Can I supress Subtitles and Audio dialog when playing movies?

Each time I start a video, I am presented with this little black box in the center of the screen which tells me that subtitles are off and what form of audio is associated with the video.

I find this especially annoying because most of my videos are very short clips (~30 secs) taken of my daughter, and while it only lasts a few seconds, it often covers her face during a critical portion of the video.

Is there a way to disable this pop-up message?

No, there isn’t.

Thanks.  Very disappointing.

If WD is listening… this should really be an option for the reasons I stated.  If you are watching a 30 second home video, you don’t need to see a subtitle/audio dialog for 5 seconds… which is 16% of the total video length.

Actually, I spoke prematurely.

If you wish, I’ll show you how to disable it (it’s a hack, but it’s a “Supported” hack, since the UI is customizable.)

Go download the LEGACY them onto the Hub.

That will store a bunch of files on the Hub’s hard drive.

Edit the file called 

/.wd_tv/theme/Legacy/video_run.xml

and COMMENT OUT the following lines, like so:

<?xml version=“1.0”?>

<page>

  <ctrlgrp>

        <button valkey=“CLOSE”/>

        <linebreak/>

        <button valkey=“SKIP_TIME”/>

  </ctrlgrp>

  <!–comment>

  <wrapper disable=“@@disable_subtitle_audio_info”>

        <image image=“image/video_playback_subtitle_info_bg.png” x=“901” y=“36” w=“310” h=“83”/>

        <text text=“@@subtitle_info” x=“918” y=“53” w=“276” h=“22” fontsize=“20” textcolor=“0xffffff” align=“left” speed=“1” delay=“2”/>

        <text text=“@@audio_info” x=“918” y=“83” w=“276” h=“22” fontsize=“20” textcolor=“0xffffff” align=“left” speed=“1” delay=“2”/>

  </wrapper>

  <comment –>


Awesome, thanks!

Let me know what ya think after you do it (or decide not to.  :)  )

That was easy, and it works great!  Thank you!!!

Is this something that is fairly easy to do for a modestly technically adept person?  I’m very frustrated because WD pre-purchase information tech support swore to me that this was fixed in the latest software update.  That is the only reason i bought the device because we have a trade show next week where video needs to repeat forever with no silly audio announcement at the head.

can you give any more detail about how you find this legacy theme and how you would access the hardrive to edit that code?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

bigskyvideo wrote:

Is this something that is fairly easy to do for a modestly technically adept person?  I’m very frustrated because WD pre-purchase information tech support swore to me that this was fixed in the latest software update.  That is the only reason i bought the device because we have a trade show next week where video needs to repeat forever with no silly audio announcement at the head.

 

can you give any more detail about how you find this legacy theme and how you would access the hardrive to edit that code?

 

Your help is greatly appreciated.

If you indeed do have a Live Hub then your problem can be overcome. However you must put your video in the root directory of a  USB flash drive or Hard disc and plug it into one of the USB ports. You then set up the Hub for ‘Video Auto Play’ by going to Setup - Operation - Auto Play. When you restart the hub it will continually play your video without any overlays.

If on the other hand you have a WDTV Live then I believe that this overlay is now been deleted altogether.

1 Like

How do you open the file that needs to be edited.  Do you connect the WD Live to the computer via usb?

Thanks

Sorry, I didn’t see your reply before I posted my question.  i do indeed have a WD TV Live Hub and I will try using a USB drive.  I was originally trying to play it after copying it to the internal drive.

Should the video file that I want to loop be the only thing on the flash drive?

Thanks

I only tried it with one video in the root. You may be OK with photos or other files but the video you want to play must be in the root.

Thanks for the hint - works perfectly however I must admit that the legacy theme is not the most beautiful one. Any idea if and how one can change the stock theme?

Thanks

zerocool2011 wrote:

Thanks for the hint - works perfectly however I must admit that the legacy theme is not the most beautiful one. Any idea if and how one can change the stock theme?

 

Thanks

http://www.wdtvlive.com/themes

It is long and involved, but the stock theme CAN be changed.

I haven’t tried it personally, but it should work.

Go download the GPL Source Code.

Unpack it, and find the theme folder.

Copy JUST the theme folder into the theme directory on the Hub’s internal drive.

You ought to be able to then APPLY that theme and edit it similarly to Legacy,

Hi,

I just tried this…put the legacy theme on the WD TV Live Hub and edited the video_run.xml file i.e. comment out a part of the code near the beginning and it didn’t work for me…i.e. when playing *.mts files you still see and experience the following:

  • after pressing “OK” to play the *.mts file

  • you first see status at the bottom of the screen

  • the video starts playing but the audio is muted

  • after about 4 seconds the the status goes away

  • a square in the middle of the screen shows up say something about no subtitles and the audio format (i.e. which in this case is AC-3).

  • after around 7 seconds the square in the middle of the screen goes away the video is playing normally.

  • essentially one misses the first 5-10 seconds of the video.

Here’s what I did to try and solve this problem.

  • Downloaded Legacy.zip to my computer.

  • Extracted the files.

  • Thru my home network I accessed the WD TV Live Hub Hardrive.

  • Created a directory called Theme

  • Copied the extracted Legacy folder to the Theme folder on the WD TV Live Hub Hardrive.

  • Tried edit the video_run.xml file…figured out that I need a general purpose editor…downloaded TextPad and loaded it onto my system.

  • Made the recommended edits to the video_run.xml file.

  • Did a full power down of the WD TV Live Hub

  • Powered it up.  It took an unusually long time to boot up.

  • Once booted up I browsed over to the *.mts file pressed OK to play it (and experienced the behavior previously described).

That’s it.

Hope someone can tell me what I didn’t do correctly,

Thank-you,

Charles

If the theme directory wasn’t there the first time (you said you had to create it yourself) then the download didn’t work.

I downloaded it to my computer…unzipped and then had to copy it over to the WD TV Live Hub internal hard drive.

Why would downloading it directly the WD TV Live Hub internal drive make any difference in the outcome?

Thank-you,

Charles

I don’t understand what you did in your first attempt. But obviously, if you had to create the directory in your SECOND attempt, you didn’t do the first attempt right, because it would have been in a theme directory in the first attempt.

Hi Tony,

My 1st attempt:

  • Using the Windows explorer (i.e. I have the WD TV Live Hub’s internal drive mapped as network drive)

  • copied the legacy.zip over to the root directory of the WD TV Live Hub unit.

  • Tried to extract the files from…and was put into an endless wait…ended up having to kill the explorer.

  • went to this site in an attempt understand what this was all about: http://www.wdtvlive.com/themes

  • Followed the instructions given there…i.e. which mentions creating a theme directory under .wd tv if there’s not one there. i.e. leads to attempt described in previous posting.

So, how should the first attempt been done? How does the .wd tv/theme directory end up being created?

Charles

Charles