SageTV (5) - What should I expect?

[more-solutions]

I'm completely new to SageTV for Linux and a complete novice with STV in general, so please forgive the dumb questions! (I'm pretty capable with Win and Linux themselves, just not STV.)

I've just bought and installed v5beta according to the instructions in the forum (ie the Gentoo route). Even on my slow old box the install wasn't as bad as I expected and sure enough I now have a working STV front end, and if I copy media files across to it I can get clients to play back the files.

However, I can't get the Linux STV box itself to play/rip CDs, to play video files, etc. As a server its fine but as a client it doesn't do anything at all!

What am I missing? It does seem to try to fire up mplayer if I point it at a video file (xvid encoded) but I get no playback. I have "emerge"d xvid and libdvdcss so far but that's made no difference.

Getting back to the subject, it would really help to know what *should* now be working so I know where to focus my efforts. Should it playback a DVD? A CD?