display View on the touchscreen, which you don't want).
6. Right click on the video playing, and choose Detach Display.
7. Drag this video window over to your big monitor, and then maximize it (you can double click on the video itself).
8. Now, go back over to MC on the touchscreen open the View Menu and choose Theater View.

Boom.  You'll have fullscreen video playing on the big screen, and Theater View open on the little screen.  The fullscreen detached display will not have any mouse overlay controls on it.  It'll stay open as long as you don't close it by:
1. quitting MC itself completely
2. pressing Alt-F4 with the display in the foreground
3. right clicking and choosing Reattach Display
4. hitting ESC (or double-clicking) on the Detached Display and then clicking the X in the window frame.

So it works.  But, it is also good to know how this works, and how it remembers position....

Notice how when you Detached the Display, it says "The display is detached. Double-click here to bring it back"?  When you are done playing a video, instead of hitting ESC on your keyboard and then the X to close it, double-click there and it'll "zap back" to the Playing Now window.  Now, play a different video, and Detach the Display again.  See how it automatically went fullscreen back over on the big monitor?

Wherever the Detached Display was, and whatever its position, it gets remembered when you "close" or "reattach" it.

If you want to set MC up so that it automatically Detaches the display on startup, I can show you that too.  With a little script, you could easily set it up to automatically open MC in Theater View on your Touchscreen, and then Detach the display fullscreen on your big screen.

PS.  If you are going to do this full time, just go buy UltraMon now.  It does great things for multiple monitors, like give you hotkeys and handy buttons to quickly switch applications to and from monitors (while resizing them automatically to fit the destination monitor).  And it is scriptable.  It doesn't cost much and it is worth every penny.

[glynor]

I just realized that you can also Detach the Display from within Display View.  I don't know if you could do that before.  I always keep Standard View set to jump to Playing Now for video on any computer with multiple monitors attached, so I'm not sure.

Either way, you can Detach the Display right from within Display View as well.  I'd still follow my "tutorial" above to give you a feel for how it works.

The main problem with this scenario would be if you want to switch back and forth between using MC on the Touchscreen in Theater View and using Standard View on the big monitor for maintenance.  To keep fullscreen playback working right you have to keep that Options -> Tree & View -> Full Screen setting set to Nearest Monitor, so you can't set Theater View to go automatically to the Touchscreen.

I think you used to be able to do this, but they changed it at some point when they were moving options around, and now all Full Screen playback follows that setting, even if they're Detached Displays.

Anyhow, this shouldn't be insurmountable.  Any time you want to open MC on the Touchscreen, you just have to move the MC UI there somehow (again, buy UltraMon) and then detach the display and switch it to Theater View.

You can probably script all three things with UltraMon.  Without it, you can script the second two things, and you'll just have to move the UI over to the touchscreen with the Windows Key+Arrow method (in Win7) or with your mouse.

If anyone from JRiver is reading this:

I'm pretty sure that Detached Displays used to always fullscreen to their "nearest monitor" no matter what the old equivalent of Options -> Tree & View -> Full Screen was set to (before it was there).  Is there any way we can get it back that way?  I like how this option works for Theater View and Display View, but Detached Displays are, by their very nature, supposed to be independent.

What would be the point of having a Detached Display on one monitor, and having it go fullscreen on another?  The option as it is makes sense for the Home Theater setup I described above, but they won't be using Detached Displays.  And if they are, there is a good chance it is because they want fullscreen playback to be on a Projector or something, but they might want Theater View to stay on a different monitor or HDTV.

This makes working around this use-case (with a Touchscreen where you want Theater View, a regular monitor where you want Standard View, and a Detached Display where you want fullscreen playback) fiddly to accomplish without scripting and UltraMon.

[jimmy neutron]

Glynor, thanks for the help. You explained a lot. I followed your steps and was able to duplicate what you explained. MC is very flexible, and I think that with a bit more playing with it I may be able to find a compromise. Right now it's not doing what I was hoping. Your suggesstions are great, but I want a full time, turn key operation that I can use in my main HTPC for my family to use. I want to achieve the following:

Turn on my HTPC and it auto-starts MC in THEATER VIEW on the touchscreen and NOW PLAYING on the main TV.
Use the touchscreen to navigate my movies in THEATER VIEW.
Select a movie on the touchscreen and the movie appears, full screen and playing on the main TV.
The touchscreen stays with MC displaying THEATER VIEW (only because this is the only screen that is touch freindly).
I can still browse movies, weather, pictures, etc on the touchscreen as the movie continues to play with no interruption from my use of the touchscreen. I would like to even controll the movie navigation on the touchscreen.

Right now the movie opens and plays fine in full screen on the main TV, but MC minimizes on the touchscreen - not good. This means that I would absolutely need a mouse for navigation, and not be able to use the touchscreen.

Using your other suggesstions, I was able to keep MC in STANDARD VIEW on the touchscreen while a movie opened in full screen on the main TV. Problem is that STANDARS VIEW is not touchscren freindly. If I select THEATER VIEW while a movie is playing on the main TV then it causes the system to "freak out" and the touchscreen shows a dialog about the detached screen and will not allow me to control it. Using the mouse to stop or exit causes issues that my kids would not be able to figure out.

In thinking about doing what I'm suggessting - which BTW would be the ultimate configuration for anyone with a touchscreen and dual monitors - a new theme would have to be written specifically to handle these two inependant views - navigational, controllable, and viewable. This is something that I don't believe is available in MC as of yet, and although the suggesstions you provided gave me a huge insight on MC's multi view capabilities, I think it would be a not so polished way of doing things - kinda a bit of a hack job, so to speak. I think that just cloning the 2 displays, while obviously looking like a second touchscreen monitor on my couch table to control MC, is the way to currently get the job done without fear of the system hanging or freaking out.

(I will keep playing around with these settings BTW   )
Jimmy

[glynor]

Right now the movie opens and plays fine in full screen on the main TV, but MC minimizes on the touchscreen - not good. This means that I would absolutely need a mouse for navigation, and not be able to use the touchscreen.

What?

That shouldn't be happening.  Here's MC running in Theater View on my desktop right now with Theater View on one monitor, and a Video playing fullscreen on another.


Click to embiggen.

I can click and drag on the little Position "dot" slider in Theater View, and my video scrubs along just as-if I was using the scrub bar in Display View.  I can use the Stop and Next and whatever commands in the roller bar at the top.

So, this should work.  What do you mean it is "minimizing"?

Double check the Options -> Tree & View -> Full Screen -> Monitor setting.  This NEEDS to be set to Nearest Monitor.

[glynor]

Since you're only worrying about a HTPC, your situation is even easier.  Don't worry about starting it up with the Display already detached (needing to do the Right-Click Detach Display bit).  You can automate this.  On my video wall machine at work, I have a script that runs when the computer boots up on Login.  It does this:

1. Starts MC (if it isn't already open).
2. Picks the right Zone and Detaches the Display (which goes fullscreen on the video wall monitor in another room).
3. Starts playing a particular playlist on the Detached Display.

You could easily make an icon or a shortcut to a script (or set it to launch on login via the Windows Task Scheduler) that would launch MC directly to Theater View and then detach the display.

I could give you the code tomorrow to paste into notepad (I have all of my scripts on my laptop, and I forgot my laptop at work).

[jimmy neutron]

Glynor, I appreciate that. Tonight I'll keep playing with the various settings. My more pressing issue is to try to figure out why "Source number of speakers" is not being remembered by MC. I play both music and movies on this HTPC, but either/or both movies and music will play in either/or stereo or surround sound, but not in their respective and native formats. For instance, music will play in stereo, but so will movies. If I select 5.1 speaker setup then movies play in surround sound, but so will music. I can't find the correct setting to have music play in stereo and movies in surround sound.

Jimmy

[glynor]

I saw that post earlier.

I might be able to help you there too.  Can you update your other thread with a little more detail.  I'd like to know specifically where you've been trying to set up the speakers.  In Windows or in MC?

Also, what kind of sound system are you using?  Is it going out via HDMI or SPDIF to a receiver, or is it going out analog to an amp?

(It is 2am here and I'm tired and going to bed, but if you update the other thread, I'll try to respond tomorrow at some point.)

[jimmy neutron]

Will do. Thanks.

[glynor]

Also, for this thread...

How is that touchscreen attached to the PC?

Is it USB+VGA/DVI or is it just USB?

USB monitors are weird and don't act like normal monitors connected to a graphics card.  I'm wondering if your "freak out" is because the touchscreen's crappy little display driver can't handle running a 3D mode application at the same time as the computer's real graphics card is playing a video.

But if it is a touchscreen that uses USB only for the touch input (and maybe power), but gets its video via a normal video cable from a graphics card, then this shouldn't be an issue and something else is going on.

[jimmy neutron]

Glynor, I continued the surround sound issue in this thread as you asked: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69374.0

Thnaks a bunch.

Jimmy