SageTV 7 playback of Blu-Ray on PC questions.

[sdsean]

1.) Does SageTV 7 only playback from a ripped folder structure?
Can it also playback ISO files (without having to mount said ISO)?

2.) I got it to playback mounted ISO files but so far only one (Twilight: New Moon), Star Trek (2009) does not work for some reason (but it is only a beta).

3.) What decoder is required? I was actually surprised that I got Twilight to playback as I have not installed ArcSoft or PowerDVD (yet), just SageTV and CoreAVC.

[ma22xx]

Were you able to play back from the folder? I can see my ripped blurays(all in folders) but when I try to play them the program crashes. I haven't had much time to play with it, did you find a spot to pick the bluray decoder to use? I figure maybe it just doesn't like the default one my systems using. I wonder if it's using the same one as the DVD.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by sdsean

1.) Does SageTV 7 only playback from a ripped folder structure?
Can it also playback ISO files (without having to mount said ISO)?

3.) What decoder is required?

Same questions?

I feel stupid for asking this, but where do we stand on being able to stick a Blu-ray disk in a Client PC Blu-ray/DVD drive and play like any other DVD?

I'm running Total Media Theater3 externally (have to exit Sage) to play Blu-ray disks now.

[UgaData]

I have been able to view a Blu-Ray movie in SageTV7 if it was ripped to a folder format not an ISO. The movie was UP. I didn't watch the entire movie only long enough that it opened and started to play.

Also I can't playback a Blu-Ray if it's in the DVD/BR drive. It doesn't recognize a disc is in the drive.

I have a bug report into Sage about not "seeing" ISO files in SageTV7.

I am hoping once ability to actually "see" the ISO file the rest will work itself out. (i.e. the auto mounting of the said ISO file and then play back in SageTV without external player of Blu-Ray movies.)

Keep in mind for the auto mounting of ISO files it will require Virtual Clone Drive (free) to work. If they support another ISO mounting software, you will need to ask Sage.

[sdsean]

I haven't tried from folder yet, like I said, one of my ISO's works, and one does not. . .
Sounds like folks have bugs out about all this stuff. . .

And yeah its a little weird that I can mount an ISO but can't just put a disc into a drive and hit play.. . there should be a sub menu off "Play DVD" that lets you pick a drive. . .

And yes, I would love to know what codecs I should be using. . . other threads haven't really given me a clear answer. . .

[UgaData]

I believe any H.264 codec will work for BR playback. Isn't CoreAVC an H.264 codec? CoreAVC may not support hardware acceleration with all video cards. I know CoreAVC can enable HA with Nvidia cards that support 'Cuda. Not sure how well it works with ATI and Intel graphics.

I use the Arcsoft codecs that came with the HD-PVR (TME2).

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by UgaData

I believe any H.264 codec will work for BR playback. Isn't CoreAVC an H.264 codec? CoreAVC may not support hardware acceleration with all video cards. I know CoreAVC can enable HA with Nvidia cards that support 'Cuda. Not sure how well it works with ATI and Intel graphics.

I use the Arcsoft codecs that came with the HD-PVR (TME2).

BlueRay discs can be encoded in H.264 or VC-1. CoreAVC only covers H.264 so it may not work with all BluRays. If you install Windows Media Player 7 (even on XP) it comes with a VC-1 decoder that can be used as a DirectShow filter.

Thomas

[farfromuman]

So far I only tried an ISO and got the spinning circle. Keep in mind that some blu ray discs are in encoded in MPG2 so they might work without additional decoders.

For Sage to see ISOs you need to add .ISO to this line in properties:
seeker/video_library_import_filename_extensions=

[UgaData]

I spoke to soon for the Blu-Ray playback.

I tried to watch a BD ripped2folder movie. I have ripped 2 different movies this way. Yes, if I select either one of them they will play something. In one case the French language version was played, the other played the commentary version. I was unable to bring up the main DVD/BR menu to make any settings changes i.e. Play,Features,Audio Settings(language),Commentary (On/Off), etc.

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For Sage to see ISOs you need to add .ISO to this line in properties:
seeker/video_library_import_filename_extensions=

After reading this post I checked the properties file and .iso is listed.

I was expecting the ISO files to show up in the Video Library with the DVD/BD section.

I can see ISO files if I browse the file system. I can't play the ISO files from Sage, all I get is a spinning circle of death.

[sdsean]

Yeah I can't get ISO's to work either, but I'm not sure if I should file a bug or not. . .
If I mount them using dameon tools or something, they do work (but that is a bit of a pain).

[UgaData]

Yeah I can't get ISO's to work either, but I'm not sure if I should file a bug or not. . .
If I mount them using dameon tools or something, they do work (but that is a bit of a pain).

You mention daemon tools, Do you also have VCD (VirtualCloneDrive)?

I suspect for ISO files to work properly it will require VirtualCloneDrive specifically.

FWIW - I have a bug report in about ISO files not showing up in Sage's vidoe library.

[Narflex]

The problem with ISO mounting is due to using the SageTV Service. We've resolved the issue for the next build already.

If you don't use the service; or if you run the service as the user that installed VirtualCloneDrive; then it should work with the current version as well.

[farfromuman]

When I select a bluray ISO I get the spinning circle and have to kill the sage.exe process, after that I noticed in the task manager that the ISO file is with being processed by the transcoder.exe and had to kill that as well - is there something wrong with my settings? The ISO file never gets mounted.

This is using beta 7.0.10 in service mode

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by Narflex

The problem with ISO mounting is due to using the SageTV Service. We've resolved the issue for the next build already.

If you don't use the service; or if you run the service as the user that installed VirtualCloneDrive; then it should work with the current version as well.

I'm running Sage Beta 7.0.11 and I have Virtual Clone Drive installed. I specifically turned off service mode after reading this post to try and get my BD ISO files to appear in the system but still no dice.

I'm really excited to see this kind of support in Sage as its been one of my biggeset grief's in recent history. It appears to be working well for standard DVD but not the BD titles.

Are there any other known work arounds or settings that I can try to get this going or do I have to wait for a newer build?

On a side note, if I try to browse the file system through Sage, it gives me the spinning circle on my BD ISO folder for several minutes. It then lists all my BD ISO's but then sits there with the spinning circle again. After several more minutes I can select an ISO and it tries to load. More spinning circles. At this point after another 5-10 minutes I eventually give up, CTRL+ALT+DEL and End-Task on Sage. I have a dedicated hard drive for my BD ISO's, only about 200GB and I currently have about 5 or 6 titles ripped on it.

-Striker-

[farfromuman]

I think I found the problem of ISO files not playing on my setup. It turns out that the BR ISOs have to be rescanned by Sage and recognized as BR. Any ISO that was scanned before the beta locks up when played.

Now that I can play ISOs I noticed that I cant get the English track to play, no matter which track I select it ends up being Spanish, French or Directors comments depending on the movie.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by farfromuman

Now that I can play ISOs I noticed that I cant get the English track to play, no matter which track I select it ends up being Spanish, French or Directors comments depending on the movie.

That sounds like a problem decoding DTS audio tracks (the 'standard' track on most blu-ray discs). The extra tracks (foreign language, commentary, etc). are usually AC3. that would eb the difference. Not sure why, on a PC client, it's not offering the DTS tracks though.

[farfromuman]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

That sounds like a problem decoding DTS audio tracks (the 'standard' track on most blu-ray discs). The extra tracks (foreign language, commentary, etc). are usually AC3. that would eb the difference. Not sure why, on a PC client, it's not offering the DTS tracks though.

In options I can see the list of all the tracks and when I select the Master Audio track the audio does not change to the MA but it does change to any of the AC3 tracks. Which codec should be able to handle the down mix of the DTS 7.1 master audio? Also I wonder where in settings is the codec picked for BR playback, the DVD playback?

[Fuzzy]

Not sure about where it's chosen... You'd probably be best off getting everything set right by merit, and choosing Default in sage. I'd recommend a recent ffdshow audio decoder, which should handle pretty much anything (DTSMA, TrueHD, etc)

In fact, ffdshow is probably the best bet for pretty much ANY source file.

[sdsean]

Btw I just wanted to note that CoreAVC supports both H.264 and VC-1, and i'm really happy with that decoder, too me it does the best job.

I am currently eagerly awaiting the next build so I can see all the bug updates.

I completely agree with you that its a shame that you can't just but in a blu-ray disc and hit play. ripping 1st is kinda a pain. . .

I noticed that AnyDVD has some sort of technology called "magic file replacement". . . can we use that as a means to just playback a disc without ripping?

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by sdsean

I completely agree with you that its a shame that you can't just but in a blu-ray disc and hit play. ripping 1st is kinda a pain. . .

If you are using AnyDVDHD then you can add your Blu-ray drive as an import folder and do exactly that, as long as you don't swap back and forth between BR and DVD (that requires letting it rescan for new media).

This method also allows you to put a disc in the BR drive on your server and watch it directly from disc on an HD200.