CTD Issue -- DVD Sound Playback with PVR-250

[avindair]

Hey there --

First off, system specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+
AN-35N Mobo
256 MB Ram
ATI AIW 7500 as Video card ONLY.
H. PVR-250
Phillips 5.1 Surround sound.

Issue:

Downloaded SageTV to try it out and was amazed. System works phenomenally well. Video and audio playback is great, channel guide is outstanding, really a work of art. Definite purchase.

Problem, though, is with DVD playback. I can get a picture, but no sound.

I downloaded PowerDVD's demo (I own a legal copy on another pC, but it comes as part of the "windows bundled" build) and tried it out. DVD playback is amazing, clear, and works like a charm. Looked at the output from the diagnostic logs to see what it was using as an Audio decoder and then went into SageTV Advanced Setup to match up the settings. No luck.

After a power-outage caused reboot, went back to working on the issue, and saw that suddenly I have the PowerDVD codedcs listed as an option in the Advanced Setup DVD menus. Unfortunately, selecting either and trying to play causes SageTV to crash to desktop immediately.

Now for the interesting part: Reset DVD back to default and tried again, and now ANY time I try to play DVDs through SageTV it crashes to desktop, even with the DVD options set to default.

Any ideas on how to resolve this issue -- and to get DVDs playing properly within SageTV -- would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Tony Bruno

[avindair]

Sorry...please note that I'm running Windows XP. Thanks.

[salsbst]

The codecs showed up because you cycled SageTV. You didn't need to crash the system, just quit and relaunch SageTV. That's neither here nor there, though.

PowerDVD is now probably the default video decoder, which is probably why Sage is crashing even with it set to default.

PowerDVD does not work with VMR9, so make sure your Video Renderer is set to Overlay or Default in the DVD setup menu. You might also try disabling 3D acceleration (at least for now) to see if that helps.

One other thing you could do: use the Intervideo video codec and the PowerDVD audio codec. That might be the easiest solution.

[mlbdude]

Did you restart SageTV after the PowerDVD install? That might explain why the decoders did not show up initially until the reboot. It is possible that the PowerDVD decoders are not working right with Sage but ARE the Default decoders now. Do you have any other decoders in the list? Have you tried changing both the audio decoder and renderer?

EDIT: salsbst is too fast. At least we were thinking the same thing .

[kny3twalker]

also the powerDVD needs to be registered not a demo to work in SageTV
I believe
you might be able to use powerDVD in sageTV during the trial
but I would just use the copy you already have and install it on the computer with SageTV

I would not personally purchase a DVD program more than once

[avindair]

I would not personally purchase a DVD program more than once

I agree. Maybe it's because I've been head down on this HTPC project for over a week that it didn't occur to me to just look inside the "System Restore" CDs for my main VPR Matrix machine to see if there was a standard setup folder for my copy of PowerDVD. I just assumed (shame on me) that the entire setup was buried somewhere in a .cab file and that I was boned without it.

Thanks to everyone for their replies so far. I'll try this stuff out tonight when I get home.

Tony

[avindair]

Hey everyone --

Definitely a good news/bad news post.

Good News: I uninstalled the demo of PowerDVD, installed my full version 4.0, and restarted, and bang, DVDs play with sound. Yahoo!

Bad News: Now the aspect ration looks funky. Oh, it makes the images 16:9, but it's still suffering from "stretchy-vision" syndrome.

Still, SageTV is terrific. Showed it to a bunch of tech friends last night and they all kept marvelling that it ran so well on a Windows box.

Anyhoo, thanks again, everyone!

Tony

[kny3twalker]

reinstall it again

something went wrong during the install

I have seen this happen with other DVD programs

and make sure to register it