Playing full screen? What happened

[adrianrog]

Everyone,

My name is Adrian and this is my first post.

In case it matters, here's my hardware:

Dell Lattitude D610, 1.6ghz, 512mb, Hauppauge PVR2 USB2, Comcast Cable, direct, not using a cable box.

Everything was working OK, I was recording a show here and there and then playing them back. I was poking around and saw that the recorded files were pretty big, so I decide to start encoding the new recordings with DIVX. When I recorded my first one, it wouldn't play back, so I went to the DIVX web site and downloaded the codecs and player.

Now my recordings do play, but when I start them, GBPVR exits full screen and my start bar shows up at the bottom of the screen. The result of this is that the GBPVR screen is no longer selected and therefore it doesn't react to my remote. If I click on GBPVR, it goes back to full screen and I can re-use the screen again. The problem with this is that I have the computer connected to my TV and it's a pain to get up, open the laptop, and click the GBPVR screen so that I can use my remote.

Has anyone seen this behavior before? What's up?

Thanks in advance.

[psycik]

Some of the old xvid codecs used to run a tray application. COuld be that your divx codec is doing the same.

See if you can find some configuration option to turn off the tray app of divx.

[sub]

psycik is correct. Loss of focus is common with AVI files, and is caused by the divx decoder's tray icon stealing the focus. Two options, either uninstall the divx decoder and switch to an alternative decoder (like the xvid one), or look for the utility on the divx website for killing the tray icon

[adrianrog]

Thanks guys, I knew it had to be pretty simple. I'm assuming I'll need do download an XVID player from somewhere like I did DIVX? Is there any format that would be as efficient as DIVX that would play w/o special codecs? Maybe one of the Windows Media Player formats? What do most people do? Forgive me because I'm not a video expert and all this is new to me.

Thanks again,
Adrian

[sub]

The xvid decoder will probably be able to play any divx files you have, without the problem divx tray icon. http://www.koepi.info/Xvid-1.1.3-27042008.exe

[adrianrog]

Should I keep encoding w/ DivX or abandon it and start encoding with XVid?

How's the quality of each? What about file size?

[sub]

Up to you really. You can keep encoding with divx, or use xvid. The quality is pretty much the same.

[adrianrog]

Thank you very much, I appreciate the help.

[adrianrog]

I did have one other question. If I try to play a DVD, I just get a blank black screen. I have WinDVD installed, but I'm not sure if that's good enough.

[sub]

You can probably use WinDVD decoders, but make sure you select the decoders on the DVD tab, instead of relying on 'system default'.