How do you guys "premiere" your theater to your guests without the DVD menu's ruining the initial "wow" effect?

I made a macro called "Play Movie". I keep all the lights on in the theater and screen and mute the reciever. Then when I get the menu to the point to start the movie, I hit the "Play Movie" macro and it hits the select button on the DVD, dims out all the lights on the GrafikEye, and un-mutes the reciever. It gives things a nice vibe as the lights dim at the opening studio logo.

I was just wondering how you guys do your presentation without letting the basic menus and start-up screens ruin the experience.

My entire collection is running off my HTPC off 4 terabytes worth of data both Hi-Def and Standard DVD. Time consuming to do it, but it eliminates all the menus and hassles of trying to create macros to get around them.

You can preview the DVD before your guest arrive and pause the movie just before the credits.

I use a second DVD player to show the trivia and question along with the theater intro. Then switch over to the PAUSED player, the macro press play, as part of the switch and your off and running.

Just takes a little setup.

Anydvd for PC has a "skip to movie" option. It works sorta. But sometimes it freezes the player, not a great solution.

Theatertek lets you bookmark the movie start. Works fine but you have to do them all manually and it can be hard to hit just the right spot.

The fact that dvd players (and BD/HDDVD) don't have an option to "just play the fking movie" has always made me furious.

I've found that when you hit PLAY at the menu, the movie (or previews) starts right up. Doesn't take away from the experience at all for me. Once the movie starts, I don't think I've ever thought "This movie would be great had I not had to hit play in the Menu". I like the Second DVD player with the Intro option, and pausing the movie.

You can preview the DVD before your guest arrive and pause the movie just before the credits.

I use a second DVD player to show the trivia and question along with the theater intro. Then switch over to the PAUSED player, the macro press play, as part of the switch and your off and running.

Just takes a little setup.

Yep - what Gpowers said.

Except I use 3 DVD players - one for the slides, another for previews or pre-show, and the third with the feature, paused.

Randy

How do you guys "premiere" your theater to your guests without the DVD menu's ruining the initial "wow" effect?

I made a macro called "Play Movie". I keep all the lights on in the theater and screen and mute the reciever. Then when I get the menu to the point to start the movie, I hit the "Play Movie" macro and it hits the select button on the DVD, dims out all the lights on the GrafikEye, and un-mutes the reciever. It gives things a nice vibe as the lights dim at the opening studio logo.

I was just wondering how you guys do your presentation without letting the basic menus and start-up screens ruin the experience.

this is what works for my DVD player (a Toshiba something or other, I forgot :confused:)...

my projector is not switched to the DVD video during warmup; my plan is to play a trivia/intro video during this time (and I have not gotten around to do that yet :mad:)

when I hit "play movie", I issue the following cmds to my DVD player:

play, stop, play, stop, play

then I switch the projector to the DVD video

I have found that this works about 98% of the time; I noticed that this will not work on DVDs from Disney.

try it..see if this "hack" works for you.....

3 TB server with all movies ripped with just the feature and one audio track. I use Vista Media Center to navigate to the movie I want, and just hit play.
I will never go back to a basic player, which is why so far I have held off of Blu-Ray, PC playback is just not stable.

not many people know this but this is supposed to work on 100 percent of all DVD players. I can attest it works on Sony, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, Denon and Panasonic. After you power up the DVD Player hit stop, stop, play. Those three commands will just start the movie bypassing the menu. Thats how Escient and Control4 can skip past everything with the 777ES dvd player from Sony

not many people know this but this is supposed to work on 100 percent of all DVD players. I can attest it works on Sony, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, Denon and Panasonic. After you power up the DVD Player hit stop, stop, play. Those three commands will just start the movie bypassing the menu. Thats how Escient and Control4 can skip past everything with the 777ES dvd player from Sony Good tip. This got me "closer" to the movie on my Pioneer player. No menus, no previews, but still a little preamble stuff. EXCELLENT tip.

Personally, I've riped all of my DVD's and it's the first thing I do with the new ones I buy. I play them through my PS3 with a large drive connected via USB.

all my DVDs are ripped to my HTPC without menus...just the movie, it plays immediately.

BR stuff will be a different story :(

any ideas on the stop stop play thing with a harmony?? i just tried do it manually under 'devices' on my 890/Denon DVD and it would auto play the previews so I stopped the previews, then tried it again and it worked, but I still had to see the previews the first time for like a split second... not exactly the Movie Theater experience eh?

My entire collection is running off my HTPC off 4 terabytes worth of data both Hi-Def and Standard DVD. Time consuming to do it, but it eliminates all the menus and hassles of trying to create macros to get around them.


I've been thinking about doing something like this. Can you share some details about how you built the machine (specs RAM, CPU, HDD's RAID, OS, etc), and how you rip the DVD's? How do you pull out the menus and second audio tracks?

CJ

You can preview the DVD before your guest arrive and pause the movie just before the credits.

I use a second DVD player to show the trivia and question along with the theater intro. Then switch over to the PAUSED player, the macro press play, as part of the switch and your off and running.

Just takes a little setup.

Yep - what Gpowers said.

Except I use 3 DVD players - one for the slides, another for previews or pre-show, and the third with the feature, paused.

Randy


Does the switching involve pushing multiple buttons (i.e. switching inputs to the "movie" player and pushing start) or is it a single "start/play" and it can be made to automatically switch inputs and start the actual movie once the intro/trailers/etc. is finished?

I was reading about a couple of models of the Harmony remotes. With their "activity" buttons, does it start everything up at the same time or can some items be started on a delay/once another item is finished?

I wouldn't mind setting things up before guests arrive, but would like to be able to push a single button, watch the intro, trailers, and movie and not mess with anything again until the movie is over.

Does the switching involve pushing multiple buttons (i.e. switching inputs to the "movie" player and pushing start) or is it a single "start/play" and it can be made to automatically switch inputs and start the actual movie once the intro/trailers/etc. is finished?



My macros are programed using MainLobby.

MainLobby controls the entire Home Theater. You can use a touch panel or MainLobby provides a web server. I use an iPod Touch as a remote.

I also have a ViewSonic AirPanel for access to all the remote buttons.

figured out my harmony issues today. so far its worked perfect except with a dave matthews band dvd (central park)

wait 5secs
stop
wait 500ms
stop
wait 500ms
play

like I said. there is just going to be one or two dvd's that don't work with it. Otherwise it works pretty darn good. The only negative to it is if you need to change the soundtrack but thats pretty rare too.

not many people know this but this is supposed to work on 100 percent of all DVD players. I can attest it works on Sony, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, Denon and Panasonic. After you power up the DVD Player hit stop, stop, play. Those three commands will just start the movie bypassing the menu. Thats how Escient and Control4 can skip past everything with the 777ES dvd player from Sony

Just tried this with my Panny BD30 and a Blu-Ray disc, and did NOT work. What I did was:

1. Power on BD30 using the "eject" command.
2. Inserted Blu-Ray disc.
3. Pressed Stop, stop, play
4. Disc began to play, showed Blu-Ray ad, then menu popped up. :(

If you own the CX777ES (400 Disc Changer), we (Cinemar) have a plugin that is capable of sending a single command that (typcially) bypasses all menus and trailers.

If you are using an HTPC, many programs like TheaterTek allow you to mark the starting position when you put the disc in.

Final option is obviously ripping only the main movie.

If you own the CX777ES (400 Disc Changer), we (Cinemar) have a plugin that is capable of sending a single command that (typcially) bypasses all menus and trailers.

If you are using an HTPC, many programs like TheaterTek allow you to mark the starting position when you put the disc in.

Final option is obviously ripping only the main movie.

care to share what that one cmd is????