Media Center | Open With

Open With is a simple helper add-in for Windows 7 Media Center for playing video files in an external player via the native interface. It works by configuring a default external player. The player will be launched for any configured extension in addition to any video file that has soft subtitle files (srt or idx\sub) present in the same folder as the video file. You may also setup a different player per file extension.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mikinho\OpenWith\Video]
"FileName"="D:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema (x64)\mpc-hc64.exe"
"Arguments"="\"{0}\" /fullscreen /play /close"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mikinho\OpenWith\Video\.mov]
"FileName"="D:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema (x64)\mpc-hc64.exe"
"Arguments"="\"{0}\" /fullscreen /play /close"

Why?

I basically wrote this add-in to increase my WAF. Soft subtitles do not work natively (yet) in MC7 and most decoders that will add subtitle support do not utilize hardware acceleration. I'm using Open With to fix both these issues while still using the native interface.

I have my default player set to MPC-Hc x64, this enables hardware acceleration on my Ion mini-HTPC. I also have .mov set to use VLC Player as my camera creates unsupported mov files.

Note:

• Hitting the Back will exit the external player and return to Media Center.

• I have only tested on W7 RTM x64

• You may see a the video play in Media Center briefly as the external player is launched

• If there is interest to localize the loading screen please let me know