Hi,


I have the following situation at home : A 42" plasma screen connected as secondary display and a 19" tft as primary display. I also have 2 soundcards, one going to the speakers in the 19" tft screen, and one going to our surround amplifier.

Now what was my problem, you can't assign a default display, nor a specific sounddriver tot MediaCenter. When I fire up MediaCenter I want it to start up on the secondary display, not maximized, but just big enough to fill the entire screen (this way you can still work with th mouse on the primary display) and I want MediaCenter to use the soundcard that's connected to the amplifier.

I searched and searched the registry to find out how to bind a specific sound card to MediaCenter, but had no luck. Then I found out that MC actually just takes the windows default at the moment MC is started. If you change the default soundcard after MC has started it has no effect whatsoever on MC!

So I made a launcher for MC that does the following :
 - Change the default soundcard to the one that goes to the amp
 - Start MC
 - Change the default soundcard again to the one you use for normal PC use
 - Resize and reposition MC so it fills up the secondary display nicely.

If you just replace the original exe with this launcher, you got yourself a nice soundcard and display binded MediaCenter :)


I'm just posting this here because I know some people were having the same probs as me, especially with the dual soundcard stuff....

It's gonna be finished saturday evening, and I'll post the source code and executable here then, if some people want it...



Greetz

Nice work. I'll check back Saturday!

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JuMz

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alrighty, so here's the source code!

Click me

I checked yesterday and it works perfectly for me!! Only have one problem, how can I map the green button on the remote to my launcher instead of ehshell.exe? If anyone happens to know this I would be greatly thankfull!!


greets

Robain:

alrighty, so here's the source code!

Click me

I checked yesterday and it works perfectly for me!! Only have one problem, how can I map the green button on the remote to my launcher instead of ehshell.exe? If anyone happens to know this I would be greatly thankfull!!


greets

 

What to do with source code???

can you help with my setup please?? i have dual output vga card. one vga connected to main monitor, while the other is connected to the TV.

thats uncompiled sourcecode, you have to compile it into an executable before you can use it. I sounds like he may post the exe file when he is finished

Is it possible to run MCE 2x, going to two different displays with a dual display setup?

hondaman:

Is it possible to run MCE 2x, going to two different displays with a dual display setup?

Yeah, click the Media Center icon on your desktop a couple of times quickly together..  :)

David Wright

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David Wright

Robain Wrote:

When I fire up MediaCenter I want it to start up on the secondary display, not maximized, but just big enough to fill the entire screen (this way you can still work with th mouse on the primary display)

Don't know if this helps but; I have noticed that if I start MCE maximised on the secondary display and I want to use the mouse on the primary display, if I hit the 'Windows Start Button' on the keyboard it then allows my mouse to move onto the primary display.

 

Regards,

John. 

 

I am totally intersted in this! I have the same exact situation and I can figure out how to map the green button to any other app other than eshell.exe.

Anyone have any suggestions?

BTW I bought UltraMon which allows you to create a "shortcut" that enables my second monitor, opens mce on that secondary monitor and then when I close MCE it turns the secondary monitor off again.

Only thing i need is to map the green button to the shortcut.

Are people still interested in this???

If so I could make a nice release so other people can use it too...



Greetz

Absolutely!  how would it work if there is only one sound card though?  I think it is probably a more common setup to have 2 monitors and 1 sound...

Im interested in this program

I currently have 2 sound cards and a setup where i have to switch by keyboard to and from tv, but no easy way to change sound

 

 

Well, I've been doing some research and found the following :

 - Ultramon : this is a program which allows you to let MC start up on a specific display, very handy application!!

 - MPTray : this little program steals the event that happens when someone clicks the green button on his remote. That would mean a launcher can be started when you click the green button on your remote! I'm currently speaking with the coder of this program to request if I may use his code and adapt it to our needs...

@ Epinaud :  For people with just one soundcard and dual screen the solution is very easy : http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

@ iascoot : I will make a compiled version this friday which will allow you to launch MC with the soundcard you wish. An edited version of MPTray will hopefully be ready by then too so you can map the green button on your remote to this launcher...



Greetz

Hi Robain,

I have the same situation and really appreciate your document on this.

Nanda

 

Hi Robain .... Do you get a chance to work on this. I would highly appreciate if you help me on this.