Finally a RiffTrax player!! - v.1.1.1

[FBX]

V.1.1.1 (early release, still in early stages of development)

features:
- integrates with Windows Media Player so you can play a DVD movie and mp3 at the same time
- individually control volume of both (no "my player does global volume" issues)
- pause and play both at the same time
- fastforward and rewind both at the same amounts
- fastforward and rewind either one by small increments
- load readme files and instantly go to the time segments given in the file (chapters and disembaudio)
- Save and load mp3 / DVD player offsets
- buggy stutter detection that I only recommend turning on if the DVD has been paused for a while (and then immedietly turn it off afterwards)

System Requirements:
- Windows Media player (compiled with version 10, may work on lower versions)
- Windows 2000 or XP
- .NET framework 2.0
- DirectX (v.9.0c will work, earlier versions might not)

download here: http://www.filecloud.com/files/file.php?user_file_id=286340

Here's a screen (v.1.0 shown) :

Some tips:
-for full screen, just right-click on the video and go to zoom->full screen. Dont forget to disable your screen saver!
-When pausing both the movie and the DVD for longer than several seconds, you DVD drive's motor will spin down. The result will desync the movie and Mp3 when you go to play them again. After pausing a movie, enable "stutter detection". Then when you unpause it, wait for the movie to play again as normal, then disable stutter detection. This will keep the two in sync about 90% of the time. What do you mean I should just make that an automatic feature? Grrr, ok when I get a new version out I'll do that.

known bugs:
-Program will crash if you try to load a readme file that isn't of the correct format.
-Sometimes the "play/pause" option on the menu bar is grayed out even though both the mp3 and the movie are playing. I haven't isolated the exact circumstances this happens, but usually pressing "play mp3" or "play DVD" again fixes this.
-The small increments dont really seem to do anything. You can press them all day and it seems to be about the same. When rewinding the mp3, the only option that seems to do anything is rewinding it by a whole second.
-saved offsets dont seem to work very well. This is probably a flaw in the underlying API that I work with and I'll just remove this feature in future versions.
-The bookmarks and "play / pause mp3" button dont correctly work together. If your movie is paused and you double click a bookmark, it will play the mp3 but the button will remain a "play" button.

[ScottotD]

what is this?  I don't understand.

[FBX]

its a program for playing DVDs and mp3s at the same time. It can read the readme files that come with the RiffTrax and create bookmarks that will set both the rifftrax and the DVD to the times indicated. It works pretty well, although I rented all of my movies so I haven't been able to test it with a rifftrax and movie yet (and I wrote it in one day so...)

For example, in the screen shot I have my movie going and my mp3 of the fifth element going. I went to file->open and selected Fifth Element ReadMe.txt and it loaded all of the chapters for the two versions and the disembaudio quotes for the two versions. I clicked on Play DVD, started playing it from the title menu, then double clicked on "the thermo-analyzers have jammed", and walla it jumps right to that point in the DVD and on the Mp3 (well, it does for the Mp3 at least, since I dont have the movie).

Dog whining to get let out? Just click pause at the top. Press play at the top when you get back.

[WouTar]

That's..... glorious.

[Joe Don Faker]

Interesting, FBX!

I've downloaded the player and will be experimenting with it.

First I discovered it was necessary to update two different aspects of my computer set-up, before the program would run.

1)  Microsoft.NET Framework Development Package ... It seems you need .NET Framework Version 2.0.  (Which I now notice you mentioned in your description!  Doy.)  I clicked on the link for "Download the .NET Framework 2.0 Today!" ... and I downloaded the "x86 version" of .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package.

2) Microsoft DirectX.  The first time I tried to run your program, it couldn't find certain components of the latest DirectX.  So I downloaded the latest DirectX from Microsoft.

The Rifftrax Player is running now.  I'll experiment and may have more feedback later.

Thanks for sharing...!

ETA:

Unfortunately I've run into a problem, in that the program won't play my DVD.  My DVD Drive is E, and when I try to play, I get an "Unhandled Exception Error" ... "Access is denied.  [Exception from HRESULT:0x90070005[E_ACCESSDENIED]] ...

(I've sent the full error message and details in a Private Message, in the event you can help.  Thanks.)

[DeevFactor]

Quite an interesting program, but I can't play the DVDs because I don't have a DVD decoder. x_x

But I like what I've seen so far.

[Variety of Cells]

I just tried it out with XXX, Cocktail, and Road House.  It's fairly similar to Sharecrow, so that's what I'll be comparing it too.

Loading up the readme file is really cool.  For XXX and Road house you could skip to any of the chapter marks and it would be synched up automatically.  And for XXX you can go right to the disembaudio lines.  The synch would never be perfect, a little tweaking was necessary, but it was a lot simpler than sharecrow to get synched up.  This feature didn't work so well with cocktail.  It would only jump you to the mp3 spot and the movie would stay where it was.  This made cocktail a pain to synch up because I couldn't access the fast forward or rewind buttons for the movie.  The slider on the progress bar didn't work either.

As for the tweaking, it's not too bad after I realized the inching buttons would only fast forward the mp3 or the movie, even though there is a rewind option.  The big thing here is that there is no option to save your tweaks like you can in sharecrow, so you'll have to adjust it every time you want to watch it, where in sharecrow you only have to do it once.

The audio control options are basically the same for both programs.

So in conclusion, this has the potential to be a great program.  Initially it's a lot faster to set up than sharecrow, and if the readme file times would synch up exactly to the movie then it's be almost perfect.  Though that might be impossible to fix considering every dvd player is different.  It works really well considering it was written in a day, but until the read me times match up better or the inching system is improved, I'll probably stick with sharecrow. 

[FBX]

uploaded v.1.0.1, which may hopefully fix the "access denied" error.

The link is updated at the top.

For Cocktail - did the built-in chapter controls not work in media player either? At the very least I'd assume you could use that to go to chapter to chapter and sync up the mp3 using the built in chapter support.

As for getting them synced up perfectly - theres two issues here. The first one is that sometimes the mp3 (/ movie too?) isn't at the correct position if you want to go to a chapter that is earlier in the movie than you currently are. By sometimes I mean like 70% of the time this happens, while 30% I get no issues. The easy work around is to just pick a chapter earlier than you want to go to, then pick the chapter you want to go to. The second issue is that the DVD times and MP3 times are only estimates. I'd imagine that they match up better depending on which chapter / disembaudio you pick.

A planned feature for future releases is to save an offset (I forgot to put it in this one) where you say "i'm synced!" and it saves the time difference between the movie and mp3. Wouldn't be hard to do really, but I got some homework I've been procrastinating on that I should work on first (I'm a collage student).

[FBX]

uploaded v.1.1 from v.1.0.1

changes:
- fixed stutter bug (turns out the buggy stutter detection was always on)
- added saving and loading of offset files

offset files are just offsets, they aren't tied to a specific DVD or Mp3. When "Use offset" is checked, the times given in the readme file for the RiffTrax is ignored, and the offset is used to set the Mp3 time instead. Since from my experience the offset clearly changes as the Mp3 progresses, you should make multiple offset files for different stages of the movie. Let me know how this works out.

edit: fixed small bug and updated download link

[Conor]

Looks pretty interesting, I'll try it out at work tomorrow.  How does it read in the timecode from the readme file, just so we don't screw anything up next time?

[Tarantulas]

Damn cool... very damn cool.

[FBX]

to be honest its a really complicated formula, especially since the first element has a typo in it where the time was given as "##.##.##" for one of the chapters

basically as long as the current format is followed it should work. I can always add to the formula if there are minor changes, or (ugh) typos. What I mean by format is the way the synch listings are done. Like if you try to load a readme that just says "nothing at all" then nothing will happen. If you try to load one that says:

Code Select Expand



      -= STUFF! =-

      -= LOTS OF CHAPTERS =-

bleh
meh
blah

then it'll crash.

I wouldn't worry about the readme format. You have to "psych it out" in order to crash it.

[Qrusher14242]

hmm cant get the link to work. Looks like an awesome program though

[FBX]

wierd, I just tried it and it worked fine for me.

[Variety of Cells]

Alright, here's my second report. 

The reverse option still doesn't work, but that's fine because instead of reverse you just fast forward the other.

The movie and the mp3 jumped to the same place on Cocktail this time.  I have a feeling I was probably just doing something wrong before. 

The offset files work as intended, but the movie will still drift as it goes on.  Sharecrow's solution is to slow down or speed up the audio file at a fixed rate so it stays constant with the movie.  I don't know how else you could do it, unless you some how could make the program constantly check the synch times and adjust accordingly, but that would only help if the synch times were accurate to begin with. 

Though there is a bigger, seemingly easier to fix problem.  The mp3 no longer pauses when I pause the movie. 

A few bugs still, but it's getting better.  I see a bright future for this program.  Keep up the good work.