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[cgroth]

Hi, I am trying to set up MC18 (or maybe MC19) as my wife's sole media hub, for music, movies and tv shows. All her content (400 ripped CDs, 1500 ripped DVDs and 200 ripped BRs) are stored on a NAS, whose primary function is as a back-up of my content on my HTPC, which runs Cinemar Main Lobby. Just to be clear, it is the same content, but I have made a back-up of all our stuff on the NAS, and my wife would like to watch the stuff on her smaller TV in the living room from time-to-time, instead of firing up the projector in the home theatre, hence the trial of MC18.

All our video content is ripped from our own owned DVDs/BRs, using AnyDVD. On our main HTPC all content is shown using ArcSoft as a software player. We are very pleased with this, as it allows us to watch the content exactly as if we were putting physical discs into a regular DVD/BR player. Not everyone wants that, but we do.

This brings me to the problem, the movie player built into MC18 doesn't work like a regular DVD or BR player. For DVDs this simply means it is more work switching subtitles and audio, which we can live with. For BRs the problem is much bigger. Without a proper menu system we simply get lost. When I press play in a TV Show with many episodes it seems completely random which episode is played, sometime playback seems to start in the middle of an episode. I tried using the Stacks > Advanced > Auto Create DVD/BD Particles, but the large number of titles does not seem to correspond to anything useful. For example, selecting Title 1 (which is on Disc 1 of Season 1) for the Friends Complete Series BR collections does not start play of the Pilot episode from the beginning. Instead it starts in the middle of another episode, I don't know which one.

So long story short: We want to use ArcSoft to play our BRs, and preferably also DVDs. I know this can be done, but I don't exactly know how, in practice. I know how to start ArcSoft when I press Watch in MC18, but I don't know the exact syntax of the Arguments I need to send to ArcSoft to play a BD. My files are in BDMV format, not ISO like some other people have. For DVDs the files are in ifo and vob format.

Is there anyone who has had success with using ArcSoft who can explain in some detail how to set it up? I only have one more week of trial with MC18, but if I cannot get this to work by that time, I don't think I will be buying, because the system will be too complicated to operate for my wife.

Any help will be greatfully appreciated!

BR
Christopher

[MrC]

Too much backstory here.  Folks just don't have time to read all this.

I had no troubles with this:
   
   MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"

Code: [Select]

C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 6>dir "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"
 Volume in drive M is Media
 Volume Serial Number is D842-C991

 Directory of M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1

08/15/2011  10:36 PM    <DIR>          .
08/15/2011  10:36 PM    <DIR>          ..
01/23/2012  04:28 PM    <DIR>          BDMV
01/04/2011  08:37 PM    <DIR>          CERTIFICATE
01/04/2011  08:37 PM    <DIR>          FAB!
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               5 Dir(s)  860,234,125,312 bytes free
The trialware license dialog overlay appears, but can be dismissed, and the movie plays fine.

[cgroth]

So just the folder name, no file? When the trial license windows pops up, do you just close it, and then the movie starts playing? Or will the movie start after a while with the trial license window open? I have always closed the window, and after that nothing has happened, but then I think I have used the file [name]. Will try just the filename (path).

PS I know the back story is long, but my experience is that if I don''t have it I will get a lot of comments like "why don't you just use MC18", or "its much better not to have to watch the trailers" or "why don't you just rip your discs in another way" or "use netflix" etc....

[cgroth]

Dear MrC

Thanks for your epic patience!  

I am afraid I cannot get this to work, and I don't know why. I also tried your tip from this thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81954.msg560007#msg560007 about testing from the command prompt (I believe it is called?). I have not been able to find the right name for the file to start I think. I have attached a screen grab which shows the TotalMedia Theatre 6 shortcut on my desktop and its properties. It's in Norwegian, but I guess the lay out of these windows are pretty universal? anyway, the field in blue is called "Target:" and I tried to run the lines uLaunchTMT6 and uLaunchTMT6.exe. The other field with the path is called "Start in:" and here I tried the line TotalMedia Theatre 6.

I have also attached a screen grab of the folder where the TMT6 program is stored. I have tried all the 4 programs there, with and without the addition of .exe. You can see some of the attempts in the command window on the right. The reply I get reads somelike like: XXXX is not recognized as an internal or external command, a runable program or a  batch file (I am a little uncertain on the translation of the terms in italics, as these are not words with a meaning that is clearly defined in Norwegian, but I think I found the English equivalents.

However, from within MC18 there is no problem starting TMT6, and the command seems to be uTotalMediaTheatre6.exe The problem is that the Activation Code window in ArcSoft pop-up on top of the player, and nothing more happens. If I X out the window the full screen player appears, but still nothing happens, no disc played and no error messages. So I don't know if I am sending the right Arguments to TMT6. The Arguments I am sending is the same as the PlayMe expression on screen grab 3.

The way I have set things up can be seen in screen grab 4. As I said, ArcSoft launched fine when I press "Watch" and the result of the Arguments is the PlayMe from screen grab 3, which seems identical to yours, but still nothing happens.

BTW: I also tries sending an Arguments that at the end contained the filename index.bdmv, but the result was exactly the same.

I really want this to work, MC18 is great for both music and movies and TV shows as long as they are on DVD. Even the downloaded TV Shows that my son put on the NAS show up great (in fact better than great due to the episode titles), and my wife really likes what she is seeing.

[JimH]

The quotes must be as MrC has told you:

MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"

If you don't quote the entire command, it won't work.  This, for example wouldn't work:

MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay" Disc 1

and the name within the quote must match exactly.

Thanks very much to MrC (who is not JRiver staff, just another user) for providing help.  

[cgroth]

The quotes must be as MrC has told you:

MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"

If you don't quote the entire command, it won't work.  This, for example wouldn't work:

MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay" Disc 1

and the name within the quote must match exactly.

Thanks very much to MrC (who is not JRiver staff, just another user) for providing help.  

Running the exact prompt suggested by MrC, actually works, but it starts a different looking TMT from the one started by MC18. So I placed the same Program in MC18, and now it starts the same version of TMT as the command promt does. However, it did not start the disc. That was because my Argument results in a path without the double quotes. Now I managed to add the quotes, and it works!!  

Still strange that there seems to be two different looking TMT6s (I have not installed anything else)..

Now I am ready to buy! Still minor adjustments to be made, but now I am confident it will do all I want it to do!

[MrC]

Great, you're making progress.

Just so you know...

The full command path is required when entering from the command line if Windows does not have this location in its PATH environment variable, and the current directory is not set to the TotalMedia Theatre 6 directory:

   "C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 6>\MMCEDT6.exe"   "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"

Since I was in the directory (as you can see from the command output's first line of output), there was no need to pass the entire path, so I just used:

   .\MMCEDT6.exe "M:\Testing\Saving the Bay Disc 1"

[cgroth]

MrC,

everything now works 99.9 % to perfection, and most of that is thanks to you, so THANK YOU!!

I am afraid I don't fully understand everything you write in your last post, but since what I have now works perfectly I will not worry about it at this time. If it breaks down I will revisit.

Right now my wife can do the following:

With one single remote she can switch on the TV, set it to the right input, ditto for the amp, and wake the PC. MC18 starts in Theatre View, from where she understands easily how to select music, movies or TV series. The TV series now show with either Disc number if ripped, or episodes if downloaded. There is no difference between how different series originated, whether on DVD, BR or download, they are all played in the same way and controlled the same way. Pressing Watch seamlessly opens Arcsoft where we get the original menus if the content was ripped from our own discs, and where we can select subtitles etc whilst playing the video. Pressing Exit brings us seamlessly back to MC18. The same remote also controls the regular cable TV, FM radio and CD/DVD player/amp combo. All in all exactly what she wanted, she has no idea about the complexities behind this set-up, it just works. A great program, and fantastic assistance from this Forum made this possible. There is still room for minor improvement on my part, but when I came here 3 weeks ago I was just looking for a program that was better at playing ripped music than Windows MC....   

[eddyshere]

@cgroth : quote "Still strange that there seems to be two different looking TMT6s (I have not installed anything else).."

Perfect that it works for you. I haven't seen this thread and commented in another one re TMT6 integration.

To your question why is TMT looking differently:  because it depends which one you invoke. TMT still has two distinct *.exe which either bring up the regular TMT or the "theaterview/cinema" version of tMT which is the uMCETMT...or something (from head) *.exe. This version was designed to perfectly integrate with Windows MCE.

So if you use MC in theaterview you will need to use the UMCE....*.exe file in the TMT folder. This will start TMT in it's "cinema" version which is easier to handle with a remote.

[TorqW]

Does the above also work for TMT5?
thanks