PDI/xCard, Xlobby, Ripped VOBs...Almost!!!

[Phil Smith]

New Xlobby user. Love it! For a user with no experience with this type of program, it's very easy to use.

I had trouble setting up myHTPC to play ripped VOBs with my PDI/xCard DVD player. Mounting my VIDEO_TS directories was the main problem: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...threadid=311980

Per AVS forum member Tracie's suggestion, I gave Xlobby a try. Well something totally unexpected happened. Xlobby automatically mounts the VIDEO_TS directories as Z: drive! I didn't do anything to cause this. Xlobby just does it. How cool! Problem solved...well sort of.

A new problem. Even though it's mounted as Z: drive, xCard doesn't recognize the VIDEO_TS directory on startup. After about a 20 second pause, I get a "Z: Invalid or unrecognized format" message and two separate "Play list is empty" messages. When I open the "select media source" pulldown menu, "playlist" is checked. If I select "Z:", the movie automatically starts playing! For some reason, xCard NOW recognizes the VIDEO_TS directory. If I close xCard and try to restart the movie from Xlobby, again I get the error messages, it won't play, etc.

If I mount my VIDEO_TS directories with DVDStarter, xCard recognizes them and plays them without a problem.

If I could somehow make xCard's media source selection "Z:" sticky, It would eliminate my problem. Getting rid of the 20 delay and the error messages would also be nice, but I can live with that if I have to.

Any help is appreciated!

[stevenhanna6]

you're right xlobby will load the video_ts to the Z: this was for theatertek users who wanted to use the random trailer intro feature....ummmm.....the part I'm confused is what software you are using to play the dvds back......I know for sure zoomplayer and theatertek work......but if you're using something something else please tell me what it is.....it sounds like xlobby is mounting the dvd to the Z: after the fact that your dvd playback software has loaded...so it would never see the Z: drive.

[Phil Smith]

Steven,

Thanks for the reply.

xCard comes with a software player. Here's a link that explains the PDI/xCard setup: http://www.pmsvideo.com/index_product_v ... imgid=7932

"it sounds like xlobby is mounting the dvd to the Z: after the fact that your dvd playback software has loaded...so it would never see the Z: drive."

I'l try to determine if that's the case.

Just read a little of the Theatertek thread where you suggest adding "Z:" at the end of the command line. I'll give a try tonight and see if that works in my situation.

[Phil Smith]

Steven,

My DVD player doesn't open until I hit the Xlobby play button, so that's not the problem.

Oddly, the play button in the movie list page works perfectly! I made several different attempts to configure the play button in the page that appears when you click on the DVD cover art (I don't know what that page is called) with no success. I still get the error messages. As far as I can tell I have them configured identically.

I also tried with no success to configure it where the movie starts when I click on the cover art, rather than going to the the next page. Cover art info is all I need, and that would be my preferred setup.

All this activity caused Xlobby to become hopelessly corrupt, and I had to start over from scratch twice. I had done a lot of button reconfiguration, and needless to say it was infuriating! I just did a search on backing up Xlobby, so I won't have to suffer through that again.

The one working play button shows that it can be done. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[stevenhanna6]

strange....now I'm confused at how you got it working.....if you dont want the "movieviewer" screen....thats the screen with the stills/plot/director/year.....all you have to do is go into skinediting mode on the screen that shows all the movies, now click on where all the movies are displayed, click "edit category" in the skin editor....and where it says "info screen" delete "movieviewer" from there.....exit skin editing mode.....now when ever you click a movie cover it will play.

I have a one question...

1. When you setup xlobby, what did you put as you dvdplayer exe?

[Phil Smith]

I'm entering file path for the xcard player exe file as my DVD player. I've also tried entering it in other locations, such as the play button that works.

Here's where I'm at:

I was using Alpha 38, which explains why I couldn't figure out some of your suggestions and many of the things I'd find mentioned in searches of the forum. The play button in the movie viewer screen of Alpha 38 was what I was able to make work. The problem was I needed to click on a movie to select it, then hit the play button, but clicking on the movie took me out of the movie viewer screen, so that wouldn't work. I downloaded Alpha 39 and tried several different setups, including adding a play button to the movie viewer screen, none of which worked.

This really seems to be more of a xCard issue than a Xlobby issue. It doesn't look like it's going to be an easy fix, and definitely something way beyond my capabilities. I know you're busy and I do appreciate you taking the time to help, but I give up.

PS: I really do like your program. That's why I spent so much time trying to make it work.

[stevenhanna6]

its not your card, xlobby had been designed around zoomplayer and theatertek....each of those players have special commands to launch a dvd. I try to make it as simple as possible so you only have to enter the path to zoomplayer or theatertek.....here is the problem....your not using zoomplayer or theatertek.....but this is easily fixed....I just need to know the name of the exe file for you dvd player and what commands your dvd player needs to start a dvd......it should be something like

c:\mydvdplayer\dvdplayer.exe Z:

where Z: starts the dvd....you know what i mean? If you can give me the proper command line arguments then I can launch it from xlobby Or even give me the name of the player you use so I can look it up....its not hard for me to add I just need that info. Don't give up In the mean time you could always just download zoomplayer and use that as a stopgap solution.

[Phil Smith]

Steven,

I really appreciate your help!

The exact path is: C:\Program Files\REALmagic\RippedDVD\SkinGUI.exe
I tried adding "<space>Z:" at the end. For some reason it had no effect.

The xCard player on my computer list 3 sources; E:, Z: and Playlist. Playlist is for accessing single files, such as VOB files. When you close the xCard player, it remembers what source was last used. To be sure the xCard is set to the right drive when it opens, I loaded the software twice, each instance in it's own directory. The ...RippedDVD\SkinGUI.exe is what I use as the default DVD player in Xlobby, and when opened it should already be set to Z: drive.

My actual DVD drive is E:, and I use the other xCard player (C:\Program Files\REALmagic\xCard\SkinGUI.exe.) to access it. I have a button on the main page of Xlobby labeled "DVD Drive", and it links to ...\xCard\SkinGUI.exe. It's always set to E: drive when opened.

Having the separate players seems to work. "DVD Drive" button always opens up set to E: drive and it works as intended.

Something happens when the Z: drive player opens. There's a small window on the player that's blank when no source is present. When source material is present and recognized, control buttons and disk info appear in the screen. I just noticed this last night:

When the Z: drive player first opens, the screen is blank. After a second or two, control buttons and info pops up on the screen. Quickly goes blank again, and after a long wait the error messages I mentioned in my first post pop up.

I think when control buttons and info appears on the screen, it's recognizing the Z: drive. But for some reason it has problems, and quickly rejects it. This realization is what convinced me it was an xCard problem and this is when I began to lose hope of making it work.

PS: I would change to TheaterTek, but I think picture quality-wise, the setup I have is the best DVD player available, bar none. It's been discussed extensively on the AVS forum, which is what prompted me to get it. But it's not user-friendly, in more ways than my current problem, so who knows, I might eventually have no choice but to change.

[stevenhanna6]

Ok I think I know what is going on....xlobby by default will try to launch your dvd player like this

C:\Program Files\REALmagic\RippedDVD\SkinGUI.exe Z:

but I'm getting the impression that your player doesn't support the "Z:" switch, its possible that your player has some other way for specifying what drive to playback from, but I dont know what it is.

So we have 2 options.

1. You find out how to lauch a dvd from the command line while specifing which drive letter to play.

or

2. I add a new case for "realmagic" which will cause xlobby not to pass any command line switches, but will just start the
"C:\Program Files\REALmagic\RippedDVD\SkinGUI.exe"
as usual....and hopefully like you said, it will default to the Z:

[Phil Smith]

If I understand correctly, Xlobby creates a virtual Z: drive when the program starts. When I click on a DVD cover art, I assume Xlobby mounts the associated VIDEO_TS directory on Z: drive. This is what I think is so cool about Xlobby. It doesn't seem any other front-end program will do anything like that.

xCard definitely remembers what source/drive was last used, and looks for that source/drive when the program starts. Like I mentioned, it's seeing the Z: drive, but maybe the "Z: Invalid or unrecognized format" error message indicates it's not recognizing the VIDEO_TS directory as mounted. Why it works when I select the Z: drive after the initial failure is confusing. Why didn't it work to begin with?

My uneducated guess is the "Z: Invalid or unrecognized format" error message indicates xCard is seeing the Z: drive, buts it's not seeing the VIDEO_TS directory as a disc.

[stevenhanna6]

xlobby does mounts the Z: right when you click the cover/play button....once the drive has been mounted xlobby will then call the player.....I think this

"Z: Invalid or unrecognized format"

error is caused by the way I called the player....I think I have a solution for you if you want to gimme a few min I can upload a new version for you to try out.

[stevenhanna6]

download this version...install it to a clean directory....put

C:\Program Files\REALmagic\RippedDVD\SkinGUI.exe

as you dvdplayer...then do a search to load your dvds...then try to play one back.

[stevenhanna6]

try this version now
http://www.xlobby.com/downloads/files/x ... test-q.zip

[Phil Smith]

Steven,

Dude you rock! It actually works! xCard is still a bit slow to open, and out of about 25 attempts, twice xCard loaded without the Z: drive (E: drive and playlist were that was listed). But it works, and 99% of the time it works very well! I really was convinced it couldn't be done, and my hat is off to you. I used the first version you gave me. I'll try the new one now.

Thank you so much!

PS: Did you know your new site doesn't have a PayPal donation link? (hint, hint)

[stevenhanna6]

paypal is back here now

http://www.xlobby.com/help

I know said it works 99% of the time......I think I might know why it doesnt work that other 1%....so I'll try to include a fix in the next test release...and then we can see if I can get it %100