SageTV's DVD feature

vorius · #1 11-25-2006, 08:15 AM

I am having alot of trouble with the DVD feature of SgeTV. I pop in a DVD and it's a real crap shoot whether it will work or not. The DVD might work, the DVD might not play at all or it might just crash my computer really hard (as in it causes my PC to abruptly reboot- no error message or anything)

the same DVDs work 100% on my set top dvd player or other PCs

the drive is a Plextor DVD player, seems to be no problems with the same DVDs on the same PC if I exit SageTV and use windows media player

vorius · #2 11-27-2006, 02:06 PM

Maybe nobody uses SageTV's DVD function?

I do remember some people saying for DVDs they still use Media Player Classic- is this why?

Are there some configuration issues that may be causing the problems I have? What should I look at to make sure?

ToxMox · #3 11-27-2006, 02:09 PM

Please post all the settings in the DVD section of your Sage Detailed Setup.

tfurlong · #4 11-27-2006, 02:34 PM

I use the DVD player frequently. I had to install the Nvidia PureVideo codec to get the aspect ratio correct, but otherwise movies play fine. Occasionally, the system reports that it can't play a DVD, but trying a second time always clears it up for me. I assume it's because the drive isn't ready or something.

Polypro · #5 11-27-2006, 02:39 PM

Yeah, the two problems I've seen are

1. A message about CSS not allowing play - Cycling the tray fixes it

and

2. Not waiting about 10 seconds for the PC to recognize the disk.

P

jbarr · #6 11-27-2006, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polypro

2. Not waiting about 10 seconds for the PC to recognize the disk.

I agree 100%. This has been my #1 issue. All I do now is simply insert the DVD, wait about 20 seconds or so before doing anything, and I have almost 100% success. Trying to play sooner can cause problems.

stanger89 · #7 11-27-2006, 04:04 PM

Yeah, definitely sounds like some hardware/software problem outside SageTV. Sage is my primary DVD player, the only one I use, and it hasn't given me a problem in ages.

dZeus · #8 12-02-2006, 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbarr

I agree 100%. This has been my #1 issue. All I do now is simply insert the DVD, wait about 20 seconds or so before doing anything, and I have almost 100% success. Trying to play sooner can cause problems.

Same problem here. For me it got a lot worse in 5.0.4 compared to some older version (forgot which one I ran before 5.0.4). The weird thing is that I can launch any other media player (like WMP8) just fine when immediately inserting the dvd into the player, and it'll start playback as soon as the drive is 'ready'.

Do those other players perhaps have routines that check whether the drive is ready before playback begins, which sage lacks??

vorius · #9 01-08-2007, 09:46 AM

Argh it happened again last night. I dont watch DVDs often so I dont often come into this problem, but last night my brother comes over with a DVD so I pop it in while Sage is running and I press my DVD button to go DVD mode (after waiting 20 seconds) and the screen turns black, a blue title bar appears on the top but all info is blank or 0 and then suddenly my computer reboots itself. Once rebooted I just open up VLC player and play the DVD fine from there. Once the movie finished I played around with starting the DVD with VLC multiple times trying to get it to crash my system. After 12 times trying- popping DVD in and out nothing happens. All is fine. Then I try in Sage again, boom right away crash again.

If it is a hardware/software issue outside of Sage then why does it only happen when I am running Sage? Sounds like Sage is to blame. Is there anyway I can replace Sage's player with somethign else, that Sage could run when I hit the DVD button?

I would settle for a easy way to open DVDs without Sage, just pressing the DVD button and it automatically opens DVD using VLC or something - is that possible?

IncredibleHat · #10 01-08-2007, 11:30 AM

I use Zoomplayerpro for my mainstream DVD movies, but I use SageTV's DVD player for things like 'series on dvd' (Stuff like scrubbs, quantum leap, babylon 5 etc).

My MCE remote has the DVD Menu button launch/goto zoomplayer, and quits the sage client (I use sage service so I miss no recordings).

When I play a DVD in sage, I don't get the problems described above. However, I get a random 'sage hang' at the END of a DVD play. You know, the endless spinning sage icon in the middle of a black screen thus requiring a forced hard reboot of the whole machine.

I pop over to ZP when I do big movies that require more features and filters and sound controls etc etc.

stanger89 · #11 01-08-2007, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vorius

If it is a hardware/software issue outside of Sage then why does it only happen when I am running Sage?

What other programs have you tried? Windows Media Player? WinDVD? PowerDVD? Theatertek?

Quote:

Sounds like Sage is to blame.

VLC works in a fundamentally different way than SageTV, so all that shows is that VLC isn't affected by the problem. I'd suggest trying Windows Media Player and see if it has the same problem, it works much more like SageTV (uses Directshow) than VLC (which doesn't).

vorius · #12 01-08-2007, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stanger89

VLC works in a fundamentally different way than SageTV, so all that shows is that VLC isn't affected by the problem. I'd suggest trying Windows Media Player and see if it has the same problem, it works much more like SageTV (uses Directshow) than VLC (which doesn't).

Hmm, I will try Windows MEdia PLayer when I get home tonight, thanks for the tip!

elaw · #13 01-08-2007, 03:59 PM

Vorius,

Also, as someone suggested already, in Sage go into "detailed setup" then "DVD" and tell us what the settings are on that screen.

Audio & video decoder and renderer settings could definitely cause the problem you're having.

Note that this is one of those areas where there's usually not a "right" and "wrong", you may have to play with the settings a bit to find what works.

vorius · #14 01-09-2007, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elaw

Vorius,

Also, as someone suggested already, in Sage go into "detailed setup" then "DVD" and tell us what the settings are on that screen.

Audio & video decoder and renderer settings could definitely cause the problem you're having.

Note that this is one of those areas where there's usually not a "right" and "wrong", you may have to play with the settings a bit to find what works.

Oh right, I missed that, I will try to post tonight with the settings- I forgot to try playing DVD using MPC last night so hopefully will try that tonight too.

Goodspike · #15 01-09-2007, 09:53 AM

The only problem I have with DVD playback is I need to exit Sage each time I change a DVD. Otherwise it will hang when starting a new DVD.

jdamore · #16 02-05-2007, 01:11 PM

I have always had problems with the DVD function but I will admit I haven't really tried to troubleshoot. I prefer to use theatertek as of now, but if they don't get HD or BD support soon ill have to switch to something else.

In the settings I see an option to enable a external dvd software but it doesn't give an option to what program to launch. When I click on "My DVD", the screen saver pops up for a split second and it goes back to the menu.

Is sage able to launch external software like theatertek or windvd8?

oh, by the way I have the latest SageMC 16x9

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