Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sumitc]

There are a small number of Blu ray discs I own where menu navigation is glitchy.  There are a few different cases here:

- Navigating the main menu the outlined item is out of sync (I think always by 1) with what gets selected.  On such discs, once the movie is playing, I can navigate the pop-up menu just fine.

- A small number of discs, there are some menu items, which when selected seem to cause the playback to freeze.

- The Spears & Munsil Blu ray, I have not found a way to navigate.

Is this something that can be looked into?  I can provide the disc names as well as logs if they are useful.

Thx!

[htnut]

So far, all titles have navigated "in sync" with my selections.

But, I also encounter MC29 "freezing" in some menus - and will almost always "freeze" if I attempt to "skip forward" past the FBI warnings, etc.

I second the request to look into the reason and/or solutions 

Paul

[bogdanbz]

Indeed, playback always freezes when you try to skip but the timestamp you skip to is beyond the duration of the current segment that is being played.

For instance, you are watching some preview and you are 15 seconds from the end, you press the right arrow which jumps 30 seconds in the future -> MC freezes playback, and there's nothing to do to recover, you have to stop playback.

[htnut]

It freezes even if I use "Page Down", which shouldn't ask for a timestamp later than the current item, simply to move to the next item.  Is there another command I can use to skip the currently playing trailer or warning to hop straight into the top menu?

[bogdanbz]

If there is one, I'm not aware of it.

I believe PageDown doesn't really do what you think it does... it may try to switch playback to the next m2ts file or playlist or something, and doesn't follow the the same path as letting the playback follow the menus flow would. This even with simple discs, let alone with BD-J discs.

The skipping on BluRay discs in menu mode is simply buggy. I have other examples such as how image galleries fail at playback or skipping in them. You may try to report this as a bug in the MC30 section, since I don't believe MC29 will receive any further bug fixes, except for catastrophic crashes or complete library corruption or similar.

[Hendrik]

I believe freezing happens when you try to skip things that are meant to be unskippable. We might need to prevent the skipping in those situations.

[htnut]

A command to jump straight to the “top menu” might be useful here.

[bogdanbz]

I get the same behavior (playback freezing on last frame) when I try to skip a normal media file too. As long as the remaining time before the end of the file is shorter than the skip duration, the freeze (may) happen.

As long as you pay attention when you skip BluRay previews and press skip only until you are outside 30 seconds from the end of the preview segment (or whatever the skip duration is on your system), then skipping works without issue. Skipping should be left enabled, but the behavior close to the end of the file should be changed instead by ignoring the skip command when there's less than the skip duration left (or maybe by skipping to the last frame or just before the last frame). That would solve this issue.

Some BluRay disc menus are authored specifically so that if you press the "Menu" key when the preview starts then they stop playing the previews and go to the disc main menu. But not all of them have this feature.

[htnut]

bogdanbz, you're right, I thought PgDn was to skip to the next chapter but it was "seeking" forward.  Your comments helped me find a couple of solutions!

1. Using MCC command  10003  it will jump to "next chapter".  Using this command, the BD menus seem to advance forward without the player locking up. 

2. The MCC command 10033 seems to jump directly to the menu, skipping warnings and trailers.  This might be the same action you mentioned is invoked with the "Menu" button on your remote.

Oddly, there is this MCC command to invoke the BD Menu - but no such command to "switch to Title Playback".  It's a better UX to offer a shortcut than requiring a right-click context menu selection.

[bogdanbz]

MCC command 10033 is mapped to the "Menu" key I was speaking about, and is usable for both DVD and BluRay discs. I have it mapped to Ctrl+Sift+M as explained at this location. My experience is that it will not get you out of previews on all BluRay discs, only on some. This is why I said the disc may have to be authored to allow jumping to main menu while previews are playing.

"Switching to title playback" means "playing the disc without menu support", not "playing the disc with menu support but skipping straight to movie start". You can pick which way you want to play BluRay discs (with menu support/without menu support/ask every time) by configuring the "Play Blu-ray discs using Menus" setting. I have it configured to Ask, so that it will always ask me what I want just before a BluRay disc starts playing.

I never tried the "next" button for navigating BluRays in menu mode, I will try it too!

I still think the easy fix for skipping when the skipping duration is larger than remaining playback duration should be implemented though. A freeze in such a situation is not expected behavior.

[htnut]

Re: "title playback" vs "menu support":  I see that can be set for one or the other, or to "Ask" every time.  I prefer to set up my HTPC to present as few "PC" windows as possible... kind of recreate the cinemaplex experience (well, without the sticky floors and B.O.) 

So, I was meaning I'd prefer a keyboard shortcut (MCC command) for the action of clicking "Switch to Title Playback" in the context menu.