2012-02-22, 19:35
This is for all the folks that use XBMC on Windows and also own a DUNE media player….
What does it do:
DuneConsole can be used as an external player for XBMC, you simply start a movie in the XBMC GUI and your DUNE media player will start playing that movie.
Note: I don’t have any affiliation with DUNE other than using it for my movie collection
Wouldn’t it be nice to use XBMC as a frontend for your DUNE mediaplayer?!
I am guessing that not many people use a dedicated XBMC HTPC and also own a DUNE mediaplayer, but I do.
A few years ago I sold my HTPC and bought a DUNE 3.0, mainly for his ability to play my bluray ISO’s and MKV media files without the hassle a HTPC gives.
With the HTPC I always ran into issues when playing media files, like codec issues, frame rate issues, audio sync issues, subtitle support, subtitle placement etc. The diehards know what I am talking about.
Anyway I had enough of it, I just wanted to play a movie when I felt like it, without solving a video/audio issue first. Hence when I was going to watch a movie with my wife, I told her to hold off for 30 min, so I could first “test” the movie.
With the DUNE this time consuming “fiddling around” was finally a part of history… it played all of my 1:1 bluray images and MKV files, supported HD audio and had working subtitle support. Ok it was a bit slow when loading bluray images and it does lack a fine interface, but it got the job done and actually played a movie without having to troubleshoot first.
Then I god bored … I desired the great interface that my old HTPC had. I just missed that, and with time XBMC got better and better as did the PC hardware. Video cards with HD audio support on HDMI 1.3. en now even HDMI 1.4a support for 3D bluray purposes. As for the interface the DUNE got a little better, with flash support and 3rd party programs like Yadis and Zappiti, but nowhere near XBMC’s gui experience..
So I came up with the idea to use XBMC’s external player feature to start playback on my DUNE mediaplayer. I first tried it with success using DOS batch files (that is how far my program abilities goes), but it lacked some finesse. Then I ask “Gennoise” the programmer of “Dune Control For Windows” on the MPCCLUB forum, if he could make his program to support command line commands.
See: http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27562 post #68.
Gennoise quickly made “DuneConsole.exe” a fact. You can use this little program as an external player for XBMC, it will connect to the DUNE and starts playing the movie you selected within XBMC.
You might think that this will become obsolete now that there is a beta build with HD audio support, and yes you might be right…if everything is working fine. But unfortunately frame rate/shutter, audio sync issues etc. still can happen. Additional, the DUNE will show full java bluray menus which isn’t possible with XBMC, unless you use commercial software for playing bluray as an external player for XBMC.
So now to the how it works part:
Download the latest “duneconsole” package from this site, and hurry before “they” close it down:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14454764/DuneRem...onsole.zip
It contains an executable and a .dll file.
The rest is quite straight forward, but you have to take into account the following:
The command line arguments supported by DuneConsole are:
-target=<DUNE IP> -type=< file/dvd/bluray> -MediaURL=<UNC (\\host\path) PATH to media file>
DuneConsole will automatically convert the UNC path notation to the smb-URIs (smb://host/path) notation that the DUNE player understands.
Note: If you need to login to your share then I recommend to add your media location (SMB or NFS) manually in XBMC. That way you are able to apply the username and password and XBMC will present them to the external player.
Example:
Edit the sources.xml and mediasources.xml in our XBMC user directory with notepad++ .
See the wike again on how to locate these files:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Userdata
It should read something like this for your SMB share:
“smb://<username>:<password>@SERVER-01/MOVIES/ “
Then read the following XBMC wiki page on how to add external players in XBMC:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=External_players
I only want to play the bluray ISO files with the DUNE, bluray 3D ISO files still need to be played with the HTPC using an 3rd party player.
I renamed all my bluray ISO files to: “<movie title>.bluray.iso” . So when XBMC detects the “bluray” keyword it executes my batch file: DuneConsoleBluray.bat located in c:\XBMC\DuneConsole
Note: This XBMC directory is just a directory I created to store the needed files.
My playercorefactory.xml file looks like this:
The “DuneConsoleBluray.bat” batch file is used to execute the actual “DuneConsole.exe” program. This is necessary because of the command line options that needs to be used.
The batch file looks like this:
If you need the dune to playback other media files then you have to make a rule in the “playercorefactory.xml” for each file type and a different batch file for each file type (bluray/file/dvd).
For MKV’s the batch file should be changed to read:
That should do the trick.
Off course you should change your video display or receiver input to the DUNE player. You can do this manually (by IR remote or APP, depending on your display/receiver capabilities) or you can automate this.
For automation I use the free program “EventGhost” http://www.eventghost.org/
My receiver can be controlled over the network. EventGhost can change the input of my receiver when the process “duneconsole.exe” starts and switches back the input to the HTPC when the process “duneconsole.exe” is killed.
So if your video display or receiver can be controlled over the network or over a RS232 cable, look into EventGhost and see if there is a plugin that supports your setup. In general you could use a HTTP to Infra Red module (like the http://www.globalcache.nl/ products) to automate the input switching.
Some additional Information and Caveats:
DuneConsole related:'
Currently there are some known issues with “duneconsole” :
- If during playback “duneconsole.exe” misses a icmp PING the program stops with an error message. This is likely to happen over wi-fi connections, but unlikely over a wired connection.
In this case since the program does not quit, the automated switch back does not occur when the movie ends.
-When the DUNE loads a bluray image, it may occur that “duneconsole.exe” thinks that playback has stopped and exits. There is currently a 3 second grace period, but in some cases this is not enough.
Windows related:
When starting an external batch program from XBMC even when it is minimized it still can show the taskbar. This is annoying and can bring XBMC out of focus.
I solved this by using a little tool called “Taskbar Eliminator”. I bought the “super-efficient” build which comes with two executable’s. One that removes the taskbar and one that restores is.
You can also try the free version at: http://www.aviassin.com/taskbareliminator
When starting XBMC, EventGhost executes the first to remove the Taskbar, and when XBMC exits it will restore the taskbar. No need for a Taskbar anyway when using XBMC in fullscreen mode.
Any feedback or good ideas are welcome
What does it do:
DuneConsole can be used as an external player for XBMC, you simply start a movie in the XBMC GUI and your DUNE media player will start playing that movie.
Note: I don’t have any affiliation with DUNE other than using it for my movie collection
Wouldn’t it be nice to use XBMC as a frontend for your DUNE mediaplayer?!
I am guessing that not many people use a dedicated XBMC HTPC and also own a DUNE mediaplayer, but I do.
A few years ago I sold my HTPC and bought a DUNE 3.0, mainly for his ability to play my bluray ISO’s and MKV media files without the hassle a HTPC gives.
With the HTPC I always ran into issues when playing media files, like codec issues, frame rate issues, audio sync issues, subtitle support, subtitle placement etc. The diehards know what I am talking about.
Anyway I had enough of it, I just wanted to play a movie when I felt like it, without solving a video/audio issue first. Hence when I was going to watch a movie with my wife, I told her to hold off for 30 min, so I could first “test” the movie.
With the DUNE this time consuming “fiddling around” was finally a part of history… it played all of my 1:1 bluray images and MKV files, supported HD audio and had working subtitle support. Ok it was a bit slow when loading bluray images and it does lack a fine interface, but it got the job done and actually played a movie without having to troubleshoot first.
Then I god bored … I desired the great interface that my old HTPC had. I just missed that, and with time XBMC got better and better as did the PC hardware. Video cards with HD audio support on HDMI 1.3. en now even HDMI 1.4a support for 3D bluray purposes. As for the interface the DUNE got a little better, with flash support and 3rd party programs like Yadis and Zappiti, but nowhere near XBMC’s gui experience..
So I came up with the idea to use XBMC’s external player feature to start playback on my DUNE mediaplayer. I first tried it with success using DOS batch files (that is how far my program abilities goes), but it lacked some finesse. Then I ask “Gennoise” the programmer of “Dune Control For Windows” on the MPCCLUB forum, if he could make his program to support command line commands.
See: http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27562 post #68.
Gennoise quickly made “DuneConsole.exe” a fact. You can use this little program as an external player for XBMC, it will connect to the DUNE and starts playing the movie you selected within XBMC.
You might think that this will become obsolete now that there is a beta build with HD audio support, and yes you might be right…if everything is working fine. But unfortunately frame rate/shutter, audio sync issues etc. still can happen. Additional, the DUNE will show full java bluray menus which isn’t possible with XBMC, unless you use commercial software for playing bluray as an external player for XBMC.
So now to the how it works part:
Download the latest “duneconsole” package from this site, and hurry before “they” close it down:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14454764/DuneRem...onsole.zip
It contains an executable and a .dll file.
The rest is quite straight forward, but you have to take into account the following:
The command line arguments supported by DuneConsole are:
-target=<DUNE IP> -type=< file/dvd/bluray> -MediaURL=<UNC (\\host\path) PATH to media file>
DuneConsole will automatically convert the UNC path notation to the smb-URIs (smb://host/path) notation that the DUNE player understands.
Note: If you need to login to your share then I recommend to add your media location (SMB or NFS) manually in XBMC. That way you are able to apply the username and password and XBMC will present them to the external player.
Example:
Edit the sources.xml and mediasources.xml in our XBMC user directory with notepad++ .
See the wike again on how to locate these files:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Userdata
It should read something like this for your SMB share:
“smb://<username>:<password>@SERVER-01/MOVIES/ “
Then read the following XBMC wiki page on how to add external players in XBMC:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=External_players
I only want to play the bluray ISO files with the DUNE, bluray 3D ISO files still need to be played with the HTPC using an 3rd party player.
I renamed all my bluray ISO files to: “<movie title>.bluray.iso” . So when XBMC detects the “bluray” keyword it executes my batch file: DuneConsoleBluray.bat located in c:\XBMC\DuneConsole
Note: This XBMC directory is just a directory I created to store the needed files.
My playercorefactory.xml file looks like this:
Code:
<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="TMT5" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>C:\XBMC\Batch\XBMCmount.bat</filename>
<args>"{1}"</args>
<hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
<playcountminimumtime>600</playcountminimumtime>
</player>
<player name="DUNE-BLURAY" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>C:\XBMC\DuneConsole\DuneConsoleBluray.bat</filename>
<args>"{1}"</args>
<hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
<playcountminimumtime>600</playcountminimumtime>
</player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
<!-- Blu-rays -->
<rule filetypes="iso" filename=".*3dbd.*" player="TMT5"/>
<rule filetypes="iso" filename=".*bluray.*" player="DUNE-BLURAY"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>
The “DuneConsoleBluray.bat” batch file is used to execute the actual “DuneConsole.exe” program. This is necessary because of the command line options that needs to be used.
The batch file looks like this:
Code:
@echo off
start /WAIT C:\XBMC\DuneConsole\DuneConsole.exe -type=bluray -target=DUNE -MediaURL=%1
If you need the dune to playback other media files then you have to make a rule in the “playercorefactory.xml” for each file type and a different batch file for each file type (bluray/file/dvd).
For MKV’s the batch file should be changed to read:
Code:
@echo off
start /WAIT C:\XBMC\DuneConsole\DuneConsole.exe -type=file -target=DUNE -MediaURL=%1
That should do the trick.
Off course you should change your video display or receiver input to the DUNE player. You can do this manually (by IR remote or APP, depending on your display/receiver capabilities) or you can automate this.
For automation I use the free program “EventGhost” http://www.eventghost.org/
My receiver can be controlled over the network. EventGhost can change the input of my receiver when the process “duneconsole.exe” starts and switches back the input to the HTPC when the process “duneconsole.exe” is killed.
So if your video display or receiver can be controlled over the network or over a RS232 cable, look into EventGhost and see if there is a plugin that supports your setup. In general you could use a HTTP to Infra Red module (like the http://www.globalcache.nl/ products) to automate the input switching.
Some additional Information and Caveats:
DuneConsole related:'
Currently there are some known issues with “duneconsole” :
- If during playback “duneconsole.exe” misses a icmp PING the program stops with an error message. This is likely to happen over wi-fi connections, but unlikely over a wired connection.
In this case since the program does not quit, the automated switch back does not occur when the movie ends.
-When the DUNE loads a bluray image, it may occur that “duneconsole.exe” thinks that playback has stopped and exits. There is currently a 3 second grace period, but in some cases this is not enough.
Windows related:
When starting an external batch program from XBMC even when it is minimized it still can show the taskbar. This is annoying and can bring XBMC out of focus.
I solved this by using a little tool called “Taskbar Eliminator”. I bought the “super-efficient” build which comes with two executable’s. One that removes the taskbar and one that restores is.
You can also try the free version at: http://www.aviassin.com/taskbareliminator
When starting XBMC, EventGhost executes the first to remove the Taskbar, and when XBMC exits it will restore the taskbar. No need for a Taskbar anyway when using XBMC in fullscreen mode.
Any feedback or good ideas are welcome