Win7, Movie Library and Subtitles ! Any idea ?

[DavidinCT]

From his site on the web archive...

Open With is a simple helper add-in for Windows 7 Media Center for playing video files in an external player via the native interface. It works by configuring a default external player. The player will be launched for any configured extension in addition to any video file that has soft subtitle files (srt or idx\sub) present in the same folder as the video file. You may also setup a different player per file extension.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mikinho\OpenWith\Video]
"FileName"="D:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema (x64)\mpc-hc64.exe"
"Arguments"="\"{0}\" /fullscreen /play /close"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mikinho\OpenWith\Video\.mov]
"FileName"="D:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema (x64)\mpc-hc64.exe"
"Arguments"="\"{0}\" /fullscreen /play /close"


Why?

I basically wrote this add-in to increase my WAF. Soft subtitles do not work natively (yet) in MC7 and most decoders that will add subtitle support do not utilize hardware acceleration. I'm using Open With to fix both these issues while still using the native interface.

I have my default player set to MPC-Hc x64, this enables hardware acceleration on my Ion mini-HTPC. I also have .mov set to use VLC Player as my camera creates unsupported mov files.

Note:

•Hitting the Back will exit the external player and return to Media Center.


•I have only tested on W7 RTM x64


•You may see a the video play in Media Center briefly as the external player is launched


•If there is interest to localize the loading screen please let me know

I havent been able to find a copy of it but it sounds similar to your needs.

it sounds like Media Center stays open in the background. This might not work because it creates another issue. Media Center demands exclusive audio mode. By using an external player while WMC is open, will block/stop bitstreaming. This will break all HDMI HD audio formats (this is bigger issue than the subtitles)... If I disable Exclusive mode for audio, WMC will not do any bitstreaming.

I have seen these issues with a Blu-ray software installed, I need to configure the software to completely exit WMC to be able to do bitstreaming.

it sounds like it would work but, of course brings up a larger issue.

Might give it a beta test though to see how it acts...the HD audio thing is HUGE for me.

[jachin99]

Maybe you could configure it to close wmc.

[Space]

Yes, please share it, and any other mikinho plugins you might have. You can define remote buttons in MPC-HC, and it has a web API. When I use it, I map the back button to close it out. There is also a way to have it mark a file as watched I believe but I'm not sure if it will do a resume.

I only have the 64-bit version. Let me know if it works, I had to zip it before attaching it.

[jachin99]

Thanks for the link space. David wouldn't you only have problems with wmc and exclusive audio if wmc were playing an HD track and had window focus? I can't be sure but you might still be ok.

[DavidinCT]

Thanks for the link space. David wouldn't you only have problems with WMC and exclusive audio if WMC were playing an HD track and had window focus? I can't be sure but you might still be ok.

Sadly no. I found this by a lot of troubleshooting with WinDVD trying to play bitstreaming from a Blu-ray. The WMC plugin just minimized WMC. So it was always running in the background (not playing any video). While it acted like this I only got 5.1 audio but, no HD formats, even though the software was set and the Blu-ray was set to play it. I closed WMC and things started to work. I had to trash the built in WMC app and use ReLaunch.