Hi,

I installed Leopard on my 1.6 Core Duo last week - agree (belatedly) with all the positives about the improved picture quality.

But I've seen this problem 4-5 times on 2 different DVDs:
- without provocation the player suddenly drops out of the full screen view and shows the movie in a window. Of course selecting Full Screen fixes it until the next time, but it's annoying an weird behaviour.

Anyone else seen this?

George

Anyone else seen this?

No. What's your setup like, and what are you using to control it?

No. What's your setup like, and what are you using to control it?
Just using a standard (pre-MM) Apple wireless mouse to control it. The mouse wasn't being touched when this happens. Display is by a manually switched VGA cable to an LCD monitor or an inFocus X1 projector (seen the problem with both of those).

George

That's an interesting problem, George, and it's something that I haven't even read about happening before to anyone else. So I'll just throw out some thoughts as if I were trying to narrow this down:

I've seen this problem 4-5 times on 2 different DVDs: without provocation the player suddenly drops out of the full screen view and shows the movie in a window.

Just those 2 dvds or others as well? Are you playing the physical discs or a ripped VIDEO_TS folder? And if it is just those discs--what's potentially special about them, i.e. region, genre, etc. Does it happen when you're in Front Row and using the Apple remote?

Display is by a manually switched VGA cable to an LCD monitor or an inFocus X1 projector (seen the problem with both of those)

when you say manually switching, what do you mean--do you have some sort of A/B switch? are you swapping or "hot-plugging" the VGA cable back and forth while the mini is on? Or after switching that VGA cable do you boot up the mini?

do you have anything else connected, perhaps an EyeTV device? any non-Apple software or alternate front ends installed? have you messed around with DisplayConfigX or SwitchRes?

Hi Chefkic,

Thanks for picking up on this issue.

Just those 2 dvds or others as well? Are you playing the physical discs or a ripped VIDEO_TS folder? And if it is just those discs--what's potentially special about them, i.e. region, genre, etc. Does it happen when you're in Front Row and using the Apple remote?

So far I've only played those two DVD discs on Leopard - 2 movie a week is our norm. I think we're going to have trouble pinning it down on the small amount of evidence I've gathered so far. But of course I will play more, both from disc and Video_TS, with DVD player and Front Row and report if the problem persists.
when you say manually switching, what do you mean--do you have some sort of A/B switch? are you swapping or "hot-plugging" the VGA cable back and forth while the mini is on? Or after switching that VGA cable do you boot up the mini?

Yes, an A/B switch. I do switch it while the mini is on - never had a problem with that. And I hadn't used it for at least 30 mins when these incidents occurred.
do you have anything else connected, perhaps an EyeTV device? any non-Apple software or alternate front ends installed? have you messed around with DisplayConfigX or SwitchRes?

I forgot to mention that there are a couple of EyeTV 410 firewire devices. But no recordings were scheduled during these movies.
As for software, I try to keep this media centre mini standard with no special plugins, etc. I haven't needed DisplayConfigX or SwitchRes because the projector can do all the scaling that's needed.

I'll post an update when I get more evidence.

George

First thing...I'd temporarily disconnect all extra devices (the A/B switch, FireWire Devices, etc.) and then play the movies again to see if the hardware could be a cause.

If you have another Mac (or a friend with a Mac), temporarily swap out the computer, preferably with a faster model.

How much memory do you have in the machine? (Hopefully, it's maxed out.) Are other apps (or just windows) open in the background when the movie is running? Have you used Activity Monitor to check what other processes are running when this happens?

Could the computer or hard disk be trying to go to sleep? Could you have enabled some some energy saver setting without realizing it? Check the computer run time and/or the timing of each occurrence.

Have you looked in on Apple's QuickTime/DVD Player Forums, or the MacFixit Forums for posts on similar problems?

Is there more than one way to enable the full screen mode? Does the problem always occur, now matter how full screen is invoked?

Obviously, I have only questions...no answers. Sorry...

I think we're going to have trouble pinning it down on the small amount of evidence I've gathered so far. But of course I will play more, both from disc and Video_TS, with DVD player and Front Row and report if the problem persists.

Right, gathering more info will help you pin it down before you waste too much time or attempt something drastic, like reinstalling Leopard--if it's just those 2 commercial discs, that tells us something; if it's just rips and not discs, that tells us something else and if it occurs with Apple dvd player.app and/or Front Row and/or VLC that'll point us in certain directions. It should be pretty easy to rule out a rip or disc problem initially. And if most of your stuff is stored on a NAS--for the time being just work from the internal drives.

These are normal R2 PAL discs for your region, right? And they played fine fullscreen in Tiger previously?

Yes, an A/B switch. I do switch it while the mini is on - never had a problem with that.

Gotta think is a big part of the problem--just so you know VGA isn't a hot swap connection like, say, firewire is, most users don't do this, the mini isn't meant to be used like this, it's hard enough to sync a mini correctly to one display let alone switching back and forth between an LCD and a projector--and it usually requires some expensive equipment to pull this off without complication. What are the native res of each device, the projector and the LCD?

What you may be experiencing is just such a side effect, almost as if the OS is polling the "new" display at some point into playback and not receiving back the info it thinks it should from the "previous" device memory--and bang, it pops you out of fullscreen mode because it's confused. Too early to tell, but once you rule out a dvd/rip issue, then strip down like Geo suggests, work forward starting with the mini connected directly with a single known good VGA cable to your LCD for now, reboot once, don't let the Mac sleep, work with those 2 known dvds and Apple dvd player full screen and try to repeat the problem.

Then you can 1) do the same thing just connected to the projector, then 2) add back the daisychained firewire EyeTV devices and finally 3) reintroduce that A/B switching element into the equation (but not hot-swapping.)

My sense is you don't need to swap out the computer just yet, and you don't need a faster model or more RAM to help get to the bottom of this. DVD player.app should do fullscreen over VGA with Leopard and base RAM on any G4 above an 867, let alone an Intel mini. One other question, when you installed Leopard, how did you do it? Upgrade, archive or erase & install? Rule out your A/B switching first, then there will be time for some more creative approaches.

Georgio

I have the same problem with the DVD player dropping out of full screen. Did you solve the problem?