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[Ash Telecaster]

Hi,

Just bought MC and have it installed and have been playing with it. Great package, especially with how much just works out of the box.

I use it with a 55" Visio in theater view.

I have a couple newbie questions, please forgive my ignorance. I have been bouncing around through the posts but kind of hit information over load and was hoping I could just ask these questions directly.

First I'm a little confused regarding item grouping.

For example I have dvd's ripped to mkv files that show up very nicely in the movies view. But I have a bunch of video files that aren't movies. I want them to appear under different groupings in theater mode, and not appear under movies. I see a home movies heading but I'm not undeerstanding how to create a grouping and associate the file with it. I'm sure it's easy but somehow I'm not getting there.

Secondly my video is jumpy. The PC has a i3 4340 CPU, is using the imbedded GPU with an Asrock ITX motherboard, has 8 gigs of ram, 120 gig SSD OS drive, and a 3 TB data drive.

Should I buy a video card or can you suggest some configuration settings?

How would I go about setting up Amazon Prime? There there a prefered method for doing this?

I really appreciate the help.

Thank you

[mwillems]

Welcome to the forum!

First I'm a little confused regarding item grouping.

For example I have dvd's ripped to mkv files that show up very nicely in the movies view. But I have a bunch of video files that aren't movies. I want them to appear under different groupings in theater mode, and not appear under movies. I see a home movies heading but I'm not undeerstanding how to create a grouping and associate the file with it. I'm sure it's easy but somehow I'm not getting there.

MC sorts files for views primarily based on tag information in the files.  The easiest method to address your issue is to edit the "media sub-type" tag for the videos.  If you have a bunch of home movies, for example, you'd want to edit the media subtype tag for those files to read "home movies," and then they'd show up in the "home movies" view instead of in "movies."  You can also customize the views, but if the files are tagged as "movies" they'll tend show up in tag-based views as "movies."

Secondly my video is jumpy. The PC has a i3 4340 CPU, is using the imbedded GPU with an Asrock ITX motherboard, has 8 gigs of ram, 120 gig SSD OS drive, and a 3 TB data drive.

Should I buy a video card or can you suggest some configuration settings?

Try setting the video to "Red October Standard" (if it's not already set to that).  ROS should work well on most computers, but if ROS isn't working correctly, there may be some other steps you can take short of buying a video card.

If you can provide more info about your video settings, what type of content you're playing, and what exactly what you mean by jumpy (judder, tearing, how frequently? etc.), folks may be able to offer some suggestions.

How would I go about setting up Amazon Prime? There there a prefered method for doing this?

Not sure about this one personally, but these threads may help:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86801.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86824.0

The bottom line seems to be that Prime isn't directly supported, but you can work around it using some tools that JRiver offers (launching it through a configured link in JRiver, and then capturing the sound using JRiver's loopback feature)

[JimH]

Also try this build:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88624.0

[Ash Telecaster]

Thanks mwillems,

The video will freeze for a nano second then catch up, freeze for a nano second then catch up...etc

The video mode is Red October Standard
Hardware excelleration is off
Video Clock is off
Display settings automatic change mode is off
Crop edges is off
AV Sync correction 24hz is 0
AV Sync correction Other HZ is 0
Aspect ration no correction
Aspect ratio change: No Change
Jump behavior: Forward 30 seconds, backwards 10 seconds

The files are MKV files that were made from ripping a DVD.


Hi Jim H,

I'll try that build tonight, thanks

[mwillems]

Thanks mwillems,

The video will freeze for a nano second then catch up, freeze for a nano second then catch up...etc

The video mode is Red October Standard
Hardware excelleration is off
Video Clock is off
Display settings automatic change mode is off
Crop edges is off
AV Sync correction 24hz is 0
AV Sync correction Other HZ is 0
Aspect ration no correction
Aspect ratio change: No Change
Jump behavior: Forward 30 seconds, backwards 10 seconds

The files are MKV files that were made from ripping a DVD.

I'd suggest trying (one at a time to see if any of them help separately, not all of them at once):

1) Enabling hardware acceleration.  Hardware acceleration offloads some of the workload from your CPU to your GPU; depending on your specific system/chipset that may be helpful.
2) Enabling Video Clock.  Video clock attempts to keep the video and audio in sync by subtly adjusting the speed of the audio, and may help.
3) Changing display settings change mode to "automatic."  Generally it's easier on hardware to play back material at it's native framerate.  Automatic mode attempts to change the display mode to match the frames-per-second of the source material (i.e. 24 fps for film, etc.).  If your hardware (monitor, etc.) does not support different framerates, this may not help at all, but if they do, it may help.

Those items may or may not help, but are worth checking.  Another thing to check is your video driver control panel settings. Sometimes unusual settings there may cause issues.

What you're describing could also be a file access issue caused by an over-eager antivirus program.  Checkout the following links for some diagnostic steps to see if that might be your problem (and some possible solutions if it is the problem):
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_Guide#Check_Your_Anti-Virus_or_Security_Software
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_Solutions#Tame_Your_Anti-Virus

[Ash Telecaster]

So I have the tagging bit figured out. I guess I saw the tree view and assumed drag and drop functionality like Windows Explorer. Now I know what to do it's pretty easy.

I messed with the video setting some with varying results. Maybe I need to reboot betweeen some changes. I ran out of time. Hoping to play with it some more this weekend. I'm getting the feeling I will need to add a video card.

I haven't run the newer version yet, again a time issue but this weekend for sure. I'll report how it goes and if it resolves anything.

I tried reading some posts on that subject but all I really took away from it is if you get too powerful of a video card it can cause CPU thrashing. So I have to figure out what makes sense with an i3 processor and an Asrock ITX Motherboard.

Again I thank you for the assistance. I have some DVD's ripped to MKV's, Some CD's ripped to FLAC and some pics uploaded. I haven't really got any buy in from the wife yet but I have a simple remote in the mail that should help there. She hates the big Keyboard/Touchpad. If I can fix the video issue and if I could get the Satallite the pass through the HTPC that would seal the deal.   

[Ash Telecaster]

Video issue resolved!!!

I tried a lot of things with nominal results. I would get changes in performance but nothing that delivered the level of quality I should have been able to get. So I did some searches and read some posts. It turns out I am not the first person to have difficulty playing mkv files. I do not know if these problems all have the same root causes especially considering the wide range of hardware and software posibilities. I did find a solution for my problem. I stumbled across a post that described configuring madvr. When I first tried ROHQ the video went haywire. It is described as being for  faster hardware so I figured it would be useless to me but after failing to find another solution I tried applying all the recommended settings from the madvr guide and TADA!!! The video play back is now awesome!

Here is a link...

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=80253.0


Now if only I could get the remote control thing worked out!!!