Plugin: PlayOn in Online Services (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, etc.)

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Magic question of the day: What decoder is used to playback Playon videos and what setting to change to get these videos to playback?

You answered your own question. PlayOn transcodes all video to MPEG2 video. So the "MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter" setting would change which decoder gets used.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I also have my Detailed Setup\Multimedia\Display Aspect Ratio Settings=16x9

Lastly, I have my [I]Detailed Setup\Advanced\Select User Interface Theme=Standard HD 1080

Edit: An important thing to note, you shouldnt have to override the aspect ratio setting to 16:9. Leaving it on source is the correct setting, unless there's something wrong with the source's aspect ratio setting. What happens when you put your aspect ratio to "Source"? Do all the Online Videos look correct except for these being letterboxed? I'm guessing that's why you had yours set to 16:9 for these videos right?

Lastly, (and most importantly), what video decoder is being used for these videos? Is it whatever is used for H.264?

On my PC client, when I set the aspect ratio to "Source" I have the the vertical black bars when viewing Hulu. When I switch to "16x9" I do not have the vertical black bars.

Select User Interface Theme=Standard SDTV
I don't have HDTV at my house. I'm too cheap to buy the HD-PVR or rent the more expensive HD boxes from my cable company.

I have no idea which video decoder is used.

[mkanet]

Thanks, yeah I figured that, but something that we're missing. It doesnt matter what mpeg2 decoder I use, even if I use the sageTV mpeg2 filter or Microsoft's. It doesnt matter if I have directshow or SageTV do the handling of building the filtergraphs. I even tried switching from EVR to VMR9. That didnt help either. Maybe there's a

The only thing I can think of is there's something in my sageTVclient.properties file which might be causing these videos to be letter boxed. Even the user-configurable sageTV aspect ratio settings will correctly manipulate all other videos, movies, Online videos, etc.

Can someone who isnt getting letterboxed video on a PC client with an modern HDTV set (16x9) send me their SageClient.properties file? There's gotta be a setting there causing this letterbox issue. I even went as far as modifying the sageTV mpeg2 decoder's properties page settings. None of those setttings affected the letterbox effect.

Thanks again for chipping in to help. If someone is there that has it working on a PC, could you please PM me?

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You answered your own question. PlayOn transcodes all video to MPEG2 video. So the "MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter" setting would change which decoder gets used.

[mkanet]

Now you tell me I had a feeling you didnt have a digital 16x9 display (HDTV); which is why that was one of the first things I asked. And, what made things more suspicious is when you said you had to put the AR setting to 16x9 instead of leaving it on Source to let the system handle AR. I know I said this before, but you should never have to override the source AR.

This is actually a pretty significant issue since there are more people with digital TVs attached to a sageTV PC than there are HD200 clients.

I know the problem is not the PC client's fault or a misconfiguration on the client. The client plays back the letterboxed video sent to it. I should have known right when I saw that the original FLV video was letterboxed.

The HD200 has accomodations for auto-zooming letterboxed videos to full screen. Most media playback STB's do; especially when watching old letterboxed VCD videos. I can't think of any directshow based mpeg2 video decoder with the ability to autozoom when needed. Usually non-directshow players such like PowerDVD will have a pan/scan setting of some sort to manually stretch the video to fit the screeen.

I can do a manual 133% zoom of these Playon videos, but that screws up everything else.

I am a bit surprised that I'm the only person who noticed that the screen isnt getting filled on their digital 16x9 TV for these types of videos.

The only way we can get this to work is if sageTV makes specific changes to do an auto-zoom for letterboxed videos. Or find an mpeg2 decoder that does this.

Thanks for letting me know. At least we all know now... unless someone actually has this displaying correctly on an HDTV set and PC.

I am hoping I'm completely wrong and someone has the magic answer!

Originally Posted by mbowling

On my PC client, when I set the aspect ratio to "Source" I have the the vertical black bars when viewing Hulu. When I switch to "16x9" I do not have the vertical black bars.

Select User Interface Theme=Standard SDTV
I don't have HDTV at my house. I'm too cheap to buy the HD-PVR or rent the more expensive HD boxes from my cable company.

I have no idea which video decoder is used.

[slaponyc]

OK I definitely upgraded to the latest STV, but still nothing shows up in the "channels" (syfy, nbc, you tube). I removed all custom STVis. Stopped and started the Sage Server, updated firmware on the HD200 to the lastest version.

Any other suggestions?

[jbmia]

I've got all this working great with myWHS/HD200, but also have a client (not a placeshifter) that is running on another pc. I can't seem to get this working on the pc based on the WHS config alone... Do I need to go through the complete install on the client machine? If so, wouldd this mean I would need 2 Playon licenses? Thanks!

[RedCoat999]

How do I get "60 Minutes" to show up in the CBS feed please?
Thanks

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by slaponyc

OK I definitely upgraded to the latest STV, but still nothing shows up in the "channels" (syfy, nbc, you tube). I removed all custom STVis. Stopped and started the Sage Server, updated firmware on the HD200 to the lastest version.

Any other suggestions?

When I wasn't getting Amazon VOD feeds in my list, Playon did some checking and determined that may virus software prevented something from getting installed correctly. They had me uninstall and reinstall the Playon software. This did work and now I get Amazon VOD feeds just fine.

Since it is an easy thing to do, I'd recommend that you uninstall and reinstall the Playon software and see if that helps.

If it doesn't, then I would use the UPnP Inspector software to browse the Playon feeds. If no feeds show up using the inspector, then it is a playon issue and you should file a support ticket using the Playon Settings program.

[BrettS]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I am a bit surprised that I'm the only person who noticed that the screen isnt getting filled on their digital 16x9 TV for these types of videos.

I just started using Sage a couple of days ago and I just got this plugin working last night and I definitely noticed that my screen wasn't getting filled on my 16x9 HDTV. Unfortunately I'm not sure I have much help to offer, but I can at least confirm that I'm seeing the same thing and would love to see a solution.

The HD200 has accomodations for auto-zooming letterboxed videos to full screen

Are you saying that this won't be a problem with the HD200? I don't have any HD200's right now as I am just running the trial version of Sage, but I am planning to get several that will go on the most used TV's, so this may have less impact for me.

Thanks,
Brett

[petereader]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I am a bit surprised that I'm the only person who noticed that the screen isnt getting filled on their digital 16x9 TV for these types of videos.

Originally Posted by petereader

Aspect ratios are all fine for me expect when it comes to Netflix. I get pillarboxes on all four sides (for both 4:3 and 16:9 native shows and movies). Is this happening to everybody else, or do I have something misconfigured?

I posted about this issue a few months back when I first noticed it, but since no one else reported having this issue, I just assumed it was my set up.

I'm so happy with the ability to view these feeds off of Sage (and the overall functionality of this add-in) that I just accepted this as a reasonable compromise.

It would be nice to get the AR to show up properly though.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by slaponyc

OK I definitely upgraded to the latest STV, but still nothing shows up in the "channels" (syfy, nbc, you tube). I removed all custom STVis. Stopped and started the Sage Server, updated firmware on the HD200 to the lastest version.

Any other suggestions?

Check this folder

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3\OnlineServices\

and see if you have a bunch of .properties files in there.

If so, then inside SageTV go to...

Detailed Settings -> Help -> Info

And press the INFO button on your remote (ctrl + i on keyboard). This should make a new file in your SageTV folder, something like

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SystemInfo.txt

Please post that here in the thread for me to take a look at.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Now you tell me I had a feeling you didnt have a digital 16x9 display (HDTV)

I do have a Samsung 16x9 HDTV, I just don't receive HD content from my cable company. I made the decision to keep my cable TV expense where it is and not rent the more expensive HD converter box. If I did receive HDTV then I would feel compelled to get the HD-PVR which is another purchase that I don't want to make. I'm trying to save for a new shower in my bathroom. I would like to get to the point where I can drop the cable company and just use SageTV online content and the playon plugin!

All SageTV recorded video from the cable company is displayed in full 16x9 and video from the playon plugin is displayed in full 16x9. It all looks great on the PC client.

[evilpenguin]

Yeah, I found some time to do some digging and this is 100% a sage issue. The video format for 4:3 and 16:9 Hulu videos is as follows...

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV>SageTVTranscoder.exe -dumpmetadata -i C:\43.flv
...
Input #0, mpeg, from 'C:\43.flv':
  Duration: 00:00:43.64, start: 0.500000, bitrate: 4228 kb/s
    Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 640x480, AR: 4:3, progressive, 4000 kb/s, 29.97 fps
    Stream #0.1[0x1c0]: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV>SageTVTranscoder.exe -dumpmetadata -i C:\169.flv
...
Input #0, mpeg, from 'C:\169.flv':
  Duration: 00:02:04.62, start: 0.500000, bitrate: 4240 kb/s
    Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x400, AR: 9:5, progressive, 4000 kb/s, 29.97 fps
    Stream #0.1[0x1c0]: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

So Sage should have all the info it needs to handle it properly. I'll go ahead and submit a bug.

Edit: I'm fairly sure their response will be to wait until the next beta and see if its already fixed.

[skyeclad]

Guys,

Any reason why so many of the CBS feeds just get stuck on "The Video list is downloading"? I tried a few shows and none of them return a video list, they just hang on the download message. I was about to say that I wasn't getting any feeds at all but How I met your Mother ended up returning some. Previously when there were no shows I'd get a blank show list but now I just get an endless message.

[dinki]

I've just installed Win7 on my Sage server. I'm having trouble getting the plugin to see and play videos. I'm getting the dreaded 'No videos Found' response when I drilled down into a show's episode list.

Here's some information:

- My PlayOn server is a separate machine from my Sage server.
- I am able to see and watch shows from my Xbox360.
- I am able to browse my server using UpnpInspector from my Sage server but I am unable to start a video by copying the episode's url and trying to play it in VLC.
- Firewalls are off on both machines and I do not have AV turned on on the Sage server.
- I updated to the latest STV before importing the plugin.
- I do see a TempFeed file but it is named TempFeed_client.xml but the items tag has elements saying 'No Videos Found'
- UPnP2Podcast.exe "PlayOn:Hulu:+2" debug takes a long time to run and when it completes it also gives items saying 'No Videos Found'

Does anyone have any idea on what I can try next?

[petereader]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, I found some time to do some digging and this is 100% a sage issue.

Thank you EP for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this.

Hopefully, the next beta will have this listed as a fix.

[BrettS]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, I found some time to do some digging and this is 100% a sage issue. The video format for 4:3 and 16:9 Hulu videos is as follows...

Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 640x480, AR: 4:3,
Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x400, AR: 9:5,

The 9:5 Aspect Ratio for the 16:9 content threw me for a bit of a loop. Is that normal or is it possible that's what Sage is choking on? I was watching some Hulu content last night and I saw that shows with a 4:3 aspect ratio did show correctly with only pillerboxes and no letterboxes. As discussed above, anything with a 16:9 AR had both pillerboxes and letterboxes.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by dinki

I've just installed Win7 on my Sage server. I'm having trouble getting the plugin to see and play videos. I'm getting the dreaded 'No videos Found' response when I drilled down into a show's episode list.

I'll need to see a log, check my sig for info.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Every time you generate a video list from a PlayON source UPnP2Podcast generates a log file right next to the .exe.

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\UPnP2Podcast.log

Please include it with *any* bug reports, otherwise i'll have no idea what's going on!

Apologies for not including it initially. Here you go. Thanks for looking.

** UPDATE ** I'm not sure why, but I rebooted my server and things are now working. Sorry for the distraction.

[mickdaly]

Playon has been working perfectly for me for some months (thanks guys!), so I just signed up for Netflix and am trying to watch a movie through the PlayOn netflix interface.

It accesses the Netflix "Instant Queue" fine, but when I select the movie I get this:

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\OnlineVideo58693.flv Error:Error:java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out"

Any help appreciated - Merry Christmas everyone!

Mick
HP Mediasmart EX-470 server with 4.5tb storage, running Sagetv; 2 Hauppauge HD-PVRs; 2 Directv Receivers (H20 and H21 channel changing by usb/serial/usb cables); 4 Sagetv HD-200s; Pioneer KRP-500M Kuro plasma; Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver; Panasonic TH-50PH9UK plasma; Sharp Aquos LC-C4067U LCD.