AnyDVD rips not playing in sagetv

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by justme

... I saw the systray icons for AC3filter,FFdshow audio, and Nvidia's Mpeg2 PureVideo codec...

Justme, if you saw all those systray icons, that means that the playback had nothing to do with SageTVPlayer. SageTVPlayer uses it's own codecses to play both video and audio, and it doesn't call on things like AC3filter when playing.

You may see who is playing your video if you open the task manager and see what happens there while that iso is playing.

I suspect that if I just install the Nvidia's PureVideo decoder on this computer, and set it to be the default Mpeg2 decoder in Sage, the iso will play. I'll try that tonight.

Is the presence/absence of Nvidia's PureVideo decoder the difference between your server and client?

Patilan

[justme]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Justme, if you saw all those systray icons, that means that the playback had nothing to do with SageTVPlayer. SageTVPlayer uses it's own codecses to play both video and audio, and it doesn't call on things like AC3filter when playing.

Patilan, just to be clear... I do understand that the fact that those icons showed up meant SageTV wasn't using mplayer alone. I'm using the term "mplayer",instead of sagetvplayer, to try and be more clear as to what I mean. I intentionally make sure that ALL my Dshow codecs show their tray icon when used(if they even have a setting to force their icons when used, that is).

The reason I originally used the term SageTVplayer(in hindsight I shouldn't, as it just confused the whole issue), is that in older versions if you followed the debug log you'd see references to something like that, even when you were using Dshow. I don't know about newer versions as, I'm not into Sage as much as I was. Has Jeff, or someone else with a true understanding posted exactly how Sage internally handles video files. In the old days it was all Dshow, then mplayer got incoporated. In the early days of mplayer's addition it seemed like a all or nothing thing(Dshow or mplayer, no mixture). But as time went on it seemed(I say this from my memories of those older versions log files) like Sage used mplayer to start up playback. They may have changed that, as it was in that general time that I had most of my biggest issues with files that worked fine before no longer working. I honestly don't know exactly how Sage handles/intergrates mplayer in current versions. I just found it interesting that SageTV was playing video from a ISO. TMK, that are no Dshow codes to open a .ISO. So I assumed(always a bad thing ) that mplayer was somehow opening the ISO and then somehow handing off the opened ISO to a regular Dshow graph build for playback. For future conversations I'll asume it's a all mplayer or all dshow setup, with no mixture. Each would be called depending on your system settings.

EDIT>I didn't post the above to be rude, or talk at you. Rereading the post, made me realize it could come across harshly to some. So I added this part just to be clear that I only want to provide helpfull info. I never meant to confuse things(another reaon I rarely post anymore). Quite the contrary, besides curiousity, I only even did the test(and then posted my results) since I've seen your name in(or starting) threads about issues I've long cared about. So I decided to see if I could add any info to help. Believe me, I was very suprised that it worked at all, even with Dshow codecs being used. I just wanted to let you know I understand what you're saying.<EDIT

Originally Posted by Patilan

I suspect that if I just install the Nvidia's PureVideo decoder on this computer, and set it to be the default Mpeg2 decoder in Sage, the iso will play. I'll try that tonight.

Good idea. I haven't done it on my client, and I'm not sure my license would(legally) allow this since that would mean it's on 2 PCs. Also I'm not sure how Nvidias codec would like my laptop's video chipset.

Originally Posted by Patilan

Is the presence/absence of Nvidia's PureVideo decoder the difference between your server and client?

No. I posted some info ealier in this thread but here it is in one place.

Server: Windows XP Pro 32bit SP3, JAVA 6 Update 11, SageTV Server ver 6.4.8, CCCP codec pack(It's basically just an installer for Haali's splitter and FFdsow Audio and Video tryouts. This is the only codec pack I ever use, and I don't really think of CCCP as a "codec pack". That term mainly applies to those monsters that should never be used and are often illegal to boot) ,AC3Filter 1.51a, Nvidia Mpeg Pureview.

Hardware:AMD Athlon XP 2100+ CPU on a ABIT KR7A 133R. 1 GB Ram, Nvidia Geforce Ti4800 video card. Connected to local network by pyshical wire running at 100mb.

Client(only differences listed): Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit, SageTV Client RC6.5.7, using Microsofts built in decoders for Mpeg2.

Hardware:ACER 6930 Laptop, Intel C2D T5800 cpu, 4 GB Ram, Intel's 4500MHD inetgrated graphics chip, Connected to local network over wireless G using WPA encryption

So a far as codecs go that is a big difference you pointed out. But I've found Vista 64bit to still act a little differently than XP32 with same basic hardware. Although I do find Vista to be usable since SP1. Vista is no longer something I avoid at all costs. The other obvious difference is that i'm running a SageTV RC client version. To be honest, I had forgotten this. It's a hold over from me testing the new betas. I had a temp server setup, for testing, that was running the lastest RC server version. I just forgot to rollback my laptop after the tests(I'll likely just upgrade my real server now that the code is effectively official quality). Anyway the difference in SageTV versions may be the answer right there. I remember someone posting about certion functions(I belive subtitle related) being left out of Sage's recent mplayer builds. Maybe there were other changes relating to .ISO too. Or it just may have been the Client not liking the older version on the server.

I will at least make sure to redo the test, and post, after I update everything to the newest SageTV. Other tests I mentoned in previous posts may or may not be done depending on time. I'm trying to keep Sage from becoming a job again. I'm happy with just using it as an actual piece of software now. I don't want to burn out on Sage again, besides my wife would kill me if I went back to spending the time I used to with our HTPC setup.

/peace

[Patilan]

Dear Justme,

I don't understand why you have to apologize.
It's always been a pleasure reading what you have to say!

Originally Posted by justme

For future conversations I'll asume it's a all mplayer or all dshow setup, with no mixture.

Hmmm..... maybe not. Now this is what I think about that (and this is a wild guess): Anything SageTV doesn't know what to do with, it throws it at mplayer. When SageTV threw that ISO at mplayer, mplayer was able successfuly to see what's inside it, i.e., MPEG2 video. Seeing it's MPEG2, SageTV gave the playback to whatever MPEG2 decoder was set up in your preferences. On your server, it happened to be the NVidia Purevideo decoder, which apparently knew what to do with the ISO. On your client, you had some other decoder set up for MPEG2 playback, and that decoder was not able to deal with the ISO. Again, all this is a wild guess.

I haven't had the chance to install the NVidia decoder on this machine to see whether the above guess is correct or not. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

In the mean time, I still wish there was some way to tell SageTV which player to use for files of type ".xyz". That would make life much easier!

Yours,
Patilan

[justme]

I don't understand why you have to apologize.

Force of habit, I'm married. No seriusly, my wife is great. But it is still a habit. I've seen and see, so many cases(in these forums and others) of people misunderstanding a statement(not just from me ) as aggression or hostility that I tend to overcompensate. Normally I'd apologize for that but...

Hmmm..... maybe not. Now this is what I think about that (and this is a wild guess): Anything SageTV doesn't know what to do with, it throws it at mplayer.

Cool, that's basically what I was guessing was going on. I was freaked out when that ISO started playing video. I'm still not really clear on how it's all going on behind the scenes with SageTV. It would be nice if there was a really quick visual way like GraphEdit, to see how playback is workiing. I hate reading log files. I'm also a little unclear why Sage doesn't seem to use the same Dshow graph as WMP with certian files and video formats. It's one thing when Sage is using mplayer, but when it's using Dshow only(ie always use Dshow), I expect it to use the same filters as the other Dshow players on my system. Still, this is likely more of a Dshow issue than Sage, and I'm wandering offtopic.

I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Gotcha. I'll let you know if I found out anything new. Still it may be a while. Just look at my rapid, not, response to your last post. I need to get that new server finished or free up some harddrive space to properly do any tests. And yes, I'm that low on space, that a single DVD rip is an issue.

In the mean time, I still wish there was some way to tell SageTV which player to use for files of type ".xyz".

Agreed. Specifing Dshow or Mplayer per file type would be usefull, IMO. I would also like to see Sage fully support all of mplayer's function, in their build, and also allow access to them from the SageTV UI. I guess I should put that in, as a formal feature request.

/justme

[Patilan]

Bad news: I installed NVidia's PureVideo Decoder, and I still can't play ISO.
(I wander if your log file may give me a clue as to why you can play it)

Originally Posted by justme

Specifing Dshow or Mplayer per file type would be usefull, IMO. I would also like to see Sage fully support all of mplayer's function, in their build, and also allow access to them from the SageTV UI. I guess I should put that in, as a formal feature request.

You do that! Perhaps your voice will be heard.
(I stopped using email in 1998, and the forums is as far as I go.)

Patilan

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Bad news: I installed NVidia's PureVideo Decoder, and I still can't play ISO.

That doesn't surprise me, PureVideo is just a decoder, you need a demux/file source to understand ISOs, and I'm not aware of any that do.

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by justme

So as you said the question remains why can my SageTV server play a .ISO.

Right!

Did you notice what they did in the latest beta? Here's an abstract...

Originally Posted by Narflex

SageTV V6.5.8 Release Candidate 1/27/2009
Core Updates
[...]
5. Don't try to do a format detection on ISO files

...They actually went out and intentionally crippled the recognition of ISO files! I am stunned. So much for feature requests!

Please don't upgrade your server software before we figure out how it plays the ISO. I really want to get to the bottom of that.

Patilan

[stanger89]

No, you're totally missreading that. Bad things can happen when you try to do format detection on an ISO. I've got an AVCHD ISO in my import directory tree and it makes the extender throw fits.

ISO does not necessarilly mean DVD, so it's not safe to treat it like it is. AFAIK you can still import ISOs, and they'll still play how they did before, Sage just no longer runs SageTV player on them to figure out what they are. Heck they may work better now since Sage won't know they're MPEG-2.

[Patilan]

That's good to know!

I hope Justme will show up and post his logs.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Right!

Did you notice what they did in the latest beta? Here's an abstract...

...They actually went out and intentionally crippled the recognition of ISO files! I am stunned. So much for feature requests!

Please don't upgrade your server software before we figure out how it plays the ISO. I really want to get to the bottom of that.

Patilan

This was a fix for this problem, http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39021

[Patilan]

Thanks Jack

[justme]

I hope Justme will show up and post his logs.

Don't worry I haven't forgotten. Like I talked about in othe posts, I have certian issues with my setup. However, that server(that worked) will not be upgraded until I get some more info.

As for the logs from my first test... I didn't think to immediately make a copy. I since have made a copy of all log files on that server. Just don't know if I restarted(Sage) too many before I did this. Still I'm not too worried as that log file would be very long anyway. I have the DVD, I ripped, and have intentionally not even allowed AnyDVD to upgrade. So I should be able to to a new test and make a short simple log file. I also want to do some more extensive tests, as my first was done in a rush(while I was about to got to sleep). I'd like to tests several DVDs and see what happens. Whatever, I'll report it, when I get it. It just comes done to Harddrive space. I needed that space and so deleted that rip of Monty Python's "And now for something completely different". Once I get off my butt and finish the new server or clear some space I'll get the info to you.

/peace