I just can't get it to work, please Help

by **patonzon** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 1:46 pm

Hy guys,

yes I'm completely new to xlobby, but I downloaded it, installed it and fell in love. It just seems to be an amazing front end for my HTPC.

I followed the beginners guide but couldn't get it to work. I couldn't import my movies, only 2 of about 20. I managed to import my mp3's but I can't get Xlobby's player nor Zoomplayer to play my movies or music. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I just wouldn't like to give up on such wonderful software, but it just seems a bit complicated for me. Is there another guide I can read, for more ignorant users like me?

Thanks

by **Jay** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:18 pm

Can't help with movies since I don't do that.

I understand that Zoomplayer needs command line switches.

While you're waiting for someone knowledgable in those areas to answer, you can get some instant gratification by installing Winamp and giving the path to XL from the setup screen (F2).

by **Marbles_00** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:55 pm

Jay's right. Xlobby doesn't have an internal player to play music. It uses either Winamp or Foobar. Make sure you have one of those and that you have set up the proper path to the musicplayer .exe file in Xlobby setup (F2 for setup window then select the 'General' tab).

Usually if files have problems importing, it is a problem with the naming convention or with the tags. Verify that the movie files don't have any strange naming, i.e '*', '&', '$' etc. in the titles. The other thing is to verify that the database (in this case the movie.xml) has been setup to recognize the extension your looking for. This can be found in Setup/databases/Import then look at the General tab within the Import window...there will be an editable window titled Extensions.

Hope this was helpful.

Oh, and welcome to the world of Xlobby. Keep pluging at it, the rewards are worth the effort.

by **rembetis** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:36 pm

Just to follow up on what's been said... what format are the movies that didn't import saved in? You will need to be sure those extensions are in the **movie** import template. Go to F2 > Databases > Import, select "movies" from the dropdown menu and put those file endings in the extensions box.

It's also possible your folder heirarchy is jamming you up. The easiest way to do it is Movies > Name of Movie > file (for compressed formats or ISOs) or Movies > Name of Movie > VideoTS > DVD files. Anything deeper or shallower than that will probably require the use of metatags, which can be a huge can of worms so unless you have a compelling reason not to, I'd say use one of the above folder structures.

Once your databases are straight, playing the music or movie files is pretty straightforward. What skin are you using? Pretty sure the default (and many others) have Zoomplayer send messages built in. Winamp support is also default. For Foobar, you need the plugin (see plugins secition)

Hope that helps...

by **patonzon** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:46 pm

Thanks a lot guys. Before I ask any stupid question I will try everything that's been suggested, after that, I might ask some stupid questions.

by **Jay** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:55 pm

There are no stupid questions. It's a community.
Well actually, if there were stupid questions, I hold the record

by **Colby** on Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:36 pm

Rembetis is correct. Your problem with importing movies is more than likely the template. I had trouble with this lately. The basic movies import just didnt work for me. I had to make sure I imported with the template, and that all my filetypes and metamasks were correct. Then it finally imported.

by **patonzon** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:09 am

Ok, so I'm here with Xlobby running and trying to get it to worck with your suggestions. I think the best way to aproach this is one step at the time.

The first thing I want to get right is to play music with Zoomplayer, since the files were already recognized by Xlobby. I know you guys recomended to go with Winamp or Foobar and not ZP, but since I'll be using ZP for movies also I might aswell get it right.

I'm going to describe exactly what my settings are so you can tell me what I'm doing wrong:

Setup - File Types - Details

Program: C:\Archivos de programa\Zoom Player\zplayer.exe
Extensions: ifo,avi,iso,img,video_ts,vob,mp3
Command Lines Switches: /MOUSEOFF /F /Q %playlist%
Enabled - checked

Setup - Databases - Import - General

Template Name: music
Extensions: mp3,wav,ape,wma,flac,ogg
Coverart: jpg,jpeg,bmp,gif

Thanks for all the help guys

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:44 am

Dont use ZP for music. Use Winamp. U cant jump on progress bar or get other info out of ZP, until i release my ZPd plugin, since its not yet properly integrated with XL.

by **m_ski** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:22 am

Did you read BaddaBing's KISS guide. It is very good...

http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2737

by **Marbles_00** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:30 pm

P3rv is kinda correct in that Zoomplayer is not natively controled by Xlobby for music. The music controls within Xlobby natively work with Winamp or Foobar. This is not to say that you could not control music playback with Zoom. You'd most likely have to create a bunch of events with commands to do all this. You must ask...is it really worth it?

Since your just starting, if I was in your shoes, I'd stick with the basics and what works...get it working there, get some experience, and then expand...or wait for P3rv to complete his plugin...and making life so much easier. :wink:

Hope this was helpful.

by **patonzon** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:46 pm

Ok, I get it. I will try with Winamp first. The thing is that I mostly use my HTPC for watching hd movies and for that I would like to use ZoomPlayer.

Could someone tell me if there is something wrong with the configuration I poste above?

Thanks

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:41 pm

Marbles is right over there. Sure u can control ZP with Xlobby using Windows messages, skins have ready made scripts for that. But communication other way around wont work, without plugin, so u cannot expect to see progress bar or currently playing song inside your XLobby.

Originally my plugin was planned just to make those things possible, but i kept planning extra features and now ZPd also performs following:

- autothumbing: if coverart is not defined for video, ZPd will set it as thumbnail of video.

- Random play, and weighted random play for videos.

- Possibility to que videos.

- autodatabasing: ZPd records some technical data of video to xlobby database.

- progressbar jump-to-point.

Unfortunately development is on short halt because there is a bug in xPerT which doesnt let me to continue testing of ZPd. And i cant fix xPerTs code before i have dev enviroment online again, But this situation should clear in matter of few weeks. After that i have to fix other major bug in ZPd and implement one major feature, besides ones mentioned above, and then its ready to be released.

by **Marbles_00** on Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:48 pm

What does your movie template look like (you showed us music)? As you mentioned earlier, your having problems importing a movie into a database, which, as others have indicated, could be a template problem.

Also on a side note, what format are your movies in? Make sure they are in a format that is defined in Zoomplayers file types. (ifo,avi,iso,img,video_ts,vob).

by **bmblank** on Sat Sep 23, 2006 8:38 pm

It kinda sounds like you're thinking that you can only use one player. This is not the case. You can still use zoomplayer to play your dvds, mpegs, whatever videos you have and use winamp to control the music. It works very nice this way. I'm using Theatertek for dvds and I just got it working correctly EXCEPT for the controls of theatertek... I just realized I should go check the plugins page. Good luck on xlobby.