ExternalDisplay New Release - (MediaPortal MiniDisplay Port)

[liteswap]

ExternalDisplay displays PVRX2 information like channel details, music details, next recordings etc, on various LCD / VFD displays usually fitted into the HTPC case.

Thanks Ralphy - I gathered as much

What I'd appreciate is a bit of documentation - can you point me to it, please? Thanks.

[marc]

After a promissing start where there seemed to be info on the display but the it looked like all of the display was on but there seemed like there was some more info in brighter writing over the top. But after a reboot I seem to be almost back square one of a blank display. The test display option dosn't crash anymore and lights all of the display elements up as I would expect so its heading in the right direction. Should I have the force graphical text option selected? I have tried it both ways without success. Is there any other non default settings you would recomend I should have set with this type of display?

I have included the logs in the hope it has another lead.

[ralphy]

Thanks Ralphy - I gathered as much

What I'd appreciate is a bit of documentation - can you point me to it, please? Thanks.

I am afraid the only limited documentation is in the Readme in the installer, and the thread in this forum, and at MediaPortal.

After a promissing start where there seemed to be info on the display but the it looked like all of the display was on but there seemed like there was some more info in brighter writing over the top. But after a reboot I seem to be almost back square one of a blank display. The test display option dosn't crash anymore and lights all of the display elements up as I would expect so its heading in the right direction. Should I have the force graphical text option selected? I have tried it both ways without success. Is there any other non default settings you would recomend I should have set with this type of display?

I have included the logs in the hope it has another lead.

The decription of the promising start suggests that the contrast level was set too high. Indeed, looking at the logs suggests a value of 63 - I use 33, but find that the brightness is very low.

The test display options should also cycle through some text in the display, as well as show all the icons. If the contrast level is too high, then you may not be able to read the displayed text.

Please remove C:\Program Files\Devnz\GBPVR\plugins\ExternalDisplay\old ExternalDisplay.dll (change the name to have any extension but .dll !). This causes two instances of the plugin to be loaded. I was really confused at some error messages appearing that were not there before, and the duplication of log messages, but with different thread numbers. Maybe that will get things working.

[marc]

Thanks Ralphy your a star you solved it despite me making it more difficult for you.

Removed the old .dll and .xml file (which would explain how I started getting different results every time the machine was put into standby or rebooted) Reduced the contrast and brightness by 50 (to Backlight="59" Contrast="53") in ExternalDisplay.xml and have a nice clear display. (Don't know how the figures relate to the slider controls as I think they were somewhere in the middle. Probably different for all the different display types) All works as I would have hoped and I have learned to be a bit more careful in renaming .dll files!

Thanks again for your speedy help Ralphy for this excellent plugin you really should try and get a wiki entry for it as I'm sure that many people that this would find this really useful just don't know it exists. Most people probably only find it like me, they stumble on it trying to get another far more complicated option of several programs interfacing together working to show this info.

Marc

[ralphy]

Great! Glad it works. Pity I still haven't been able to resolve kindt nick's problem with the remote control integration.

New installer has been loaded in the OP.

Point taken about the wiki entry, but I wonder how many of the 150 plus downloads of the March version are still in active use ....

[dalabera]

Great! Glad it works. Pity I still haven't been able to resolve kindt nick's problem with the remote control integration.
New installer has been loaded in the OP.

Wao man, I cannot believe it!! My box is now fully loaded!!! Thanks, everything work as described.

The only thing that I will love to have as wishlist is to show the current timeline of any video or recording on display, not sure is there any helper function that will allow to access this information or maybe to display the last command issue inside gbpvr, like play,pause,stop,etc..

[aiacel]

I've tried this plug in with partial success. These are the issue:
1) It seem that the plug in and the imon conflictualy work. The display switch of enter and exit pvrx2.
2) the spin disk test has never worked during my attempt to.
3) Graphic equalizer won't work at all.
4) when the display is on it show sentences.

Any suggest is appreciated.

thank you
Aiace

[ralphy]

I've tried this plug in with partial success. These are the issue:
1) It seem that the plug in and the imon conflictualy work. The display switch of enter and exit pvrx2.
2) the spin disk test has never worked during my attempt to.
3) Graphic equalizer won't work at all.
4) when the display is on it show sentences.

Any suggest is appreciated.

thank you
Aiace

Thanks for the logs, however, you also need to post the GBPVR logs, as this is where most of the logging data is output (also set logging level to DEBUG in config)

I am sorry, but I am not sure that I fully understand the problem.

• iMON Frontview and External Display do not work at the same time. So when you are in PVRX2, you will see External Display data, but not Frontview data. When PVRX2 exits, you Frontview can regain control of the display.
  
• Not sure why Spin Disk doesn't work - I assume that when you run the test display, that the icons light up and words display ok.
  
• External Display does not support the GraphicEqualizer display. Interestingly, I have not been able to get frontview to display the Graphic Eq on my iMon display. It worked originally, but I think something has changed on my system that I have not bothered looking into further.
  
• When External Display is running in PVRX2, it will display 'sentences' (as I interpret your meaning). That is, words will display containing information sich as channel name and program name etc. So it sounds like it is working as designed in this regard.
  

It's been a long time between posts (let alone looking at the code).

[collin]

I was wondering if there was any plan to update this plugin to work with 1.4.7? It would be nice to have my display show something other than the time

[ryanmc]

im not sure of the current state of this plugin but if your lcd works with lcdsmartie you could use imon plugin and smartie to get t he info on lcd