Those of you who want to use Cyberlink PDVD 8.0 decoders need to...

[tuxsf]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Hi John,

SageTV uses ffmpeg, source avail upon request, for all playback in Linux. If you can do it in ffmpeg svn, it should be trivial to add support to the SageTV version. The foo that SageTV does is required though, so it has to include their code.

B

Thanks for the info! I hadn't known that SageTV uses ffmpeg for playback in Linux. I did some Googling and found the following links but I'm still not sure how well SageTV supports closed captions on Linux. A student proposed adding closed captioning support to ffmpeg's libavfilter filter library in his Google Summer of Code 2008 proposal for XMBC (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=GSoC_-_U...btitle_Parser). The libavfilter MultimediaWiki page gives some information on the current status and feature wishlist for libavfilter (http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Libavfilter) which indicates that libavfilter is not fully incorporated into the ffmpeg main tree yet and support for subtitle filters is still on the wishlist. A thread on closed caption support in TiVoToGo (http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/arc.../t-335397.html) has some interesting info and the next to last post there (by edtree) mentions that he's been bugging SageTV for full universal CC support for years and it's been coming along. Finally, evilpenguin has made a STV Import plug-in called SageMC Video Tools 3.0 (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28006) that says one reason he made the plug-in was to support subtitles and closed captioning. So I'm still a little confused just how much SageTV supports closed captioning. I see that you're running SageTV on Ubuntu Hardy with 1 HD extender. Can you record, play back, *and* watch live OTA analog, SD, and HD broadcasts on your HD extender with closed captions in everything? I'd probably still get a SageTV and HD extender bundle even if live broadcasts couldn't have closed captions since I could watch them directly on the TV without going through the HD extender, but I'd want to have closed captions in timeshifted content that I record to watch later. I suspect that the answer depends on which platform SageTV is running on (Windows or Linux), too. Any information would be appreciated very much! Thanks,
-John

[Polypro]

Like Hawg, I get a Sage error "There was a problem with the video playback portion..." The spelling looks correct for the Friendly Name in the prop files, and they show up as selectable in the decoder selection screen. VistaSP1. Any other tips to try and get these to work. (BTW, I set them to preferred 0x0904000 and they are used when dragging a file to Graphedit...but no dice with Sage).

Thanks,

P

[mkanet]

Hi P, HawgGuy was able to fix his problem by cleaning all the garbage PowerDVD 7.3 left behind after the uninstall. I forgot to mention that in my first post. I had done that too.

I sent you an email about what to do. I don't think that changing merit values makes any difference to what SageTV selects as the decoder.

Originally Posted by Polypro

Like Hawg, I get a Sage error "There was a problem with the video playback portion..." The spelling looks correct for the Friendly Name in the prop files, and they show up as selectable in the decoder selection screen. VistaSP1. Any other tips to try and get these to work. (BTW, I set them to preferred 0x0904000 and they are used when dragging a file to Graphedit...but no dice with Sage).

Thanks,

P

[Polypro]

Received, THANKS!

P

[HawgGuy]

I uninstalled PDVD7, then cleared Cyberlink from the registry & services. Then deleted the Cyberlink folder. After that I manually deleted around a dozen Cyberlink references that were still present in my filter listing using DSFilter Manager. Having done all that, I reinstalled PDVD8 and all was well for mpeg2, DVD and h.264 playback. whew!

[Polypro]

Yup, same-same. I spent an hour going through the reg and deleting anything Cyberlink. DSFM was next, and then the folders...man what a ton of crap left over! Everything works, thanks MK.

P

[kevine]

This did not work for me. I am assuming I am using the PDVD8 decoder when set to default but it does not appear in my list of available. I am using the Ultra version. Do you think that makes a difference?

[mkanet]

Kevin, I definitely wouldnt assume you're using the PDVD8 decoder when set to default. In fact, it would be unlikely. The whole reason I started this thread was to let people know how to force SageTV to see the decoders in the list of available choices. If you are certain that you have added the correct information in your properties file; the only other reason its not working is if you PowerDVD 7.x installed at some point. Cyberlink decided its not important to clean up the mess it leaves behind in your registry and file system after an uninstall.

Originally Posted by kevine

This did not work for me. I am assuming I am using the PDVD8 decoder when set to default but it does not appear in my list of available. I am using the Ultra version. Do you think that makes a difference?

[kevine]

I set it wrong. It was in the server props file. Low and behold when I put it in the client props file, there it was. Thank you.

Kevin

[m0ng00se30]

Is there anyway to install just the decoders and NOT all the krufty other PDVD stuff? Can it be wrangled into a decoder pack? I'm asking about legal copies of course... nothing funny!

--Mike

[SHS]

The rigth way to do this without SageTV running is like below by editing and re-sel the Video / Audio and DVD decoder's in the Detailed Setup

videoframe/additional_audio_filters=CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD8)
videoframe/additional_video_filters=Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD8)

or edit without doing the above line

videoframe/audio_decoder_filter=CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD8)
videoframe/dvd_audio_decoder_filter=CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD8)
videoframe/dvd_video_decoder_filter=Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD8)
videoframe/video_decoder_filter=Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD8)

And if you want H.264 playback edit
videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD8)

[Arioch5]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread, but I thought I would ask here before starting a new one. I have an H.264 file that's playing back fine in Graphedit, VLC, and WMP but stutters horribly in Sage.

I've been reading and so far I've tried adding:
videoframe/always_use_dshow_player=true
always_use_dshow_player=true
To my sage.properties file. I checked and I do have the line:
videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7.x)

I'm running SageTV 6.3.5.159 with SageMC 6.3.7

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'm fairly certain this is a sage issue b/c I can watch the offending file with other players and it plays well in graphedit.

[sjwoo]

How can I verify that CC data is included in the stream from my HDHomeRun unit? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but my setup looks like this:

SageTV 6.3.10
HDHomeRun (both tuners connected to Comcast's cable)
Cyberlink PowerDVD 5

I'm using Cyberlink's codec for Sage (for both video and audio recording). On another computer, I have TotalMedia 3.5 installed, but the only captions I get are from the HD channels, and they're badly scrambled.

I know VLC is what we use to test HDHomeRun, but there's no way to display captions using VLC as far as I know. Thanks...

- Sung

[Taddeusz]

I just upgraded to PowerDVD 8.0 Ultra from 7.0 Deluxe (I'm getting a Blu-ray drive today ) I tried putting the H.264 decoder in there like has been stated but all I get is a black screen with audio when I try to play my H.264 MKV files. Honestly, I think it may be the container because I have a few MP4 container files that seem to play fine. But if anyone has any suggestions about how I could get it working that would be great. Would I maybe have to install Haali? Not a huge deal but it would be nice to get working.

[mkanet]

I'm just curious, where did you read that you can have hardware accelerated Cyberlink decoders to playback H.264 MKV files? As far as I know, Cyberlink only supports only mainstream containers like TS, MOV, MP4.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I just upgraded to PowerDVD 8.0 Ultra from 7.0 Deluxe (I'm getting a Blu-ray drive today ) I tried putting the H.264 decoder in there like has been stated but all I get is a black screen with audio when I try to play my H.264 MKV files. Honestly, I think it may be the container because I have a few MP4 container files that seem to play fine. But if anyone has any suggestions about how I could get it working that would be great. Would I maybe have to install Haali? Not a huge deal but it would be nice to get working.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I'm just curious, where did you read that you can have hardware accelerated Cyberlink decoders to playback H.264 MKV files? As far as I know, Cyberlink only supports only mainstream containers like TS, MOV, MP4.

I didn't read it anywhere. I already knew that PowerDVD didn't support MKV but was hoping that Sage might demux it first but I suppose I was wrong. Do you think that maybe if I install Haali that it might be able to send the elementary stream to the Cyberlink decoder to playback?

[mkanet]

SageTV is hardcoded to use it's own demux. Trying to force it to use a different one is a bad idea.. .especially if everything else already works and you're only interested in support for MKV. I would choose a much more popular and better supported container.

Is there a reason the container needs to be MKV?

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I didn't read it anywhere. I already knew that PowerDVD didn't support MKV but was hoping that Sage might demux it first but I suppose I was wrong. Do you think that maybe if I install Haali that it might be able to send the elementary stream to the Cyberlink decoder to playback?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mkanet

SageTV is hardcoded to use it's own demux. Trying to force it to use a different one is a bad idea.. .especially if everything else already works and you're only interested in support for MKV. I would choose a much more popular and better supported container.

Is there a reason the container needs to be MKV?

AC3 or DTS audio. You can't do that with an MP4 container without breaking the standard. AVI is old and cannot properly support H.264. I've never dealt with transport streams and don't know how to create them. I personally would rather have a simple point and click solution to convert my movies. If there's more than one program I have to go through to get my results then it's not worth it to me.

[mkanet]

TSMuxer...
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

AC3 or DTS audio. You can't do that with an MP4 container without breaking the standard. AVI is old and cannot properly support H.264. I've never dealt with transport streams and don't know how to create them. I personally would rather have a simple point and click solution to convert my movies. If there's more than one program I have to go through to get my results then it's not worth it to me.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mkanet

TSMuxer...
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR

Ok, I'll check this out. It sounds like I'll need to learn to use this program anyway since I'm going to start the adventure that is attempting to backup my newly acquired BD movies.

As far as backing up my older DVD's goes how well does a transport stream support the graphical subtitles and can those subtitles be played back with SageTV?