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Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 479

post #14341 of 15483
9/6/12 at 8:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1427877/makemkv-page-suspended-no-download

Thanks.
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post #14342 of 15483
9/7/12 at 11:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAL7 View Post

What do y'all think of the following:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157325
It's an ASRock Z77 Northbridge Board for $94.99 -- and includes a free OCZ 64MB SSD ["OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (value:$59.99)"]. The only thing I see that limits the board is just 2 DDR slots, but it supports 2x8MB so memory upgrades would still be possible.
What about the SSD? If it's just for the OS, then the size is OK for me, but how about reliability?
Did anyone buy this board? I put it in my shopping cart, and 10 minutes later, when I tried to checkout, it was gone. It showed out-of-stock, but then a day later newegg says it's discontinued and may never be in stock.
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post #14343 of 15483
9/7/12 at 11:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAL7 View Post

Did anyone buy this board? I put it in my shopping cart, and 10 minutes later, when I tried to checkout, it was gone. It showed out-of-stock, but then a day later newegg says it's discontinued and may never be in stock.

you could always get this one as an alternative: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157296
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post #14344 of 15483
9/7/12 at 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jaboki View Post

you could always get this one as an alternative: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157296
The price (with SSD) is good, and thanks for the link, but I want to stay with a mATX form factor.
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post #14345 of 15483
9/7/12 at 8:09pm
Hi everyone! Me again.

Sorry for neglecting to update the Raspberry Pi vs. my HTPC story. Long story short, the guy never went to the trouble to actually turn his Pi into an HTPC to compare. Everyone at work was pretty impressed with my machine though. biggrin.gif

So, I've been living with this thing for a couple weeks now, and I have a love-hate relationship with XBMC. It does almost everything I want it to, but it is so fricking FRUSTRATING sometimes with the way it works.

Here are some of my issues:

1. I have my media in a few separate folders, and I would like to have them show up on the main menu that way: Movies, Kids Movies, TV Shows, Kids TV, Christmas Movies. It was easy enough to create the "playlists" for the Kids Movies and the Christmas Movies, but all of those titles still show up in my main Movies section as well. I can't figure out how to fix that.

2. I would like to have the rotating fan art backgrounds to my "playlist" folders as well as the main Movie and TV Shows folders. I can't figure out how to do that.

3. I have a lot of trouble with XBMC finding and importing new content that I add.

4. I haven't really dabbled in the Pictures or Music sections yet, and don't know if I will. I did try to add my DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince mp3s to XBMC, but the albums never showed up right in once you clicked on Music and there was never any album covers or metadata associated with anything. I gave up on that right away.

5. Some of the MVK files I have don't show up. In my Kids Movies folder, I have Garfield A Tale of Two Kitties, and it doesn't show up anywhere in XBMC (however it imports and plays just fine in WMC-MB - more on that in a bit).

6. A lot of my movies show up twice in XBMC.even though there is only one folder for them on the media drive, with only one MKV file in each folder. frown.gif



I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any help for me, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Matt
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post #14346 of 15483
9/7/12 at 9:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thenewguy023 View Post

Just purchased all of this for my first HTPC build.
Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor G630 2.7GHz 3MB $66 amazon
SilverStone Front Panel and SECC Body Micro ATX HTPC Computer Case GD04B $100 amazon
Western Digital 2 TB WD Green SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache $110 amazon
LG Electronics UH12LS29 Black 12x Blu-Ray Drive $60 amazon
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (Full) System Builder DVD 1 Pack $91 amazon
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $25 newegg
ASRock Z77M LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard $95 newegg
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $0 (free) w/motherboard plus $10 rebate (-$10) newegg
Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual TV Tuner $90 amazon
Terk Technology HDTVi VHF/UHF HDTV Indoor Antenna $26 amazon
SeaSonic S12II 380B 380W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply $54 newegg

I finally had some time to put the HTPC listed above together this evening. It powered up however I was not getting a signal via VGA to the monitor. I powered down and tried to restart using a DVI cable and about 5 seconds after powering on I heard a loud popping noise from the PSU and everything powered down. I assume the power supply is toast but I had a few questions.
- Any idea why I was not getting a video signal?
- If not a faulty unit, what may have caused the PSU to fail so quickly? (I'd hate to blow up another one)

Thanks
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post #14347 of 15483
9/8/12 at 12:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Hi everyone! Me again.
Sorry for neglecting to update the Raspberry Pi vs. my HTPC story. Long story short, the guy never went to the trouble to actually turn his Pi into an HTPC to compare. Everyone at work was pretty impressed with my machine though. biggrin.gif
So, I've been living with this thing for a couple weeks now, and I have a love-hate relationship with XBMC. It does almost everything I want it to, but it is so fricking FRUSTRATING sometimes with the way it works.
Here are some of my issues:
1. I have my media in a few separate folders, and I would like to have them show up on the main menu that way: Movies, Kids Movies, TV Shows, Kids TV, Christmas Movies. It was easy enough to create the "playlists" for the Kids Movies and the Christmas Movies, but all of those titles still show up in my main Movies section as well. I can't figure out how to fix that.
2. I would like to have the rotating fan art backgrounds to my "playlist" folders as well as the main Movie and TV Shows folders. I can't figure out how to do that.
3. I have a lot of trouble with XBMC finding and importing new content that I add.
4. I haven't really dabbled in the Pictures or Music sections yet, and don't know if I will. I did try to add my DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince mp3s to XBMC, but the albums never showed up right in once you clicked on Music and there was never any album covers or metadata associated with anything. I gave up on that right away.
5. Some of the MVK files I have don't show up. In my Kids Movies folder, I have Garfield A Tale of Two Kitties, and it doesn't show up anywhere in XBMC (however it imports and plays just fine in WMC-MB - more on that in a bit).
6. A lot of my movies show up twice in XBMC.even though there is only one folder for them on the media drive, with only one MKV file in each folder. frown.gif

I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any help for me, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Matt


I'm a XBMC newbie myself but I can answer #6 for ya. You have to clean your library, that's done through settings>video>clean library.
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post #14348 of 15483
9/8/12 at 6:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Hi everyone! Me again.
Sorry for neglecting to update the Raspberry Pi vs. my HTPC story. Long story short, the guy never went to the trouble to actually turn his Pi into an HTPC to compare. Everyone at work was pretty impressed with my machine though. biggrin.gif
So, I've been living with this thing for a couple weeks now, and I have a love-hate relationship with XBMC. It does almost everything I want it to, but it is so fricking FRUSTRATING sometimes with the way it works.
Here are some of my issues:
1. I have my media in a few separate folders, and I would like to have them show up on the main menu that way: Movies, Kids Movies, TV Shows, Kids TV, Christmas Movies. It was easy enough to create the "playlists" for the Kids Movies and the Christmas Movies, but all of those titles still show up in my main Movies section as well. I can't figure out how to fix that.
2. I would like to have the rotating fan art backgrounds to my "playlist" folders as well as the main Movie and TV Shows folders. I can't figure out how to do that.
3. I have a lot of trouble with XBMC finding and importing new content that I add.
4. I haven't really dabbled in the Pictures or Music sections yet, and don't know if I will. I did try to add my DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince mp3s to XBMC, but the albums never showed up right in once you clicked on Music and there was never any album covers or metadata associated with anything. I gave up on that right away.
5. Some of the MVK files I have don't show up. In my Kids Movies folder, I have Garfield A Tale of Two Kitties, and it doesn't show up anywhere in XBMC (however it imports and plays just fine in WMC-MB - more on that in a bit).
6. A lot of my movies show up twice in XBMC.even though there is only one folder for them on the media drive, with only one MKV file in each folder. frown.gif

I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any help for me, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Matt

1) You can`t, it`s a limitation of the XBMC library. Something called Video Nodes is being worked on in the next version (Frodo) to adress this. Smart Playlists are the only option right now.

3) Did you respect the naming conventions for the content that isn`t showing up? Can you give me an example of some content that isn`t importing ? (screenshot or name of the folder + movie)

6) Name it "Garfield 2 - A Tail of Two Kitties" and it will show up, just tested it right now with a dummy mkv. See here for alternative titles : http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9513-garfield-a-tail-of-two-kitties . Since you can`t put ":" in the filename due to the Windows limitation regarding this character , you usually need to use "-" .

7) Clean the library. If you renamed an MKV that was already added, it will show up twice since it thinks it`s a new movie. There is also an advanced setting which you can use to tell XBMC to clean the library upon update, but it`s hidden for a specific reason : if your server or NAS is offline while it updates, it will clean everything in the library, deleting everything since it can`t access the data on the server.
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post #14349 of 15483
9/8/12 at 8:48am
Woohoo!! I knew you fine folks would help me out.

The "Clean Library" trick worked wonders.

Good to know the Frodo version of XBMC is addressing keeping movies in different folders. It's really the ONLY thing I'm thinking about switching to WMC-MB for. Or maybe Plex.

I'll try to go through my movies and find examples of stuff that's not importing, but since we've already mentioned Garfield, here's the screenshots...







Is the "Shutdown -> Refresh" command how you "Update" your library?

Thanks!

Matt
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post #14350 of 15483
9/8/12 at 9:02am
Hm, I guess I could just create another Playlist and put everything BUT the kids movies into it, and then just deactivate the default "Movies" section. That seems like a lot of work, but would also allow me to really break them all out even more. Tempting....

Another question -

In my TV shows section, I have some Comedy Central Roasts and the fan art that shows up on the main menu is a picture of Pamela Anderson even though we don't have that Roast in there. My wife asked me if I can remove that picture from the rotating fanart, so I went into the folder and deleted it twice (it was in there as Fanart and Backdrop). But it STILL shows up in the rotating fan art while the main menu is on the TV Shows category. Why is that? Is there somewhere else it's living that I need to delete it from? I poked around the XBMC folders on the C: drive but don't see backdrops anywhere.

Thanks again!

Matt



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post #14351 of 15483
9/8/12 at 10:43am
Assassin, i'm going through your guides and I couldn't find how to set up a RAID. I pretty much built your recommended system of Sandy bridge i3, H67M-ITX motherboard, windows 7. I have 2 TB HDD right now and i just bought a 3TB HDD that i want to put in there as well. I have my whole system set up with usenet, WMC, and mediabrowser so it downloads into 1 folder then auto places everything in is appropriate location. By adding a different HDD i will have a second drive duplicating my file structure. Is there any way to avoid this where I can use both drives as 1 file structure?
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post #14352 of 15483
9/8/12 at 11:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rfisc270 View Post

Assassin, i'm going through your guides and I couldn't find how to set up a RAID. I pretty much built your recommended system of Sandy bridge i3, H67M-ITX motherboard, windows 7. I have 2 TB HDD right now and i just bought a 3TB HDD that i want to put in there as well. I have my whole system set up with usenet, WMC, and mediabrowser so it downloads into 1 folder then auto places everything in is appropriate location. By adding a different HDD i will have a second drive duplicating my file structure. Is there any way to avoid this where I can use both drives as 1 file structure?

Any Raid supported guides are in here . Your not going to find guides in there for "hardware RAID" . Just fyi

http://www.assassinserver.com/
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post #14353 of 15483
9/8/12 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Woohoo!! I knew you fine folks would help me out.
The "Clean Library" trick worked wonders.
Good to know the Frodo version of XBMC is addressing keeping movies in different folders. It's really the ONLY thing I'm thinking about switching to WMC-MB for. Or maybe Plex.
I'll try to go through my movies and find examples of stuff that's not importing, but since we've already mentioned Garfield, here's the screenshots...



Is the "Shutdown -> Refresh" command how you "Update" your library?
Thanks!
Matt

Nope, the update library is available by using the context menu ("C" button on the keyboard) , like below :



If you don`t update the library, new content will not show up, that`s probably the issue, because your file/folder structure is fine. There are also other option likle having XBMC update the library on startup (or when the HTPC wakes ip from sleep), using this option in Settings -> Video -> Library



There is also the Library Watchdog script in Addons -> Programs, which can update the library in real-time as long as XBMC is running (so if XBMC is running, and you put in a new movie, it will update)
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post #14354 of 15483
9/8/12 at 11:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Hm, I guess I could just create another Playlist and put everything BUT the kids movies into it, and then just deactivate the default "Movies" section. That seems like a lot of work, but would also allow me to really break them all out even more. Tempting....
Another question -
In my TV shows section, I have some Comedy Central Roasts and the fan art that shows up on the main menu is a picture of Pamela Anderson even though we don't have that Roast in there. My wife asked me if I can remove that picture from the rotating fanart, so I went into the folder and deleted it twice (it was in there as Fanart and Backdrop). But it STILL shows up in the rotating fan art while the main menu is on the TV Shows category. Why is that? Is there somewhere else it's living that I need to delete it from? I poked around the XBMC folders on the C: drive but don't see backdrops anywhere.
Thanks again!
Matt


Because it is still probably in the XBMC database, so do a Clean Library and it should go away smile.gif .
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post #14355 of 15483
9/8/12 at 2:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by flocko View Post

Any Raid supported guides are in here . Your not going to find guides in there for "hardware RAID" . Just fyi
http://www.assassinserver.com/

So wait, I have to pay for for these guides separate?
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post #14356 of 15483
9/8/12 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAL7 View Post

The price (with SSD) is good, and thanks for the link, but I want to stay with a mATX form factor.
The Z77M with SSD came back in stock at NewEgg, so I grabbed one this afternoon.
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post #14357 of 15483
9/8/12 at 3:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rfisc270 View Post

So wait, I have to pay for for these guides separate?

All Day biggrin.gif
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post #14358 of 15483
9/8/12 at 8:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rfisc270 View Post

Assassin, i'm going through your guides and I couldn't find how to set up a RAID. I pretty much built your recommended system of Sandy bridge i3, H67M-ITX motherboard, windows 7. I have 2 TB HDD right now and i just bought a 3TB HDD that i want to put in there as well. I have my whole system set up with usenet, WMC, and mediabrowser so it downloads into 1 folder then auto places everything in is appropriate location. By adding a different HDD i will have a second drive duplicating my file structure. Is there any way to avoid this where I can use both drives as 1 file structure?

For various reasons I don't recommend hardware raid (or "fake raid" which is what most motherboards use) at all.
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post #14359 of 15483
9/8/12 at 9:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Nope, the update library is available by using the context menu ("C" button on the keyboard) , like below :

If you don`t update the library, new content will not show up, that`s probably the issue, because your file/folder structure is fine. There are also other option likle having XBMC update the library on startup (or when the HTPC wakes ip from sleep), using this option in Settings -> Video -> Library

There is also the Library Watchdog script in Addons -> Programs, which can update the library in real-time as long as XBMC is running (so if XBMC is running, and you put in a new movie, it will update)

Hm. I did the "update library" from the context menu, and I also already had the "update library on startup" option turned on, but I still can't get the Garfield movie to show up. Oh well, I'm sure that movie sucks anyway. I just hope I don't have this problem with anything else I want to add.
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post #14360 of 15483
9/8/12 at 9:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rfisc270 View Post

So wait, I have to pay for for these guides separate?

You don't HAVE to. You could choose to figure it all out on your own.
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post #14361 of 15483
9/8/12 at 9:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Because it is still probably in the XBMC database, so do a Clean Library and it should go away smile.gif .

"Clean LIbrary" still doesn't get rid of it.

With all the problems I'm having with XBMC lately, I'm tempted to just reformat the SSD, reinstall Windows and start from scratch.

To be clear, I can totally do this without screwing with my Media HD, right?

Maybe I'll try Plex first to see if I like that any better. I think I saw that I can download an Android app to stream my content using Plex to my Galaxy Nexus. Tempting....
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post #14362 of 15483
9/8/12 at 10:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Hm. I did the "update library" from the context menu, and I also already had the "update library on startup" option turned on, but I still can't get the Garfield movie to show up. Oh well, I'm sure that movie sucks anyway. I just hope I don't have this problem with anything else I want to add.

Name the movie file (MKV) "Garfield 2 - A Tail of Two Kitties". I think XBMC first searches for the movie name in the filename, unless you specify otherwise in the options when you add a folder to the library. I named it this way (the MKV, not the folder) and it shows up. And delete that movie.nfo and the othyer metadata downloaded by Media Center Master from the folder, just to be sure it doesn`t interfere.




Edited by GreenEyez - 9/8/12 at 10:22pm
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post #14363 of 15483
9/8/12 at 10:13pm
XBMC must have a protection filter. I am guessing the sequel is as bad as the first orange cat and the software is protecting your eyes.
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post #14364 of 15483
9/8/12 at 10:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lespurgeon View Post

XBMC must have a protection filter. I am guessing the sequel is as bad as the first orange cat and the software is protecting your eyes.

Unfortunately, no, it doesn`t frown.gif, see pic for proof

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post #14365 of 15483
9/8/12 at 10:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

Hi everyone! Me again.
Sorry for neglecting to update the Raspberry Pi vs. my HTPC story. Long story short, the guy never went to the trouble to actually turn his Pi into an HTPC to compare. Everyone at work was pretty impressed with my machine though. biggrin.gif
So, I've been living with this thing for a couple weeks now, and I have a love-hate relationship with XBMC. It does almost everything I want it to, but it is so fricking FRUSTRATING sometimes with the way it works.
Here are some of my issues:
1. I have my media in a few separate folders, and I would like to have them show up on the main menu that way: Movies, Kids Movies, TV Shows, Kids TV, Christmas Movies. It was easy enough to create the "playlists" for the Kids Movies and the Christmas Movies, but all of those titles still show up in my main Movies section as well. I can't figure out how to fix that.
2. I would like to have the rotating fan art backgrounds to my "playlist" folders as well as the main Movie and TV Shows folders. I can't figure out how to do that.
3. I have a lot of trouble with XBMC finding and importing new content that I add.
4. I haven't really dabbled in the Pictures or Music sections yet, and don't know if I will. I did try to add my DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince mp3s to XBMC, but the albums never showed up right in once you clicked on Music and there was never any album covers or metadata associated with anything. I gave up on that right away.
5. Some of the MVK files I have don't show up. In my Kids Movies folder, I have Garfield A Tale of Two Kitties, and it doesn't show up anywhere in XBMC (however it imports and plays just fine in WMC-MB - more on that in a bit).
6. A lot of my movies show up twice in XBMC.even though there is only one folder for them on the media drive, with only one MKV file in each folder. frown.gif

I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any help for me, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Matt

I've been using Media Browser for movies and WMC for liveTV, recordedTV, and music for a year now. It does everything you are asking for above, easily with no issues. I am also excited about setting up the Ceton Companion App for iPad control as it looks like a good WMC controller to work in addition to my Remote Potato App for streaming to my iPad and iPhone.
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post #14366 of 15483
9/9/12 at 7:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lespurgeon View Post

XBMC must have a protection filter. I am guessing the sequel is as bad as the first orange cat and the software is protecting your eyes.

It may just be a link to rottentomatoes, which gave the first one a 15%, the second, 11%. Ouch.

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post #14367 of 15483
9/9/12 at 11:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCarner View Post

but I still can't get the Garfield movie to show up. Oh well, I'm sure that movie sucks anyway.


I had a really good laugh, LOL.
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post #14368 of 15483
9/10/12 at 7:44am
Hi,

My setup is:

Intel MB with i3 2120 > Denon 1713 > Optoma HD66.

If I dont select the denon as video output, the audio does not appear as an option. How do I only have the audio in this configuration?
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post #14369 of 15483
9/11/12 at 9:47am
I recently bought a DVD boxed set of a TV series. I want to be able to listen to the audio commentary on some episodes.

After some research I found that I can change the audio track while watching the DVD by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (other useful keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+U for sub titles and Ctrl+Shift+M for disc menu, I've added these as buttons on my Harmony 1)

I want to confirm that there is no way to access secondary audio tracks on an MKV with media browser. From the research I have done, this is not supported in media browser.


I wish there was a way I could browse to this file with media browser, then launch it in VLC player (which will allow me to change the audio track) My only alternatives now are to either take out the DVD, or manually browse the folder structure and open the file with VLC
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post #14370 of 15483
9/12/12 at 7:03am
Coverart - Is there a reason I don't see the clear case available in coverart 3.1.1.5?
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