Help needed with Sony DVP-CX777ES plugin and Xlobby

[SMH]

I have been working for some time to get my Xlobby setup to work perfectly with my Sony 777ES 400 disc player. I had previously used a demo of Cinemar DVDLobby Pro with the cinemar 777ES plugin and it worked really well. However, I liked the interface of Xlobby better, plus it is FREE, and really wanted to get this to work well with my disc player. In general, it works extremely well, except that some discs will not play properly and I receive an error message due to the fact that some require the play of trailers, etc. before the actual movie. For those movies, the general "bat file" method does not work without modification. Bear and Sharp have been helpful to try and get past this problem, however, I am not sure which Windows toolkit Bear uses to create more advanced bat files that allow a 'sleep' function to get past this barrier. I still wish that there was a "simplier" solution to this and that there was a plugin, similar to the one that cinemar has, that would make this more seemless. Just wondering if there is anything else that can be done to get these discs to work propertly with the generic 777ES plugin that is currently being used with Xlobby? Anyone have an idea what type of windows toolkit is needed to use a bat file "sleep" function? Is there possibly an easier solution in modifying the basic bat file for all movies that would get around this problem--perhaps leading directly to the menu instead of trying to play the movie. Anything to get past this problem and play these certain discs would be great. Maybe beating a dead horse here, but it bothers me that I am unable to have a fully functional Xlobby setup with my disc player that plays all movies. Hoping for some solutions to finally solve this issue. Thanks.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Sorry havent been around much... been playing WoW

Kit i was referring to is something called Windows resource kit (it is by M$), i believe it was made for some version of NT and not precisely XP, but seems to work well atleast for that sleep purpose.

And honestly i dont believe Cinemar worked any better... mayby u didnt test with the problem discs... but imho if this problem is because of UOP restrictions, only work-for-all solution is UOP-modded carousel. I had mine region modded, but that company didnt do UOP, but there is atleast one which does... google is your friend

Other more tedious options are to make tailored bat files like me, or the Sharp way of making non-UOP-restricted back-ups of your collection for 777.

[tswhite70]

The W2K3 resource kit is here (it works on XP): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en

Instead of using sleep you can also use the following in your batch files:

PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 10000 >NUL

The -w 10000 tells the ping command to Wait 10 seconds for a response, since your pinging an unavailable addresss the command will wait the 10 seconds and then move on to the next step in your batch file.

good luck,
tsw

[SMH]

Thanks for the help. I downloaded the Windows toolkit and it worked in regards to allowing the sleep function to work. I tried it in a few batch files and it works slick. I think I finally have a handle on getting around this issue and getting ALL movies to play--finally!
Now, my last big issue. I need to be able to hide the windows dos box on screen while it is implementing the batch file. I do not want any signs of windows or pc to appear on screen. How exactly, with clear details, can I hide the dos box in this process? Help is greatly appreciated on this last major step!! I have tried a few options, but none work.
Thanks.

[sharp_1]

Make sure your window type is set to "hidden" for the batch file event.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

That is something i still need to do myself too... belongs to "final polishing touch" department of things, but i was under impression that focus hack we discussed on other thread could mayby do trick, no?

anyway mayby sharp has something sharp for this problem

EDIT: oh he really is much sharper than bear...

[sharp_1]

SMH:

Can you post what your new .bat file looks like...I'm curious to see how you have it set up???

Bear: I'm sure I will be needed alot of assistance from you in the future as I am not the one with the doctoral degree in all this stuff...I am still looking forward to your rs232 2-way solution. Thanks!!!

[SMH]

Sharp,

The issue I have with the setup you have above is that it will load the collection number as the slot number. In other words, if a movie has a collection number of (16) and is in slot number (1), it will play the movie in slot number (16), which will not match the actual selected movie. The setup worked well otherwise and did hide the dos box, but I have the collection numbers in a specific sequence so that they are in a particular order when appearing in xlobby--somewhat by genre. I really don't want to change that. Is there a way to tweak that to alleviate this problem? Otherwise, I am using the play movie command from the skin that does not allow for the addition of a "hidden" command.
Also, I will post the bat file tonight that has worked for me.
Thanks.

[sharp_1]

Sharp,

The issue I have with the setup you have above is that it will load the collection number as the slot number. In other words, if a movie has a collection number of (16) and is in slot number (1), it will play the movie in slot number (16), which will not match the actual selected movie.

Do you have the location and slot number entered into DVDpro under the personalize option?

If not make sure you do that first then you will be able to use my click_event.bat file to access the correct dvd slot.

1) .bat file would look like this:
<Path>\sony_cx777es.exe COM%1 36 %2 0 0 1

2) Argument would look like this:
"%movies>location%" (one space between arguments here) "%movies>slot%"

[SMH]

Sharp,

OK. I tried your suggestions and it worked! However, here is the problem: Because I am using the bat files to launch the individual movies--because of the issue of some movies not launching properly, how does this work with your suggestion? After trying this, these particular movies do not launch again and the special batch files are not recognized. Is there a way to use the batch files for each movie and the method you described above? I hope so as it works really well now, except I am back to the same problem launching some discs.
Thanks.
BTW, here is the batch file that I used to get around the disc problem:

c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 36 (input movie slot) 0 0 1
sleep 25
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 3
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2

Basically, this repeatedly pushes play to allow for the disc to continue playing before the error message appears. Most discs don't allow the pushing of the menu button that early in the disc load, so the only option that I could think of was to force the playing of the disc before the error comes up. I works very well, you just have to put up with the play message appearly repeatedly for 4-5 times as the disc loads. To me, this is well worth it to get around the disc loading problem.

[sharp_1]

Here is what I would try:

Create another execute file command after the click_event.bat...lets call it speep_event.bat and add it to your play movie event (of course after click_event.bat) and see if that works.

Example of sleep_event.bat:
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 25
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 3
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2
c:/777/sony_cx777es.exe COM1 18
sleep 2

Let me know how that works.

[SMH]

Sorry it took so long to get a reply back, but finally had time to really try this. It seems to work fairly well, with a couple of issues. The first major issue is that the movie will load fine, however, when you push the "play movie" button again (attempting to play another movie), it attempts to simply "play" and not load another movie. I have to push the button twice to load another movie in some instances because it wants to view it as "play" and not "play movie". Is there a way to tweak the bat file to change this from occurring. The other issue is that now changing to this method means that all movies will be loaded with that "sleep" bat file, which causes the multiple play functions to occur and appear on screen with EVERY movie. The other method only required the "problem" movies to do this, which is only about 15 of my 265 discs. Also, now all movies will load to the menu screen and not begin playing immediately as with the other method. I prefer those to immediately play, if I had a choice. Therefore, the previous method of using the "play" function under my "skin" options is probably still the best option, except for the showing the dos window. The problem is that the "play" function is not a "windows os" command, but a function command that doesn't allow for the "hidden" to be added to it via a text box. Anyway, perhaps there is a solution using the windows os option to avoid these "issues", or perhaps there is still a way to hid the dos box using the regular play movie function that came with the skin. Thanks for the continued help. Getting closer and closer to "perfection".

[sharp_1]

Taken from this thread to try and keep things in one place.

I have posted here in the past in an attempt to get the generic Sony DVP-
CX777ES plugin to coordinate with Xlobby and fully function. It has turned out very well for the most part, but I have noticed this one issue--and perhaps it is with the plugin itself, but it is definitely a problem and I am wondering if anyone else has found this as well. Basically, when I load xlobby and do anything to load a movie or otherwise, the Sony Player itself suddenly becomes unable to use its "menu" or "top menu" function. Not only through xlobby, but the player itself. The only fix is to power off and then on again. I believe this is why the menu buttons and direction buttons will not function as well with xlobby. It would appeaer that somehow the plugin sends something to the player itself that causes this bug. The problem is now that I can not access the menu screen for bonus materials or scene selection when using xlobby. I must power off and then on again and it regains its normal abilities. But if I do anything with xlobby and send any command to the player using the modem cable, this occurs. I hope someone with some extensive experience can weigh in on this and perhaps look to a solution. This is the last major issue facing the Xlobby and Sony 400 disc player interaction. Anyone have this issue as well or know a possible work around?
Thanks.

First make sure you add this (DVD MegaChanger)_Sony_DVD_CX-777-ES.xml file to your xLobby>ir>codes directory. Then change your events for menu, top menu, up, down, right and left to ir commands using the included file. Do not use the 777es.exe file to run the menu or directional commands. Test and let me know how it goes.

[SMH]

Thanks for the reply. First off, I did download the xml file and place it in the correct directory file. There were three other files already in there and this was the fourth. When I load xlobby, I push F2 and go to "events" which is where I previously have my navigation functions. Under "events", I have two main folders: navigation and skin. It is under navigation that I had previously directed the up,down,left,right,menu commands to bat files using "windows os". I removed the "windows os" event from each one and replaced with the "IR" option. Under "IR", there is two choices: command and send number. I chose the "command" option. With this option, there is an "alias" and a "command" box. They are drop down boxes. The name of the xml file should appear in the drop down box, however, the file that was just placed in there does not appear. Well, there is a () - - file listed, which does not match the name of the file that was placed in there. Not sure if this is actually the xml file or not. I tried it as if it was, but nothing happened. Is there a more formal process to adding the downloaded xml file? This is where I am at so far--Is this correct? What did I do wrong so far? Please be more detailed in the actual process of adding the IR functions if you can--remember, I do not have a USB-UIRT device, so I am hoping this can possibly avoid this as well.
Thanks again for all the help Sharp! It is greatly appreciated. If I can just get this last part to work out, I will really be happy with my setup.

[sharp_1]

Opps!!! I assumed that you had the USB-UIRT installed...time to get one otherwise none of this stuff will work for you!!! Go here to purchase http://www.usbuirt.com/

Regarding where to put the .xml file, you will need to copy it into the xlobby>ir>codes folder as seen here:

Also, do not change the navigation.xml you may need it later on when you start adding a universal remote to your system to control xlobby on your tv screen.

Hope this helps!!!