I just picked up the re-release of "From the Earth to the Moon" this week on DVD. In widescreen for the first time no less! To enhance my trip from the earth to the moon :-) I did up a full set of DVD submenu pages for my .pcf file. They turned out right nice if I do say so myself.

I also picked up "Lost: The Complete First Season". A good friend of mine insisted that I pick this one up. I have not seen any of the episodes on tv or even read about the show. To avoid any spoilers I went with the menu screens of each disc for my submenu pages. It works. :-P

For those interested an updated version of my .pcf file can be downloaded via the link in my signature area below. Enjoy!

I've had a couple DVD's sitting on the coffee table for a week now just begging for me to add that 4th DVD changer to my setup. My 3rd DVD changer has reached full capacity. :-( I was going to hold off for a few months, but saw an open box deal Friday night that I could not pass up! :-P

Friday night was spent updating my .pcf file to account for the 4th changer. Accessing the transport controls for a given changer is now done via a selection menu rather than individual firm keys. :-) Saturday I tackled the job of finding room for the 4th changer in my A/V closet. I had to rework a few things to make room for the new changer, so I took the opportunity to get my cable management (or lack therof) under control once again. Was that ever a job! :-P Well worth it though. The next time I have access to a digital camera I will have to take some pics.

Another weekend, another update. :-)

This weekends updates are with regards to the use of my system page, and the integrated lighting macros which are part of each DVD changer device.

You can read more, and download my latest .pcf via my signature area below. Enjoy!

Lowepro,
Your .pcf is great! I like the layout and macros you have for loading the DVD. My DVD collection falls way short of yours, but I still find your organization to be very useful on my small scale inventory.
I took Daniel's TSU7000 .pcf and merged it with your .pcf for my own particular setup and style. It still lacks the parts that I want to have working in a completed work, but I have the device codes setup and the DVD lobby working.
My question/comment is that as I diverge from one of your previous versions, I wonder how you (or anyone else) feels about seeing pieces of their orginal work posted in another .pcf? I've already set the startup screen to acknowledge you and Daniel for being creative source of my .pcf. Is that enough? And is it possible to change your design too much to be able to post mine as a derivative?

Along with credit, consider donating using paypal as many, many hours go into this work. Both Lowpro and Daniel spend numerous and uncountable hours working on configs.

Daniel, for sure has an account and I'm sure Lowpro would respond if you emailed the addy on his profile.

Lowpro,
Lets start by saying THANKS! to you and Daniel. I wanted the Pronto for some time, and finding this thread made me finally buy it.

I am almost done now, but curious to find out more info on how you insert a new DVD cover into your DVD Lobby. Do you keep it alphabetical? or just insert the next "A" title at the bottom of the last "A" page you have.

I really want to keep it alphabetical, but if I insert a movie on A1 and have to reinsert all images from A1 - A3 to bump them....I think I will give up on that idea.

Is this how you do it?

Thanks!

Hi casperinmd,
I don't know how Lowepro does his resorting, but one thing to keep in mind is that you can move multiple buttons at one time. All the post insert DVDs of column 1 and column 2 are shifted over to column 2 and column 3 together. Column 3 (minus the DVD going to the next page - if any) goes to Column 1 and is shifted down 1 DVD. When you move multiple buttons, you align one button and the others in your selection will also be in alignment.

Ok, so if I have dvd's set across then down (1,2,3 on top line spanning all colums etc), and I have A1 and A2 pages, I would start at A2, shift click to select all but one DVD at position 1, then copy/paste to page A3, then move A1 to A2 and then bump all on A1 down to make room for the new DVD?

I do maintain alphabetical order within each letter's worth of pages.

Under each DVD Lobby device in my .pcf file is a copy of this temporary background image.



I place a copy of this background image just behind the DVD cover image buttons on the pages I need to jog DVD covers down on. After jogging however many covers down to make room for a new cover, I add that new DVD cover image button, then delete the temporary background image. Prior to deleting each temporary background image I do spot check quickly to make sure none of the DVD cover images are out of alignment.

This can take some time to get used to, but unless you maintain a true a-z order it defeats the purpose of all of this. It does not take that long. One tip I have is to use the arrow keys on your keyboard. Just quickly drap each image over the needed spot/s, and if you don't drop it spot on just use the arrow keys to get the alignment perfect so that no green is showing on any side of the DVD cover image button. Using the arrow keys in this regard makes the process much less tedious. Once you get the hang of it you will be glad you took the time to keep each letters worth of DVD covers in the proper alphabetical order as well.

I have 14 pages worth of DVD covers for titles starting with the letter "S" for instance. Trust me, I know. When I add a title which starts with "Sa.." for instance, it really sucks to have to jog 14 pages of DVD cover images down one spot. I just take it one page at a time and don't think about all 14 pages that I have to do. It still only takes a few minutes in the end and well worth it in my opinion. I look at time spent with my .pcf as a break from the rest of the crap I have going on. The 10-15 minutes I spend updating my .pcf file (and downloading to the remote) at any given time for adding new titles is R&R for me. I just crank up the tunes on XM and have at it. :-)

Not quite what I had in mind. Here is an example. Say you have A1, A2 full and A3 with 7 DVDs. You want to add a DVD that is in the between the 4th and 5th DVD on A1.
Note: DVD number is by page A1, A2, A3, etc, and DVD number on the page going across and down. The temporary page is T1
I open A1, A2, A3, and the purple/green temporary background.
1. Use ctrl-select(left mouse button) to select DVD A3-3 and A3-6.
2. Release the ctrl key and drag these two DVDs to the temporary background so that the top DVD is now at T1-4.
3. If the DVDs did not land exactly, use the arrow keys to line up the DVDs.
4. You are now going to move DVDs on page A3. A3-1 will be where A3-2 is located. If you click on A3-2, you will see the location of the button at the bottom of the window. This is the target location for A3-1. You can create a page with the locations of the DVDs as pane labels for quick reference.
5. Use ctrl-select to select DVD A3-1, A3-2, A3-4, A3-5, A3-7.
6. Use the arrow key to move the DVDs to the right.
7. Use ctrl-select to select DVD T1-4 and T1-7.
8. Use ctrl-x to cut.
9. Click on the title bar for page A3. Type ctrl-v to paste. T1-4 and T1-7 will paste to A3-4 and A3-7.
10. Drag A2-9 to A3-1
11. Select A2-3 and A2-6 and drag to T1-4 and T1-7.
13. Select A2-1, A2-2, A2-4, A2-5, A2-7, A2-8 and use arrow key to move to the right so A2-1 is now at A2-2.
14. Select T1-4 and T1-7. Cut, paste to A2-4 and A2-7.
15. Drag A1-9 to A2-1.
16. Drag A1-6 to T1-7.
17. Select A1-5, A1-7, A1-8. Use Arrow keys to move to the right so A1-5 is now at A1-6.
18. Select T1-7. Cut, paste to A1-7.
19. Create new DVD at A1-5.

It actually goes by quickly when you get the hang of it.

With all this talk regarding the jogging of DVD cover images down I thought I would work up something new for the DVD cover image pages. What I've come up with is below.



The prior white background image I had on each of the DVD cover image pages is now gone. The frame overlay pic shown above simply lays on top of the DVD cover image buttons aligned one pixel row off the page to the left (-1, 0) with the "Use the color in the upper left corner as transparency color" option selected. With the transparency option selected the pink areas become transparent revealing the DVD covers image buttons behind the pic. Click on the picture above to see the end result. The improvement is quite dramatic as you can see. More than just the look of my DVD cover image pages has improved however. The frame overlay pic is also used to maintain accurate image placement as you jog DVD cover images down to make room for a new DVD cover. By moving the image to the back which you have to do anyway to get to the DVD cover image buttons, you can then just start jogging DVD cover images down. Each DVD cover image if aligned correctly will not show the white border from my frame overlay pic. When you are done jogging DVD cover images down you just move the frame overlay pic back to the front. How sweet is that! It gets better though. :-) An added benefit is that the frame overlay pic crops each of the DVD cover image buttons two pixel rows in all the way around. DVD cover scans can often show bending or reflections along the left edge as well as other imperfections. I had many DVD cover image pics like this in my PCF. With my new frame overlay pic in place however, these imperfections can no longer be seen in the remote.

In light of this new change my .pcf file has been updated and can be accessed via my signature area below. Enjoy!

LP - I've updated my configuration w/your new picture frame and the aesthetics are much more pleasing to the eye.

Nice work.

-- wjjz106

Thanks! I am thrilled with the aesthetics as well. I have messed around with trying to improve things in this regard on several occasions, but was never happy with what I came up with. Last night I must have been in the zone or something. Very pleased with the results.

Lowepro,
The new image looks great. I didn't understand the "use color in the upper left corner" as well as I do now that I see your image. Thanks for the excellent example.
I do have one comment. The previous background image was 38k and the new image is 76k. I was expecting them to be the same size. I loaded your new image into photoshop and was able to change it to 39k by changing the bit depth to 4 bits. I didn't notice any difference in appearance when I loaded the smaller image so it may be a way to save some space. (I don't know if the Pronto does any optimization on bmp files.)
Rick

Generally 240x320 images as I save them are 76kb. In this case as you point out the file can be saved at 4-bit instead of 8-bit to reduce the file size even further as it is just a simple graphic. Thanks for the intel. One thing to keep in mind is that as long as you import a given graphic only once into the editor, then always copy it throughout your .pcf file, it's only that one graphic file included in your .pcf.

*Update on 10/22/2005* This morning I spent some time updating my gallery. Went very well. I also went ahead and reduced the file size of my DVD cover images pic. Saved a few kb. :-) For some gallery eye candy and to download my latest .pcf go here.