XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support - Page 91

12.0 (Frodo) RC1 is out.

RC 2 is out now


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Have a small issue:

I recently setup an HTPC with Windows 8, going to Onkyo 807, then to Espson 8250 PJ - the output shows 1080p, but the screen is cropped 4:3 for some odd reason.

I did verify that when using other sources, I get the full 16:9 1080p. But for some reason when in Win 8, I am stuck to a 4:3 output.
Gigabyte mobo, with intel i3-2100 for GPU/CPU/Audio, etc

Intel GPU recognizes the 807 as a monitor, etc, shows 1080p, etc. Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I also tried a windows 7 laptop, same issue.

So I assume this has to do with how the 807 is using the hdmi info from each PC to show the image?
Edited by shftup - 12/22/12 at 12:06am

I had a similar problem with an older Sony 46" LCD HDTV recognizing 1080P sources as a computer and not a video device. I changed the computer's video settings to 1080i (1920x1080 @ 30Hz). You might give this a try...In my case, when the TV saw my HTPC as a computer I lost many of my color adjustments.
Good luck

Thanks for the quick reply

Once I set the input to GAME, it worked. I was using BD before. Have to be the factory setup

Hi guys:

I just finished setting up XBMC Eden per this guide. I'm having 2 issues: audio/video is out of sync: not the end of the world, as it's consistent and by doing a universal change in audio delay using xbmc, i've managed to sync it up. Strange though, because playing the video files with vlc or windows media player does not cause a sync issue. The other issue is that XBMC will freeze somewhat often when navigating menus - about 15% of the time i can force shut down the program, and the majority of the time I have to reboot the computer! HTPC setup is as follows:

OS: Windows XP SP3
CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-H77M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel H77
RAM: 4 gigs (though on a 32bit system)

I have just one WD green drive in there, serving as storage and as the OS disk drive. I suspect I may not have enough capability with that HDD that may be responsible at least for the freezing issue, any thoughts?

I was wondering if I can get some assistance with an issue I'm having. I have an Ultrabook I am using to add to my network of XBMC machines. The Acer specifications are listed below. My other machines are hardwired and work with the default XBMC settings. Also, they are i7's. The issue with the Acer is that during playback the screen periodically distorts really badly. See first image. Originally I thought the issue was that I was streaming my content via wireless and it couldn't keep up but that was not the case. After light troubleshooting it seems there is an issue when the throughput gets above 40 Mbps (number attained using windows resource monitor). Any assistance would be appreciated.

Things I tried

• Connecting Hardwire - Same result periodic distortion. See second image
• Connecting via USB 3.0 - Same result periodic distortion. See third image
• Using a different movie - Distortion not as bad but still an issue.
• Changing network drives - Changed streaming from the MyBook Live to the Synology NAS. No difference.
• Changed XBMC Settings - Turned off "Allow hardware acceleration (DVAX2)" - The distortion stopped but the picture stutters and audio periodically drops out. Sometimes when it comes back it is out of sync.

Operating System
Windows 8

Laptop Specifications
Acer Aspire V5
i3-2377M @ 1.50 GHz, 1.50 GHz
Intel HD Graphics 3000
6 GB RAM

Network
Netgear WNDR4500 Gigabit Router
Netgear 8-port Gigabit Switch

Storage
Synology NAS
WD MyBook Live
WD Passport

A few things I'd try...
-Test same video with VLC or other player to see if it is unique to XBMC
-Update/Re-install graphics drivers
-Mess with graphics driver/control settings.
-Check/uncheck framerate same as source/display in XBMC

Thanks for the quick response. I will convert the video to an MKV, currently it is an ISO, and try it in VLC and Media player classic. I am currently looking for updated drivers. I'll try the other items once I finish the driver search and will report back with what I find.

having some problems. Just built an HTPC (Asrock 75M FM2 board, AMD 5400K) outputting via HDMI to a Pioneer SC-05 AVR to a 5010 Pioneer Kuro. Running Windows 7 64-bit

TrueHD dropouts constantly while bitstreaming.

Also I cannot get the videos to all scale to fill the screen on left and right sides - so all videos are postage stamp type. No matter what I've done with the video card overscan settings and types of "zoom" in XBMC, no dice.

If you are using 'adjust display refresh rate to match video' setting, you will have to set overscan (in CCC) for each individual refresh rate you use - 23, 25, 50, 60 etc.

Any idea how I do this? I read that same thing last night but went into settings of CC (not sure where you get the extra "C", lol) and I could not find how to set different overscan for different hz. This does not seem like an overscan issue - the amount of border all the way around is like 2 inches on a 50" display. It just seems like it's not scaling to fill the window.

ccc = catalyst control centre

make sure tv is set to display full or 1:1 pixels.

on the display settings, change the refresh rate, apply, then set the scaling all the way to the right, i.e. no underscan. (although sometimes i notice that for me full screen can be 3 notches from the right.)
change to next refresh rate, apply, change scaling again.
repeat for all refresh rates available.

Thanks, I'll try it. Mine says AMD Control Center I think, not Catalyst. Catalyst is what updated my drivers.

May well do - but they are one in the same

aliaskary77 is correct, just remember to save after each overscan/refresh rate change.

Is there any advantage to using XMBC with Win7 over using it with XP (or Vista)?

I'm considering seperating out my Live/Recorded TV and my Movie/TV shows onto two different machines due to massive frustation with CopyOnce shows. Essentially I am thinking that at my two locations, I just drop an Extender, put the HTPC into a VirtualPC that does nothing but record TV and serve the extenders, then drop another device at each location (or maybe share between the two once machine) to handle all my movies (mostly in DVD or ripped Blu-Ray format) and TV shows. So I was thinking of returning to XMBC (yes, had an original XBox with it!) for that.

I have a copy of TMT5, which the site says is compatible with XP. XP is pretty easy to strip down to a minimalist install as well, unlike 7. If I am literally only going to being using this machine to run XBMC, is there any reason I should not use XP instead of getting another 7 license? (I'd use Linux or OpenElec, but I want the full Blu-Ray support you get with an external player like TMT5).

IIRC XP could handle doing dual audio out as well, something 7 seems to be restricted on, which would seem an advantage for my pending setup.

Thanks for any advice!

check out XBMC Boss if you upgrade to Windows 8:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146485

Description
XBMC Boss goes beyond remote controlling your XBMC server. You'll be delighted when browsing your libraries and discover full screen fan artwork, cast information, and lastfm descriptions. You'll love being able to navigate your entire media library without interrupting your currently playing media and being able to leave your media server's screen turned off while still being able to control your music listening experience.

Currently supports XBMC V11.0 "Eden" and V12.0 "Frodo" Beta 1

Privacy Policy:
XBMC Boss communicates with your XBMC server to retrieve information about your media library (for example: music, tv shows, and movies) and additional information that XBMC already retrieved for you (for example: album covers, tv show banner art, and IMDB plot outline and rating). XBMC Boss also retrieves additional information from third party services such as album descriptions and artwork from Lastfm and fanarttv, but doesn't require you to create an account to identify yourself to these third party services.

Features

• Main page with most recently added content gets you where you want to be quickly
• Setup tutorial to get everything configured painlessly
• Controls to play/pause, stop, play previous/next, mute/unmute, scan library for audio or video, and quickly navigate to your music, TV shows, or movies
• Simply begin typing in the music, TV shows, or movies listing pages to search
• Zoom out from the Music, Movies or TV Show pages by pinching screen (or Ctrl+Mouse Wheel Down) to quickly navigate large collections
• Supports Windows Search across your XBMC library content
• Artist thumbnails and fanart provided by last.fm and fanart.tv
• "Now Playing" screen shows currently playing media and buttons to manually control XBMC
• Supports multiple connections so you can control all your XBMC servers with one device
• Supports both XBMC v11.0 'Eden' and the currently-in-development XBMC v12.0 'Frodo'

Edited by onlysublime - 1/3/13 at 8:01pm

Not sure it's going to make much difference if you set the 7 theme to basic (turn off aero) I would think you could strip down 7 about the same as XP. 7 does have WASAPI as an alternative to DirectSound but I don't know if that does anything in your configuration.

scott s.
.

I tried to setup Frodo RC3 today with MySQL, and gave up after a while. Probably missing some settings in advancedsettings.xml, but the wiki is not very helpful, and I really don't understand why XBMC is not putting more effort into a server.

 

In contrast, Plex Media Server is a breeze to setup and very intuitive.

I banged my head against that wall yesterday. I finally used the loopback IP address (127.0.0.1) in the configuration rather than "localhost" and it worked fine. I could have sworn in Eden you could use localhost.

Here's what I added to my advancedsettings.xml (with the actual password of course):
Assuming the xbmc user in MySQL has enough privileges to create the necessary databases, all you should have to do is launch XBMC and all the databases and tables will get created.

I'm running into audio/video sync problems. It seems to occur when my panel adjusts to 24Hz. Otherwise, when I just play all content at 60Hz (without any panel adjustment) there doesn't seem to be any sync problems. Anyone know of any fixes to this irritating issue?

Set the audio sync to use Audio Clock if you are bitstreaming. Seemed to fix it for me.

None of the Audio Sync options have any effect on sync problems in bitstream mode, only where xbmc is decoding the Audio stream within the player and even then they have been reported as broken for the best part of a year. Have a look at the wiki, under advancedsettings.xml and video latency, this setting will allow you to set up a global delay based on the fps of the file - 24 in your case.If the delay isn't the same across your 24fps files, then you are stuck with it I'm afraid.

This has been reported many times to the devs, but none can reproduce, therefore no fix.

I am running XBMC 12 Frodo RC2.

I am having trouble with playing the right video stream for a Blu Ray movie. It defaults to the movie + director's commentary mode for the video.

On TMT5 you can choose the video stream to play, is there such a function in XBMC?

After much work re-installing drivers, changing formats, using other players, etc., the only conclusion I can come to is it is the XBMC player. VLC, Media Player Classic, PowerDVD 10, and others all play the file without issue. XBMC works well on other machines with a different card.

If you are using a 1:1 rip of the disk as an ISO, then XBMC chooses the biggest file in the ISO. Battleship is an example of a disk where the commentary file is bigger than the main movie. I've never tried with a physical disk but I would assume it would do the same thing given there aren't any movie menus.

Has anyone found a skin or workaround to the default Frodo EPG?

Coming from just the stock WMC guide (which looks polished to me), the XBMC guide looks like a finger painting

It's clear that the polished look was not a part of the initial release, but I figure someone here might know of a better looking skin or way to improve the default appearance

For me it's particular ugly because there aren't any borders around each individual show. It's like text floating in space. I asked about this in three different areas of the XBMC forum, and no one hardly responded or cared. It almost feels like no XBMC users actually use the EPG.

I saw your XBMC forums posts. I'm not sure that many dedicated XBMC folks are really using the PVR addons at all

Also, the forum is pretty big, and I think the devs have private forums in there as well

I agree that it's floating around, there is also no color/shading support to group entries and make them look more like Dish Network / Uverse / WMC, by default it takes up the entire screen without any option to change size, it's really just not on par with what you get in your other XBMC sections

Honestly the crap Scientific Atlantia DVR boxes have better looking guides and they are the standard for bad looking guides

Eek, just looked over at the XBMC PVR subforum again. Seems completely dead there. So many threads without any replies.

It just seems so strange considering the fanfare around the PVR support. No one seems to be using it. I guess it might take off once XBMC 12.0 is officially released.

I have the same problem, did you figure out a fix for it?