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mprez333 · 2012-08-19, 18:48

I have been using XBMC for all my media center needs and it has been working flawlessly. I love the platform. However, I have tried the PVR build and the various plugins to make it functional with a tuner I recently hooked up and have not had a lot of success. Since I couldn't get the PVR working how I wanted, I opted to use Windows Media Center instead to record live shows and then access them as part of my library via XBMC. It works great and easily (easy enough for the wife to manage it) with one exception:

WMC requires that my AMD HDMI output has the "Allow Applications to Take Exclusive Control of this device" option UNCHECKED in the properties menu in order to run and subsequently record live TV for me when applicable. However, XBMC requires that my AMD HDMI output has the "Allow Applications to Take Exclusive Control of this device" option to be CHECKED in the properties menu in order to run and output audio.

Obviously this conflict creates a problem for me and I wasn't sure if there was an alternative for me to use with XBMC or another way to get WMC to work. I would be willing to use another application besides WMC if it was as convenient and didn't have this conflict, but I'm not interested in messing with the XBMC PVR build again right now.

Is anyone able to help me with this issue? I would really appreciate it and frankly, these forums have been fantastic about providing help thus far. Thanks guys!

DDDamian · 2012-08-21, 01:16

You can select a DirectSound device for XBMC, rather than a WASAPI device. This is a short-term option while we work out a way to allow XBMC to cede control of an audio device to external players when using the WASAPI driver.

mprez333 · 2012-08-21, 04:43

(2012-08-21, 01:16)DDDamian Wrote: You can select a DirectSound device for XBMC, rather than a WASAPI device. This is a short-term option while we work out a way to allow XBMC to cede control of an audio device to external players when using the WASAPI driver.

Thank you, Damian. I'll be sure to check this out soon and see if it works, then report back.

mprez333 · 2012-08-21, 17:47

Unfortunately after trying this today, it didn't seem to work. XBMC plays while not having the "Exclusive control" option checked, but WMC still reads as something is wrong and won't play files. It seems like the two won't work simultaneously. Any other potential workarounds? Is there another PVR option I could use that works well, besides WMC? Maybe another option wouldn't run into this conflict?

I really appreciate you trying to help.

JGard · 2012-08-21, 17:50

I thought I was the only one having this issue. Yeah, I use WMC for all PVR needs and 75% of the time I run it, there's no sound. I have to close and reopen it 3-4 times before it works again. Very frustrating. It does appear to be that conflict you speak of. I'm only posting because I'm also hoping for a useful reply to fix this problem. The weird thing is that I feel this is a fairly new issue, it didn't always do this.

DDDamian · 2012-08-21, 18:15

Are you selecting a DirectSound device/driver in Settings>System>Audio Output?

mprez333 · 2012-08-21, 21:47

(2012-08-21, 18:15)DDDamian Wrote: Are you selecting a DirectSound device/driver in Settings>System>Audio Output?

I am, yes.

**drpizznock** · (This post was last modified: 2012-08-21, 21:54 by drpizznock.)

(2012-08-21, 17:50)JGard Wrote: I thought I was the only one having this issue. Yeah, I use WMC for all PVR needs and 75% of the time I run it, there's no sound. I have to close and reopen it 3-4 times before it works again. Very frustrating. It does appear to be that conflict you speak of. I'm only posting because I'm also hoping for a useful reply to fix this problem. The weird thing is that I feel this is a fairly new issue, it didn't always do this.

I'm using WMC (Win7 configured to allow apps exclusive control) and XMBC Frodo Alpha 3 (configured for WASAPI). I close XBMC before I try to watch LiveTV or play anything in Recorded TV. When I'm done I close WMC and open XBMC. XBMC can be open and doing something while WMC is recording in the background i.e. not playing LiveTV or anything recorded. The recordings all have sound. There are more elegant solutions which integrate the two that you can search for, like this one - http://xbmcwmc.teknowebworks.com/; but this works for me.

FWIW, I've had more problems with WMC and my receiver handshaking which results in no sound being played than anything XBMC.

mprez333 · 2012-08-21, 21:53

(2012-08-21, 21:47)drpizznock Wrote:
(2012-08-21, 17:50)JGard Wrote: I thought I was the only one having this issue. Yeah, I use WMC for all PVR needs and 75% of the time I run it, there's no sound. I have to close and reopen it 3-4 times before it works again. Very frustrating. It does appear to be that conflict you speak of. I'm only posting because I'm also hoping for a useful reply to fix this problem. The weird thing is that I feel this is a fairly new issue, it didn't always do this.
XBMC can be open and doing something while WMC is recording in the background. The recordings all have sound.

This is pretty much exactly what I want to do. I am going to split out my Live TV (just to make things easier on my wife and PC) so that it is simply a change of the inputs on my receiver for watching Live TV. However, I want WMC to be able to constantly record Live TV off of my tuner card so that we can DVR shows we watch regularly, whether we are using XBMC at the same time or not. I hope that makes sense. For example:

XBMC is open and I am watching a movie from my library. Simultaneously, WMC is recording "NCIS" in the background for later viewing.

My hope would be that the movie I am watching will play with audio correctly AND the episode of NCIS I was recording can later be viewed with proper audio and video. I hope that is clear.

**drpizznock** · 2012-08-21, 21:59

Quote:This is pretty much exactly what I want to do. I am going to split out my Live TV (just to make things easier on my wife and PC) so that it is simply a change of the inputs on my receiver for watching Live TV. However, I want WMC to be able to constantly record Live TV off of my tuner card so that we can DVR shows we watch regularly, whether we are using XBMC at the same time or not. I hope that makes sense. For example:

XBMC is open and I am watching a movie from my library. Simultaneously, WMC is recording "NCIS" in the background for later viewing.

My hope would be that the movie I am watching will play with audio correctly AND the episode of NCIS I was recording can later be viewed with proper audio and video. I hope that is clear.

I did this with the London Olympics. My setup includes an HDR Prime with a Frontier FIOS CableCard and I was recording from all three tuners.

bluray · 2012-08-21, 22:06

One of my HTPC have OTA card in it, and I do this "post #571" to link XBMC to 7MCE, and it work great so far........

mprez333 · 2012-08-22, 03:15

(2012-08-21, 22:06)bluray Wrote: One of my HTPC have OTA card in it, and I do this "post #571" to link XBMC to 7MCE, and it work great so far........

I'll give that a try later tonight and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Ultimately, if I can get this working, then I should be just a step away from having everything setup like I want.

I'll get OTA TV to record in the background with WMC, then I need some kind of script to automatically (nightly) convert my recorded TV to different file formats, remove the commercials, and find some way to put them into my TV library. That's another issue for another day though. Wink

mprez333 · 2012-08-22, 06:15

I am getting the error pop-up (when using Bluray's suggestion) of:

Quote:System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The system cannot find the file specified at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startinfo) at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startinfo) at Watcher.Form1..ctor()

mprez333 · 2012-08-22, 06:30

I edited my registry for the Integration application and pointed it to the correct location of XBMC on my machine and that resolved the issue with the software starting correctly. From there, I could successfully launch XBMC from WMC. Nevertheless, anything I tried to play in XBMC still gave the audio initialization error due to the same conflict as discussed.

The only reason I can think of for why your build is currently working, bluray, is due to your using TMT5 for an external player and I have no idea how to set all that up.

**bossanova808** · 2012-08-22, 07:14

(2012-08-21, 01:16)DDDamian Wrote: This is a short-term option while we work out a way to allow XBMC to cede control of an audio device to external players when using the WASAPI driver.

Yay to hear this. Right now AE is a bit of a pig on any shared system unfortunately...will be wonderful to have both AE goodness in playback AND a released device outside of this!