Vista, Overlay, and DVD Menus

[petereader]

Has anyone gotten DVD menus on Sage 6.2.10 working with Overlay on Vista? I searched the forums and read that DVD menu navigation on Vista was a problem with some of the 6.2 betas but was fixed before the final 6.2.10 release when using VMR9. And indeed, if I switch to VMR9 it fixes the issue and I can once again see what I am selecting in DVD menus. Unfortunately VMR9 is not an option for me. It causes some rather annoying tearing that I have tried to fix through various iterations of graphics cards (Geforce 6800GT, 7600GT, and 8500GT) and decoders(WinDVD, PowerDVD, Purevideo) with no success.

I am using SageMC 6.3.4a, but have switched to the default STV to troubleshoot this issue. I have tried different decoders with no change in results but I'm currently using the PowerDVD7 decoders and no FSE.

There's always the option of using external DVD player software, but it's not nearly as elegant a solution for me.

I was about to file a bug report but thought I would check here in case anyone has this configuration working without this symptom (it's not that hard for me to believe that it could be my fault )

[JParedis]

I'm running SageTV 6.2.10.152 and Java 1.6.0_02. I played a dvd from my hard-disk with 'Video Overlay Rendere' and 'DirectX9 Video Mixing Rendering (VMR9)' settings. In both instances I could play the DVD menu and get into the DVD.

I also tried via when runnign SageMC (running version 6.3.2c), and again could access menu in both settings.

Jan

[petereader]

Thanks for the reply Jan,

Are you running Vista? I have a client on XP that does not have this problem. And can you actually see what's selected on the DVD Menus (is your selection highlighted or is the selection icon visible)?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by petereader

Thanks for the reply Jan,

Are you running Vista? I have a client on XP that does not have this problem. And can you actually see what's selected on the DVD Menus (is your selection highlighted or is the selection icon visible)?

I have also seen oddness in Vista with overlay. I never could get my nvidia card to do the right thing here, though it may have been the specific sets of drivers I have tried (Nvidia seems to alternatively break and fix video stuff in various releases). Overlay seemed to work fine for me in Vista for menus under ATI, but I use VMR9 normally.

Unless you really need Vista, I would stick with XP. XP didn't work for me on resume from standby (sage would drop out of FSE and go into the tray), so I went to Vista. But I would recommend vista only as a last resort. Sage support in Vista is dicey.

thanks,
Mike

[petereader]

Hey Mike, Thanks for your input.

I actually read some of your earlier posts while I was considering the switch to Vista (so I am somewhat caught up on your various ordeals). I have to say, with the exception of this DVD Menu problem, I have had a pretty good experience with Vista (I still feel surprised when I say that!).

The reason I decided to stick with Vista is because it resolved a stuttering issue I had while playing back HD-DVDs on PowerDVD7. This was a huge problem for my household and was happy to see it go away, but it's unfortunately been replaced with this menu issue. I may just have to decide which is the lesser of two evils.

At the moment, my roommate, my girlfriend, and I are on a huge HD-DVD kick. We are purchasing one each about every 2 weeks (that's 6 a month...yikes!). Not to mention what comes in with my Netflix subscription. If I were to take a vote between all interested parties in my house today, it's safe to say that Vista and smooth HD-DVD playback would win. But I have a rather sizable DVD collection that has taken a good bit of time to transfer to hard drive that I access exclusively through Sage. It's rather tough to get through those menus without any kind of indication as to where I am.

Oh well, I'll just submit a tech support request and in the meantime perhaps just use an external DVD player.

[mikesm]

Interesting. Did you not get HD-DVD and such to work under XP? Now that nvidia has purevideo HD support in it's XP drivers, I would think you could get the best of both worlds.

My comments about Vista aren't so much about vista itself - it has a lot of issues, but in the HTPC space, there are a lot of workarounds that seem to work ok. The issue is that Sage doesn't support EVR, and if you are doing video playback with most of the codecs under Vista, things with EVR work really well, and everything else is dicey. I have bene able to make VMR9 work well under Vista, but it was a lot harder than it needed to me. WMP and PowerDVD would work fine, but Sage would be hosed. Sigh...

I understand that Sage is "working" on EVR support, but who knows when it will be ready. Hence my advice is always to stick with XP unless you have to use Vista.

Thanks,
Mike

[petereader]

That's very insightful. I don't know where I inherited the assumption that Sage had EVR support. I also didn't realize that NVidia finally released support for Purevideo HD on XP. I was just on their site two weeks ago and these drivers weren't out yet (I see that they were released on the 28th). That was one of the major reasons I upgraded to Vista. OK, time to reassess my OS...again!

Just to clarify, I was able to watch HD-DVDs on XP with PowerDVD7 via an XBox drive I have hooked up to my HTPC. Playback was rather jerky. It was subtle enough to where I could kind of live with it, but I definitely noticed it. I was never able to remove this stuttering issue on XP. With Vista that problem is gone. Although to be fair, I also installed a new video card. Perhaps it is time to go back to XP.

[petereader]

In case anyone reads this thread who is having a similar issue:

I was able to get VMR9 working on Vista Ultimate, studder free, by disabling inverse telecine from the Nvidia Control Panel. I'm using Forceware 163.69 drivers for my 8500GT and PowerDVD7 decoders.

With VMR9 working, DVD menus work just fine.

Now, time to play catch-up with all my new movies.