Frustrated newbie, getting bored fast

[perrin21]

Hi all, ive downloaded SageTV for the first time today onto my purpose built media center pc. I'm pushed to either buy a newer copy of media center edition 2005 for £60 off ebay or try another Media program AKA Sage.

So far ive also tried Vista but there weren't any drivers for my sound card so that was a waste of money.

Ive also tried Showshifter but that was rubbish.

Ive also tried Snapstream, but again not good enough.

This leaves me with Sage which frustratingly looks really good and apart from the lack of CD Replay could well be what im looking for.

However, i have now run into the obligatory problems that i could really live without as im getting fed up with no being on my 6th install of a new operating system this week, uninstalling and reinstalling windows and messing with all this software. I have the following problems.

I cannot get any DVD playback. I just get an error message saying the following, "There was a playback error in playback. Details: Sage.playbackexception: ERROR (-1,0x0): There was a problem using direct X for playback. Please reinstall direct x blah blah. I have done what was asked and still no joy.

So i tried overlay mode and this is the message i get on there. Sage.playbackException: ERROR (-4,0x80040217 There was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback.

Why is this happening to me? i want to die. ive had enough.

JUST WORK YOU BLASTED THING.

AAAAARRRRGH you have no idea how mad i am at the moment .

Any suggestions are appreciated. I am not using any hardware decoding as i have no use for the TV functions, its just the media center functions i require, DVD music, photo's. I use an apple mac and my opinion of windows is that NOTHING EVER WORKS as it should. I can't think of any better reasons for goig out and buying a mac instead of trying to fix this thing right now so please, if you are a convert to sage, now is your time to shine. I NEED YOUR HELP.

My system is the following

Matrox Parhelia 128MB graphics (Not direct X9 its 8.1) but on latest drivers.

RME Digi 96/8PST sound card, Latest drivers. Connected optically into Tagmclaren AV32R Digital Pre amp.

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe motherboard
1GB Corsair TWINXX memory 2 x512 in dual channel mode
Sony DVD RW drive
Accent HTPC case
Windows media center remote
Panasonic Plasma (NON HD) TH42PW4

Please help me before i throw something expensive and break something.

Thanks guys.

[kltye]

What DVD decoders are you using?

[dshields]

Originally Posted by perrin21

Why is this happening to me? i want to die. ive had enough.

JUST WORK YOU BLASTED THING.

AAAAARRRRGH you have no idea how mad i am at the moment .

Any suggestions are appreciated. I am not using any hardware decoding as i have no use for the TV functions, its just the media center functions i require, DVD music, photo's. I use an apple mac and my opinion of windows is that NOTHING EVER WORKS as it should. I can't think of any better reasons for goig out and buying a mac instead of trying to fix this thing right now so please, if you are a convert to sage, now is your time to shine. I NEED YOUR HELP.

. . .

Please help me before i throw something expensive and break something.

I've had that feeling!!!! Wish I could help. Hope you get it solved!

[perrin21]

Originally Posted by kltye

What DVD decoders are you using?

Im trying the Nvidia one from their website on a 30 day trial. It worked too for all of 5 minutes then i exited out of the movie to praise myself for a job well done and its not worked since im getting the error "Sage.playbackexception: ERROR (-4,0x80040217): there was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback".
It brings me to mind of the movie southpark when bill gates got shot. lol i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now ive seen it working but i fear im in for a long night as its stopped working (is it always this buggy?) . I only want to watch a movie for gods sake lol. Anyone aware of a free software renderer that offers good quality playback. I don't remember having to have one previously for windows media player 10. Im not a fan of having to pay for stuff lol. Its a never ending pit .

[perrin21]

Originally Posted by dshields

I've had that feeling!!!! Wish I could help. Hope you get it solved!

Thanks mate, hehehe, i could cry.

[perrin21]

[Edit: duplicate post here]

[perrin21]

this is so frustrating, ive made it work again, i resetted, and took out the dvd and reinserted it. Played fine, no problems at all. I pressed stop on my media center remote and exited back into sage fine. Went back into dvd and BAM!!! there is that balsted error again. Im giving up on this software soon. its ruined my weekend so far.

[Bohica]

Have you tried just using the SageTV decoder in detailed setup for DVD playback? Tried the SageTV video and audio decoders there. I have had problems on 2 of my systems using that nvidia 30 day decoder. Each system will be a little different in terms of codec use and support. Getting DVD playback working should not be such a hard problem... I can understand the frustration. Sometimes, the audio decoder can give you playback errors as well, so make sure you try different combinations. Let us know how you progress....

[perrin21]

Originally Posted by Bohica

Have you tried just using the SageTV decoder in detailed setup for DVD playback? Tried the SageTV video and audio decoders there. I have had problems on 2 of my systems using that nvidia 30 day decoder. Each system will be a little different in terms of codec use and support. Getting DVD playback working should not be such a hard problem... I can understand the frustration. Sometimes, the audio decoder can give you playback errors as well, so make sure you try different combinations. Let us know how you progress....

One problem i noticed when it was working was a poor FPS , playback looked fine but had the occasional slight jolt. worked almost acceptably but wasn't perfect. to be honest i need it to be perfect as it was once before so i know it can be. Its crashed a few times today, strike that, all times today and im beginning to loose confidence in sage for stability issues that are essential in this environment. Im seriously tempted to give the linux version a try but it looks like there is no trial for this. am i missing something? what if it doesn't work?

[Narflex]

The NVidia DVD decoders in trial mode don't work that well because they keep de-registering themselves. With purchased NVidia decoders there's no problems though.
When you get the 0x0 error code in a message it means there's something in the operating system/decoders/drivers that crashed and something is likely misconfigured.

[dshields]

Originally Posted by Narflex

The NVidia DVD decoders in trial mode don't work that well because they keep de-registering themselves. With purchased NVidia decoders there's no problems though.
When you get the 0x0 error code in a message it means there's something in the operating system/decoders/drivers that crashed and something is likely misconfigured.

What trouble shooting steps can we do to figure out what the problem is? I'm getting the exact same two errors (one or the other, depending on the options I select in setup).

I do not have trial versions of NVidia DVD decoders. (I have licensed Bronze.)

In regard to the 0x0 error (which refers to DirectX in the error message), I ran DxDiag, and all the tests pass.

My windows installation is very new and very clean. I will give up on SageTV before I'll reinstall my OS right now (because of work), but I would definitely like to troubleshoot this issue in ways that won't leave my registry messy.

Help is appreciated. Thanks.

[dshields]

Originally Posted by perrin21

I cannot get any DVD playback. I just get an error message saying the following, "There was a playback error in playback. Details: Sage.playbackexception: ERROR (-1,0x0): There was a problem using direct X for playback. Please reinstall direct x blah blah. I have done what was asked and still no joy.

So i tried overlay mode and this is the message i get on there. Sage.playbackException: ERROR (-4,0x80040217 There was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback.

Anyone feel like helping me with this? I've been struggling with it for the last 8 or 9 days. I get the same exact 2 errors as the poster above.

Here is what I have done so far today:
1. uninstall NVidia DVD decoder and SageTV (and delete SageTV folder).
2. reinstall NVidia DVD decoder and then install latest OEM update for it.
3. install SageTV 5.0.2 client, fresh
4. install DirectX latest update (april 2006 update)
4. Go through setup wizard. Each video option passes the tests.

I have a couple DVDs copied to my hard drive using DVDFab.

If I configure video playback as "Basic" and then try to play the ripped DVD, I get this error:
Sage.playbackexception: ERROR (-1,0x0) exactly as above.

If I configure video playback as anything above basic (Medium, Standard, etc.), I get this error:
ERROR (-4,0x80040217) - again, exactly as posted above.

Obviously, I have reinstalled DirectX, so doing it several more times won't make a difference.

I can play recorded TV shows. But I cannot play DVDs from the DVD drive or from the HDD. (I would like to play DVDs, but the more pressing issue is that I just want to find out why the recorded TV show quality is below par [see http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...d.php?t=17828], and I thought playing a DVD would be a good test. So much for a simple test...)

Prior to reinstalling fresh today, I tried all kinds of settings using the NVidia DVD decoder and many various audio/video filter and renderer settings. I would be really surprised if I didn't hit on at least one combination that should have worked. I don't think it is a matter of trying more settings... but if someone thinks they have the right combination, I will try it.

Prior to today, I had also tried it without the NVidia decoder installed. My NVidia software is not a trial version.

Here is my hardware:
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285 video card driving 2 HP L2335 23" monitors via DVI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
CORSAIR XMS 2GB RAM
ASUS A8N5X motherboard
Raptor 150 GB HDD (sata)
This is a nearly new computer (just a couple months old). I have been very careful not to install much software on it because I use it for work.

Any ideas? This doesn't seem like a bug, so I doubt SageTV will help me. Is there anything else I can do (besides return the software - SageTV, if you are reading, I still have about 15 days left under the 30 day return policy .

[dshields]

FYI, I downloaded this software as a test:
http://www.dvd-x-player.com/

and I am able to play DVDs fine, both from the DVD drive and the HDD.

So I'm still troubleshooting SageTV...

[blade]

Originally Posted by dshields

FYI, I downloaded this software as a test:
http://www.dvd-x-player.com/

and I am able to play DVDs fine, both from the DVD drive and the HDD.

So I'm still troubleshooting SageTV...

Did you set Sage to use the Nvidia decoder for DVD playback in the DVD settings?

[dshields]

Here are some tests with the error listed first, then the DVD settings starting from the top (just under DVD-ROM Drive).

Test 1:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
VMR9, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Realtek AC97, AC3 Filter

Test 2:
Error (-5, 0x80040218)
Overlay, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default DirectSound, NVidia Audio Decoder

Test 3:
Error (-5, 0x80040218)
Overlay, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, NVidia Audio Decoder

Test 4:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
Overlay, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, Default

Test 5:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
Overlay, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, Default

Test 5:
Error (-5, 0x80040218)
Default, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, VNidia Audio Decoder

Test 6:
Error (-1, 0x0)
Default, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, Default

Test 7:
Error (-1, 0x0)
Default, Default, Default, Default, Default, Default

I could list more, but everything I try gives one of these 3 errors. Is there something obvious I'm missing in the settings? (You would think I would have hit on the right setting just by luck, after 10 days!)

[dshields]

Test 8:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
VMR9, NVidia Decoder (no post processor), Default, Default, Default, Default

Test 9:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
Overlay, SageTV MPEG Decoder, Default, Default, Default, Default

[dshields]

All the above tests were attempts to play a DVD (both ripped to HHD and from DVD drive).

Below are some tests using recorded TV shows for playback:
Test 10:
no errors
VMR9, SageTV MPEG Video Decoder, Default, Default, Configure, Default, SageTV MPEG Audio, 0

Test 11:
Error (-4, 0x80040217)
VMR9, NVidia Video Decoder, Default, Default, Configure, Default, SageTV MPEG Audio, 0

Test 12:
Error (-4, 0x0)
Default, NVidia Video Decoder, Default, Default, Configure, Default, SageTV MPEG Audio, 0

In configuration wizard, Configure Video Playback, every standard mode (basic, med, std, advanced) works fine for playback of recorded TV.

The DVD-X player plays DVDs from both HDD and DVD Drive fine.

Does any of this give any clues?

[Polypro]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...46&postcount=6


Try the stuff in post #6

HTH

P

[dshields]

Thank you. Can you clarify this step:

"Scroll down to Nvidia Audio and Video decoders, highlight and click properties, set up what you can for your specific hardware (Anamorphic TV, Hardware Accel, S/PDIF, VMR9) etc... each case is different. (There are more options that will be available when media is playing, accessed from the tray icon...we'll do them last). Close."

See the attachment. I'm not sure what to do at this step, so I included some screen shots of what I'm seeing. Thanks.

[dshields]

Does this first screen cap look like where I should be? Any specific suggestions on settings based on what I have available? Thanks