LCD and Showshifter

[MMcM]

I added the necessary macros to intercept DVD graphs for ShowShifter just like the other DirectShow players, such as Zoom Player.

I also added a ShowShifter Control Module that monitors changes in the SSF UI and sends those as events. The controls it checks come from the registry, so it's trivial to add more. You can find the identifiers by looking in the .UIS files in the SSF Config folder.

To start, I added ones that are sufficient to get the center status area from the PVR module (icon, time, CPU %), the track from the CD module, and the right status area from the DVD module. I imagine if you play around it some more, you can find the TV channel number and useful info from the Jukebox module. Otherwise, I'll try to get back to it sometime.

I did not figure out a completely satisfactory layout for all this information in the LCD sample. So, I left it with the DirectX event group enabled and the UIS one disabled. I'd be glad of suggestions here, too.

[MMcM]

I'm sorry that I did not give more information. It was a late night effort.

To have the module load into ShowShifter, all you have to do is self-register ShowShifterSpy.dll with regsvr32. Did you do that? It's mentioned in the readme.

If you are not seeing DVD events, then perhaps you didn't self-register MediaSpy.dll. Again, this is in the readme.

Then turn on the Logger Girder plug-in, enable events, and watch to see what arrives. If you registered those two files and still see nothing, let me know.

UIS files are text. Notepad is fine if you don't have a text editor that you normally use. To get started, look at c:\Program Files\Home Media Networks Limited\ShowShifter\Config/PVRMain.uis. Search for StatusSymbol. You will see a comment explaining the icons used. That is the basis for decoding them in DVD2LCD (there's a LUA script in one of the commands that does). That's as hard as it gets; most controls are easier to interpret.

[MMcM]

The latest version of DVD2LCDn.GML now has a more complete ShowShifter Display group. It handles each of the five modules (four, actually, but PVR has two distinct modes) as best I could arrange. It is still lacking a bit, since some information is not readily available. For instance, when the Television module starts up, it selects the last channel, but it does not display the name of this channel anyplace that I can see. It works better in my more complete setup, which associates a command with each channel that sends DVDSpy EPG time and program content details.

Let me know if you can think of any further improvements. In particular, if you see something on the screen, even fleeting, that you want on the LCD, it's probably straightforward.

[flagg987]

Hello Everyone !!
I have finaly gotten DvDSpy to work on my showshifter PVR With the lcd plugin !
My only Problem is it only works in the video module and not the dvd module
just woundering if anyone has any ideas. or a command set that will display more info from ShowShifter.
Thanks Alot !!!

Dusty

[flagg987]

Mike, I can't believe you could have already update the ShowShifter plugin. :o Thanks allot! I am really shocked and excited! I downloaded DVDSpy again and installed it, and have not been successful on getting it to do anything more than it was before. Maybe you could explain a couple of thing to me.
How do I turn on UIS so it sends events to DVDSpy?

How do I Look at the identifiers by looking in the .UIS files? Or what program would I use to look at them?

Thanks allot. I’m just a little confused.

Dusty

[flagg987]

Thanks Mike, My Display Look's Much Better!! :P
Although I haven’t figured out how to display DVD info? :cry:
If you have any tips on this subject please send them along.
The LCD now displays info in the CD player
And a much improved video module display!
Could not test jukebox as I don't have any songs in it yet, But im sure it will work since the cd module did.
Could not check the TV module because of issues with my TV capture card, but I will post an update later.
I’ll let you know if I am able to add some more girder events but to be honest it seems a little beyond me. :roll:
Really Thanks For All Your Help.
Dusty 8)

[flagg987]

No pressure, But if you get time, could you add the rest of the stuff like channel number and jukebox status. I could take years trying to figure this out. :cry:
And an updated dvd2lcd4 to display all the info would be sweet too!
Don't care how you position it I can figure out how to reposition it if I could just get it to show up. Still can't get it to display dvd status Maybe I am doing something wrong, any help you could send would be very appreciated.
Thanks Mike! 8)
Dusty

[mattwire]

Is there any way of increasing the update speed for ShowshifterSpy.dll?
It seems to update every 3 or 4 seconds - for reliability I would prefer if it updated every 1 second or every 1/2 second.
Is this possible?
Thanks,

[MMcM]

I believe that it is Interval under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Girder3\HardPlugins\DV DSpy\ShowShifter, in ms. The default is 1000, that is, one second. Let me know if that does not affect it and I'll double check.

[mattwire]

Am I correct in assuming that Showshifterspy.dll is only responsible for the .UI and .NoUI events?
The .Media events are generated through directx?
The interval setting works for the UI events but not the .Media events - it is the Media.elapsed which I could really do with once a second rather than every 3 or 4 as is happening here at the moment. Is there another setting somewhere?

Edit: It seems that all the .Media events tend to be slow at being sent - media.state generally occurs a few seconds after the state has changed.

Thanks for a very useful plugin by the way!

[MMcM]

You are correct.

The .Media events only occur as often as the application sends itself a WM_TIMER message. Most apps do this every second. SSF may do it less frequently. I suppose I could add something to the ShowShifterSpy module that made it happen more frequently. The issue is that it pretty much has to be called from the primary message loop of the main thread. Otherwise, DirectX may be in some funny state.