STP-HD200 DVD playback?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by eded9698

Can the HD200 play ripped Blu-Ray movie from the Sagetv server or SMB shared folder?

Not at the moment, maybe in the future, at least it doesn't support any BD functions or "HD" audio formats.

Originally Posted by Kirby

Does this mean that you wont (cant or dont want to) just bitstream the TrueHD/DTS-HD audio?

It's HDMI 1.2, bistreaming is impossible (and worthless IMO if decoding is possible).

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's HDMI 1.2, bistreaming is impossible (and worthless IMO if decoding is possible).

Ahh ok, wasnt aware that bitstreaming was part of 1.3+. I'm not going to complain about PCM though!

[Beefcake550]

Narflex - Any updates on the handling of TruHD or DTS-MA or LPCM tracks?

Here's a few things I've tried:
1) ripped Cars BluRay disc - got rid of all video/audio tracks except main movie and LPCM track.

This displayed video, but no audio

2) ripped a BluRay with TruHD soundtrack - got rid of all video/audio tracks except main movie and TruHD track

Same result...video with no audio

3) ripped Cars BluRay with BOTH LPCM and AC-3 soundtrack
I got video and audio, but I suspect it's AC-3 sound instead of LPCM since I left the output of the HD200 in "Digital bitstream" mode and my receiver kicked into "Dolby Digital" mode. I also tried hitting the "audio" button on the remote to try to change soundtracks and it had no effect.

I don't understand why the LPCM track isn't recognized (I'm using m2ts files). I thought the device was capable of that. Should I be using a different wrapper like MKV? I'd also be willing to try makign the soundtrack lossless multichannel FLAC (5.1)....would that work in an MKV wrapper?

I'm mainly asking because I desperately want to know if there is a way to get HD Audio out of this box from BluRay rips. If there isn't, I'd like to know because I'd go and buy a Popcorn Hour A-110 device for movie playback since it has HDMI 1.3a and now does TruHD and DTS-MA bitstreaming.

Please help and advise.

-Brian

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I hope you don't mind me correcting you here stanger but the HD200 CAN playback DVD ISO files with full menu, chapter, subtitle and audio support. Nothing special needs to be done. It only works in standalone mode currently though.

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support. (I'm not referring to BD menus and the interactive features; that's a whole other thing)

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Gotta ask (since I'm starting to rip my HD discs, any effort being expended on HD DVD, or should I just remux to MKV?

[Fuzzy]

Right now, the only thing keeping me from purchasing an HD200 is the lack of Blu-Ray playback ability that I can currently get from my SageTV Server (with really long HDMI and USB cables). If the HD200 got the ability to playback BluRay disc files from the server, and since I believe AnyDVD-HD unprotects on the fly, it would allow playback of the movies directly off the disc, without the need to rip ahead of time.

[Beefcake550]

Fuzzy:

This is likely to never happen given the complexity and licenses required. Since you realize that you can rip and then playback (without HD Audio support) BluRay files, I'm guessing that's not good enough for you. I get this, and I just wanted to let you know it is likely NOT to happen for HD200.

-B

[stanger89]

Jeff did say they were working on basic BD support for the extender, basically recognizing rips and supporting chapters.

[Fuzzy]

I understand the complexities of FULL blu-ray support, but I would like to see some sort of basic playback support implemented, such that it can read the files from the actual blu-ray folder structure. In this way, You could simply point sage to the blu-ray drive, and if AnyDVD-HD is running, you can play the individual files from there. Title/Chapter support is really all that's missing (possibly transcoding of the audio streams as well).

[MarkV]

Originally Posted by stanger89

For regular DVDs, you could probably do that, but I don't think there's anything that will close that whole loop. I think there's an STVi (if you're using a Sage server) to mount the drive, but on the HD200 you'd then have to go to imported media and pick the DVD. If you're running in standalone mode you'd have to manually mount the ISO on the PC and then play it on the HD200. For DVDs there's no point ripping ISOs since it supports DVDs from folders natively

If you use nielm's webserver, you can explicitly tell the extender to play a particular ISO if you have a way to mount it (like daemon tools). Each dvd has a MediaFileId that appears to be linked to the drive letter it is mounted to. If an STVi can get an iso to mount, it can likely get it to play. I don't use the STVi to mount it, so I could be wrong, but I have this working with the ability to one touch mount and play a dvd on any of my three extenders (although there really should be an easier way)

[stanger89]

Yeah, well I posted that before I realized the extenders fully support DVD ISO (full menus and everything). So if you really want ISOs, you can just import them and play them on the extenders.

[MarkV]

This works completely now? That's huge! Where do they show up? The videos or dvd list?

[stanger89]

Videos I think, and it only works on the extenders. I haven't actually tried though.

[MarkV]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Videos I think, and it only works on the extenders. I haven't actually tried though.

Just upgraded to 6.5.9, added .iso to identified file list. The ISOs were seen on the extender. I tried to play an .iso back. No menu control. I couldn't get to the movie part of the DVDs I tried. It was not like playing a mounted .iso at all.

If there is something I missed, please let me know. I tried a couple DVDs just to be sure.

[stanger89]

All I know is what Jeff said, which I quoted in post 24 above:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...6&postcount=24

[MarkV]

DVD isos in standalone mode only. SageTV server sees them and plays one of the files, but it's not the same as a dvd mounted on the server.

[SFlex]

Originally Posted by Lucas

You would need to rip the BR disc to your server's harddrive and include the path in your import library.

When this feature is available, you should be able to play the m2ts files from the ripped disc.

I don't think it would be possible to read directly from the disc.

I have ripped a DVD to an ISO and placed it in the import directory. I can browse to it and see the file with a disc icon displayed. When I click on it, it asks if I want to play it, i click yes, then get the following

Error:ERROR(-2): Files selected for playback are no longer on disk

I can still see the iso file. What am I doing wrong?

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by elcano

I have not been able to find any information on the details of the new standalone mode.

You are not alone. I just scanned (all 10 small pages of...) my HD200 manual ("Sage TV HD THeater Model STP-HD200 Introduction" on page 1 and, although I found a number of mentions of "Stand-Alone Mode" there did not seem to be any explaination of what "Stand-Alone Mode" was.

It's on the user to dope it out from context.

Maybe there's another "HD200 Manual" document - but what I scoped was what came with the HD200.

What I come up with is:

Stand-Alone Mode consists of running the HD200 under it's native menu system as opposed to starting up the SageTV Placeshifter. Stand-Alone Mode does *not* imply that the device is disconnected from one's LAN, merely that it is not running the SageTV PlaceShifter.

[evilpenguin]

Standalone mode is when you boot up the extender but don't connect to a SageTV server.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

You are not alone. I just scanned (all 10 small pages of...) my HD200 manual ("Sage TV HD THeater Model STP-HD200 Introduction" on page 1 and, although I found a number of mentions of "Stand-Alone Mode" there did not seem to be any explaination of what "Stand-Alone Mode" was.

It's on the user to dope it out from context.

Maybe there's another "HD200 Manual" document - but what I scoped was what came with the HD200.

What I come up with is:

Stand-Alone Mode consists of running the HD200 under it's native menu system as opposed to starting up the SageTV Placeshifter. Stand-Alone Mode does *not* imply that the device is disconnected from one's LAN, merely that it is not running the SageTV PlaceShifter.

Do you mean this manual?

Because here's what it says on page 2:

When used as a stand alone player, the HD Theater just needs access to media either on a PC on
the local network, on a network-attached storage (NAS) device on the local network, or on a
storage device connected to the HD Theater. It can also access online content with an Internet
connection.

So in other words it works just like any other network media player you can get. (Popcorn hour, dlink, linksys, netgear, divx connected, etc.)

Gerry

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Because here's what it says on page 2:

Thanks, that made me go dig up my printed copy of the manual & now I know part of what the problem may be with people understanding me when I say "standalone mode". What you quoted is what the PDF manual I wrote says, but the printed manual has been changed for some reason -- it does not say "stand alone" and I was not aware of that.

- Andy