Placeshifter sends everything but video

[jpaddock3000]

I'm able to access all the menus without a problem, but when I go to play a video, The audio comes through, but the video is black. I can somewhat see an image when the display info title bar shows up, but once that goes away, it is completely black. What would cause something like this to happen? Is it just a wrong setting somewhere? I've used placeshifter before with no issues, but not from the location I'm trying it out at now. Could it possibly be a firewall issue?

Thanks

[reggie14]

I had this exact same issue a few months ago, and initially came to the same conclusion: that it was a firewall issue. However, in my case that was wrong. I was running placeshifter off a USB stick, on a computer that had Java installed. But, for some reason Sage didn't like the installation of Java. I went home, copied the java/bin files from one of my computers to my USB stick and sure enough the placeshifter starting working.

So, crazy as it sounds, maybe you ought to try reinstalling java, or copying the java runtime environment files into your placeshifter/jre folder (well, you'd probably have to create the folder).

[bastafidli]

I have the same issue and in my case it is defintely not a firewall issue since I have the server and placeshifter on the same network without any firewalls. It seems to be dependent on the file format. I have no problems with some mp4s, but .m2ts and .mov have no video, just sound.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by jpaddock3000

I can somewhat see an image when the display info title bar shows up, but once that goes away, it is completely black.

Actually, after reading this sentence again I'm reminded of a second problem I had with the placeshifter. Are you running Linux by any chance? What you're describing is what happened to me when I tried running placeshifter on an Ubuntu machine. It was caused by some problem between the placeshifter/mplayer and the ATI fglrx video driver. I never got it working with the fglrx driver. It worked OK using Aiglx and the open source radeon driver, but that gave me other problems when I used compiz fusion.

[jpaddock3000]

Changing the Java version to be the same as my server didn't help.

I'm not running either the server or placeshifter on Linux.

[amg]

I remember a thread from a long time back, that mentioned color depth on the display properties had to be 32bit, also updated directx I think.

- amg

Edit: yup - http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17689

[jpaddock3000]

That post doesn't seem to be able to help me. I don't have that video card, plus I'm running v6. My video card is NVIDIA Quardo NVS 140M.

[herrdude]

Thought I would give it a shot

Try the following
change 32bpp to 16bpp
if not, change the resolution to something 1280X760
if not, right click and choose the aspect ratio and try: fill, 4X3, 16X9, source (i know one of them gives me a black screen)

Good luck!

[jpaddock3000]

Nope, that didn't help me either. Any other ideas?

Thanks

[herrdude]

Give us the details on your setup...

[jpaddock3000]

I have a 2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo with 2GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. My upload connection is 768kbps.

[herrdude]

Operating system (service pack)
Video card
Version of Sage Server, version of sage placeshifter
Video settings on Sage Server
Settings on Sage Placeshifter
etc...

[jpaddock3000]

OS on server is Vista Ultimate
Video card on server is Radeon x1300
Sage Server and placeshifter are 6.4.8
Video Settings on server are 1024x768 32bit
settings on placeshifter are 1680x1050 32bit (I did change these settings around, but this is the normal)

[herrdude]

Tell me, what are your placeshifter settings, what do you have checked?

What is the OS and the video card on the laptop?


Not related with this problem, but are you using Sage Server or Service?

[jpaddock3000]

Items checked:
enable custom SageTV title bar
Show streaming statistics in title bar
enable video post processing

Local filesystem security:
disable server's access to local filesystem

Streaming is set to use Sage's auto settings.

OS is XP Pro
Video Card is NVIDIA Quardo NVS 140M.

[herrdude]

Don't worry, we'll get there.
Try enabling 3d accelaration...

What is the capture card you are using?

[jpaddock3000]

PVR-500, but I'm trying to watch recordings
If I do that, the connection drops and I can't get past logging on.

[herrdude]

Is this your first time using placeshifter? Did you upgrade from an older version?

[jpaddock3000]

This isn't my first time using the placeshifter, but it is my first time trying it at work. I didn't seem to have any problems accessing outside of work except before my upload was slower and the picture quality wasn't that great. Now that my bandwidth got increased, I thought I would give this a try.

[herrdude]

Is it always black for: recorded shows? live tv? youtube?