[mythtv-users] Bunch of MythArchive questions / problems

[DM - MythTV]

Hi all,

I just recently got MythArchive installed and working, and generated a
new theme for it.  My general question is, is there documentation
somewhere on the format for the theme.xml file?  I think I did pretty
well at cobbling my theme together from the examples, but there are some
things that would probably work better if I had some documentation to
refer to.

That said, after lots of trial and error with a RW DVD blank, I finally
got to the stage to cut one to try on my standalone DVD player.  It sort
of works, but I have several glitches (some with the standalone, some
with various software players (WinDVD, Windows Media Player/WMP, Real
Player).  I have indicated which player a particular problem is relevant to:

1>  Probably the worst problem is that during playback, the standalone
DVD player hesitates markedly during fade to and from black parts of the
content.  (For example a .5 second fade will take 10 seconds to actually
display, with resulting audio skips.)  This is not a problem with any of
the software players.

2>  The menu is defined to highlight the selected text item (changing
from light yellow to white for the selected item).  On
the standalone DVD player, this does not work at all.  On Real and WMP,
it will only work after several seconds.

3> The menu does not loop on the standalone DVD player.  That is, it
plays through the background audio and stops.  If you select before it
stops, it works fine.  Otherwise, all options become disabled (arrow
keys, number select, etc.) until you press the appropriate buttons to
restart the title menu again.

4> Menu audio track does not play on Real or WMP.  (Works subject to
other issues noted here on WinDVD and the standalone DVD player.)

5> On WinDVD only, the menu stops when you make a selection, leaving the
menu on the screen but not responding to any other navigation keys.  It
does set the status for play resumption tho, as pressing the "Play"
button will start the item selected.

6> Finally, the menu is defined as a "Title" menu, rather than a root or
main menu.  This is more of an annoyance, as not all DVD player
(software or standalone) have a button to go direct to the title menu.
Is there any way to redefine this in the theme profile?

7> Is there any way to set a gamma / color correction as part of
transcoding for the DVD?  For some reason, all players show the video as
more washed out than if I just watch the source from MythTV (some worse
than others, but all do it).  I suspect that MythArchive is performing a
transform as part of assembling the DVD, but I can't find where.

As my standalone DVD player does not read RW blanks, I would prefer to
fix as many of these things as possible before cutting a new +R blank.
(At about $1/each, it's not the end of the world, but they could add up
fast.)  Therefore, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Dan