Background: Some background on BD 3D Support. There are three paths that MC could take:
1) Leverage the Public Domain filters. MC's entire video playback leverages the work done by developers like nevcairiel and madshi for the development of the direct show filters required (splitters, decoders and renderers). These guys provide their dev efforts to the wider PC community for free and tend to work and including features that interest them. So far 3D is not one of those interests and may never be. Both post their work over at the Doom9 forum and have threads you could continbute too if you want to advocate for such features. FYI - The other feature "missing" from Licenced BD Players is BD Menu Support.
2) Become a licenced BD Player (aka PowerDVD, TMT etc). This would mean they would then have to support the full spec including 3D and Menus but also stuff like Cinava and other copy protection mechanisms. It also costs a heap in both time and money. I don't think this is the path JR would go down (thankfully)
3) Support 3D File Type for launching a 3rd Party Player. There has been a suggestion put where MC would recognise that a BD was 3D and then launch (if installed) the embedded TMT player for this content. A few have shown some interest in this but there has not been much traction to date. I like this as it combines with #1 nicely.
While we wait for one of the three options to appear, here is a work around on how to get a Pseudo integration of a 3rd Party Player in MC using AutoHotKey.
What it does: When you insert a 3D Blu-ray Disk (ISO) it:
- Closes MC (it's alright it will come back later but it frees up resources and prevents conflict between players)
- Run your favourite Blu-ray playback SW for 3D (eg it is configured for Arcsoft TMT 6 out of the box)
- When you press the "STOP" button on your Remote Control you end up back in MC (closes Arcsoft and run MC)
Requirements: Your going to need to have installed and working in their own right:
1) Arcsoft TMT 6 (script is setup for this but you can modify for other version)
2) AutoHotkey (
http://www.autohotkey.com/ this is a freebie scripting app that does all the work)
3) JR Media Center of course!
What you need to do: Here is how to configure the lot to work together:
1) Install AutoHotKey
2) Using the following script as a template, Edit (to suit your needs) and save as "3d.ahk" to your Windows Start-Up folders so it loads when Windows Starts Up.
Good Luck and here is hoping that the JR Lads include a 3D BD file type option so we can call external progs soon!
Thanks
Nathan
; --------------------------------------------------------
; The following script will detect if a 3D BD mounted and use Total Media Theatre starts up
; --------------------------------------------------------
#NoTrayIcon
#Persistent
#SingleInstance, Force
WM_DEVICECHANGE( wParam, lParam )
{
P := lParam
If ( wParam = 32768 AND *(lParam+4) = 2)
{
Drv := Chr(65+ LN(*(P+12)+(*(P+13)<<8)+(*(P+14)<<16)+(*(P+15)<<24))/LN(2))
IfExist, %Drv%:\BDMV\STREAM\SSIF
{
run MC18.exe /close
; run "C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvstlink.exe" /enable ; You can enable this cmd if needed by removing the first ";"
run "C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 6\uMCEPlayer6.exe" ; You can change this to suit your player requirements
}
}
}
OnMessage(0x219, "WM_DEVICECHANGE")
Return
#IfWinExist ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 6 for Windows Media Center
Media_Stop:: ; This is the STOP button (Media_Stop) - you can change to suit your requirements
Send {Media_Stop}
WinClose
; run "C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvstlink.exe" /disable ; You can enable this cmd if needed by removing the first ";"
Run "C:\Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 18\Media Center 18.exe"
Return