Overview

While watching TV or videos, you can get information on the currently watched item by opening either the TV On-Screen Display or the Video On-Screen Display.

Settings

You can also change these settings within MediaPortal; see On-Screen Display Settings for more information.

On-Screen Display

• Display timeout (sec.) - Default: 0
  This is the number of seconds that the OSD remains on the screen.  Once this time has passed, MP removes the OSD from the screen.
  
  A value of 0 means that the OSD remains on the screen until removed by the user.  For the info OSD, press the BACK button on the remote control, or the ESC key on the keyboard.  For the pause OSD, the OSD remains on the screen until play is resumed.
  
  Note: if you want the OSD to remain on the screen until you remove it, it is better to specify for display timeout a very large value instead of 0. The reason for this is that a value of 0 has an undesirable side effect, whereas a large value such as 1000000 (one million) does not. The undesirable side effect causes the pause OSD to display the wrong information if you pause live TV immediately after switching to another channel via the TV guide.

Zap On-Screen Display

To speed up channel surfing, MediaPortal offers a Zap OSD.  The behaviour of the zap OSD can be controlled by using the settings described below.

• Zap delay (sec.) - Default: 2
  You can change the channel being viewed by pressing the channel-up or channel-down button one or more times in quick succession.  As you skip through the channels, MP displays the zap OSD containing information about the successive channels, but without changing the channel that is currently being viewed.  When you arrive at the channel that you want, simply wait; MP changes to that channel after zap delay seconds have passed since the last press of the channel-up or channel-down button.
  
  
• Zap timeout (sec.) - Default: 5
  The zap OSD appears on the first press of the channel-up or channel-down button.  The zap OSD remains on the screen until zap timeout seconds have passed since the last press of the channel-up or channel-down button, and is then removed by MP.
  
  The time required to change channel depends on several factors.  This time can be as short as one second, or as long as five seconds or more.  Factors that can affect the time required to change to the new channel include:
  
  
  • The speed of the TV tuner hardware
  • Whether the new channel is already tuned (because it is being recorded)
  • Whether the new channel is in the same MUX as the current channel
  • Whether the new channel is in a different MUX but is receivable by the current tuner (e.g. both current and new are DVB-T2)
  • Whether the new channel requires a different tuner (e.g. current is DVB-T, new is DVB-S)
  
  The value to use for zap timeout should be large enough to include zap delay, plus the longest time that your system takes to change channel, plus one or two seconds more.  If the value is smaller than this, you may find that sometimes the zap OSD disappears from the screen before MP has finished changing to the new channel.
  
  
• Zap key timeout (sec.) - Default: 1
  You can also change the channel being viewed by entering one or more numeric digits on the remote control or keyboard.  These digits specify the number of the channel that you want:
  
  
  • If you enter fewer digits than the maximum defined in your configuration, MP changes to the new channel after zap key timeout seconds have passed since the last digit was entered.
    
    
  • If you enter the maximum number of digits, MP changes to the new channel immediately (MP does not wait for zap key timeout seconds to pass).
  
  The zap key timeout setting is also used in the TV Guide and Radio Guide, when you enter numeric digits to scroll the guide to display the page containing the programme information for the channel number entered.