Mixed Menu of PTE & Commercial DVD.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I'm putting on a another show for the residents of our apartments next week & wondered if anyone had used a PTE menue to open Exe files & a commercial DVD. One snag I can see is I will be constructing the menu on my desk top & playing it on my laptop which has a different drive designation for the DVD drive. I have kept my LT free of PTE & Audacity software & am using it specifically for Public shows. I don't think the DVD will copy onto my HD as it is an original commercial copy. Any suggestions welcomed, providing they are legal

Yachtsman1.

[fh1805]

I would approach this problem as follows:

- I would use the Windows Run command (on Win 7 that's in the Start...All programs...Accessories folder) to find out how to launch that particular DVD file from the DVD drive on my desktop

- I would then check that the same command (with just the drive letter altered) did the same job on my laptop.

- Then I would set up a test PTE project and program the Action in the Common tab to be "xxxxxxx" (the full string of the working command as used on the laptop and enclosed in a pair of double quotes); and test that that did what I wanted it to on the laptop

If it did, then I would prepare the final Menu on the desktop. Knowing that I couldn't test that particular button, I would ensure that I gave the entire Menu a run through on the laptop before taking it out to give the show to the folks.

Please note I have never tried "fully qualified commands"; but I understand that enclosing them in the double-quotes is the rightthing to do. I'll learn from your feedback.

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Thanks Peter, I'll give it a try later, one thing I didn't mention, there will be a comfort break mid way on the DVD, where I want to run an exe file in the interval, then re-start the DVD at the point it was paused

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[nobeefstu]

What media player are you using to play the DVD ?

If you are using the Windows Media Player ... you need only to use these commandline/switches. The /device:DVD command will automatically launch the main DVD drive on any windows system.

wmplayer /device:DVD

wmplayer /fullscreen /device:DVD

If you are using Media Player Classic Home Cinema ... just read its Help file for available commandline/switches to play the DVD.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

After trying various options, including Peter's suggestion, I've come to a dead end & can't do what I wanted. There are a couple of screen shots of what I did & the result. There is a dummies workaround which is to run the menu with the opening exe, then insert the dvd into the drive & it will automatically start & can be controlled by WMP, eg pause etc, doing it this way the dvd start overides the PTE Menu, It's rough but I don't think my audience will notice

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

PS pressing the Les Mis button just brings up the second SS.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

What media player are you using to play the DVD ?

If you are using the Windows Media Player ... you need only to use these commandline/switches. The /device:DVD command will automatically launch the main DVD drive on any windows system.

wmplayer /device:DVD

wmplayer /fullscreen /device:DVD

If you are using Media Player Classic Home Cinema ... just read its Help file for available commandline/switches to play the DVD.

Hi Nobeefstu

No joy I'm afraid. See screen shots. Nothing happens when I click the button & I'm using Windows Media Player.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1

[nobeefstu]

Eric,

Your Image 1 shows incorrect filestring/commandline. It requires wmplayer to excute the commandline switch /device:DVD. The switch /device:DVD cannot execute solely on its own.

Use string format exactly as spelling, characters, and spacing is critical :

wmplayer /device:DVD

wmplayer /fullscreen /device:DVD

* To test ... just paste either one of the above strings into the Windows RUN command prompt. Make sure the DVD is already inserted into Drive. Or just paste the string into PTE as attachment shows.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Nobeefstu

Partial success, following your instructions comes up with the attached screen shot, which then needs the WMP play button pressed to start the DVD. The DVD has a set up preview screen, then the usual disclaimer screens. I will experiment further by pausing the DVD at the main opening sequence & see how that works. We have some progress at least, thanks to you and Peter for your efforts. Will report back later.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[nobeefstu]

Eric,

Im surprised that your commercial DVD has unknown title description.

I can only guess that your Windows version of Media Player (mine is version 11) requires an additional switch to start the playback. Its most likely a new Microsoft thing for the media player and your version of windows.

Use this string:

wmplayer /play /device:DVD

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Thanks Nobeefstu, will give it a try tomorrow, bit knackered now, heavy day.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I have implemented Nobeefstu's suggestion with partial success. I added the suggested string into the O&A box for the button marked Les Mis Part 1 & the DVD starts with the opening music. I then ran it forward to the comfort break point & paused it. I then opened an Exe file from the menu, all ok. next I activated the Les Mis part 2 button, the screen opened where I'd paused it, then reverted to the start screen again. I assume that the string for the part 2 button should differ than the part 1 button, how? Help.

Yachtsman1.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

This morning I bit the bullet & modified the string on the Les Mis Part 2 button to

wmplayer /fullscreen /device:DVD:2 and the DVD started where I had paused it, without reverting to the opening titles. Just need to add some opening & closing music & i'll give it a try with the new LT & projector set up, fingers crossed. Thanks again to Peter & Nobeefstu.

Yachtsman1.

[nobeefstu]

Eric,

Windows Media Player has limited switches and will not provide you the full control you may be looking for.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema has a more extentsive list of switches and does provide the Title and Chapter position control you desire.

[coopernatural]

Eric, Nobeefstu,

I have never had the need to use the PTE control function mentioned, but this is still an interesting post.

Eric, seeing as you are probably on shakey groung 'legally' by playing back a commercial disc to an audience,

you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and just rip your dvd to your laptop hard drive.

Nobeefstu, would this be the better option? Using freebee software rip the dvd and split it into 2 halfs.

Maybe edit out the titles/credits from the dvd as well.

I like VLC media Player as it can play iso files as well.

Not sure about the switching capability of VLC as have never had to make use of them.

Eric, make sure none of the residents is wearing a 'Wire'.

Davy

[Guest Yachtsman1]

DavyC

I think the copyright police would have a difficult job to convict me. The audience is a non paying group of individuals who all live under the same roof. To be utterly pedantic you could argue that our recent Hotpot Supper where wine was served & which we paid for, falls outside the licensing laws? If we can't deport the terrorist in the recent news, I think my show is very small beer, (or wine)

Re ripping the DVD, the software I have was relutant to extract the show from the DVD, but eventually it did, but the show is 7.5GB plus, I don't have any software for this on the LT, by choice, & my biggest memory stick won't accept the ripped show. So I have deleted that & will stick with what I have at present, although I will investigate Nobeefstu's suggestion about WMP Classic Home Cinema, which I think I would have to pay for?

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[Ken Cox]

Eric i will email you the link that Igor recommendedken

[coopernatural]

Eric,

That looks a like shifty character with the red napkin. I've seen it before.They infiltrate 'Hotpot Communes'

and before you know it, it's turned into a Speak Easy.

As for ripping etc, you can to do this on your main PC. All you would need on your laptop is

Classic Home Cinema or VLC for playback.

Re the Classic home cinema and VLC Media player, both are available free.

Have fun.

Davy

[coopernatural]

Eric,

Latest versions of the players (but not the beta versions).

Media Player Classic Home Cinema

http://tinyurl.com/6re6ot

VLC Media Player

http://tinyurl.com/2r74l

Davy

[Ken Cox]

ERIC

CHECK YOR EMAIL

IGOR'S ORIGINAL FILE -SETUP IS ON ITS WAY - HE HAS SINCE TAKEN IT DOWN AS WILL BE SHOWN BY THE LINK INCLUDED IN THE ZIP

KEN

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Thanks everybody for the links & input. I have now added the intro & finale music to the menue & all works well enough for my audience. However, I will investigate WMP Classic to see if it less troublesome to incorporate different activation links. Incidentally while I was looking for some suitable music for the intro & finale I tried to go onto a free download site that I have used before & found it has been taken down. Maybe the copyright police have caught up with it.? www.tvthemes.com It was a handy site as it had a great search engine. Got my Hitchcock stuff from there.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

PS Just tried TV Themes again using the URL above & got a site to open, however it looks more like a search engine now, not as before a download site

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Just transferred the menu file to my laptop, coupled it to my projector & did a complete simulation of next Fridays show. Guess what, I'm getting the dreaded desk top flashback

There was a bit of a debate a couple of weeks ago why I wasn't getting flashback with a mixture of old & new PTE shows, where it wasn't believed that they didn't happen on my desktop. The menu I have transferred to the laptop was all constructed in 6.0.4 so eveything is compatable with my desktop, the only difference is the connection to the projector which has a native resolution of 12880x800 720P, where the desktop NVidia graphics card is set to 1280x1024 as is the monitor, the plot thickens. Everything else on the menu transferred to the LT works fine, any comments??? The laptop resolution is Widescreen (1920x1080) but automatically reduces to 1280x800 with the projector connected by HDMI.

Yachtsman1.

[fh1805]

What operating systems on each machine?

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Peter

They are both W7 Professional 64bit. I am going to try switching off the hardware acceleration on the menu & will give it another try tomorrow. The first one was on.

Regards Eric

yachtsman1.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Tried the re-made menu on the LT without HA (hardware accelleration)ticked & all appears OK. I will leave it now until after the show, if it happens with the projector connected, I assume there is nothing I can do.

Yachtsman1