External BluRay plugin for BDMV on Disc

[Fuzzy]

Introduction:

Currently, Extenders have the capability to playback what it detects as the 'main movie' from a BluRay folder structure in the video library. This allows the use of ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3 (or any other player capable of BDMV playback from folder) with PC based clients (running the Default STV). This is full BluRay support, Menus, Full Audio capabilities (limited by your system), even BD Live.

Instructions:

Unzip archive to your SageTV fodler (C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV)
Edit the STVs\SageTV3\BluRayOnDisc.bat file to point to your BluRay Software. (By default, it is set up for TMT3's MCE Player)
From the Default STV -> Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Manage, add the BluRayPlayback.stvi and let it rebuild.
Browse in Video Library for your BluRay Rip, and press Play (or choose Watch Now from the menu. It will inform you that it is about to run your player. Press OK, and it will launch the player and start the disc.

Note:

This plugin simply latches on to the error that is triggered when BD Playback is attempted in the client, and launches the batch file with the path to the BluRay structure.
This plugin does not include IR control of TMT. This will have to be done in some other software (I use Girder).

This is a very simplified plugin. If you find problems, let me know and I'll try to get them sorted. It has worked perfectly for me so far.

Fuzzy.

Download link here

Forum Thread is here

Version History:

1.00 10/15/2009 2:24pm - First Release


Original post follows:

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Is there a plugin that will launch an external media player for the Default STV? I'm thinking about putting some full-disc BluRay's on my hard-drive, but since I'm a client (vice extender), I can't play them in sage. I CAN play the folders just fine with TMT3, but would like a way to call TMT on the file from the video library. I've started to look at studio to figure out where to insert an ExecuteProcess to call TMT with the folder... also have to figure out how to get the folder path from the Airing object.. (what does

GetFileForSegment(GetMediaFileForAiring(Airing))

return for BluRay rips?) If it returns the same thing the detaild info shows (which is up to and including the BDMV folder), then what would be the easiest way to strip the "\BDMV" from the end?

Hey Andy, how hard would it be to add a

ExecureProcess("BluRayOnDisc.cmd" + GetFileForSegment(GetMediaFileForAiring(Airing),0))

call when trying to play a BluRay? Or whatever would actual work.. still really rusty in studio... Then, if that cmd file doesn't exist, THEN it pops up the error... seems it would close the gap a bit between clients and extenders on this front...

[gplasky]

External Apps for Default STV

An import that provides a button on the Video Options menu that can be used to run any external application, using the current video filename (among other things) as an argument. Discussion in this thread.

Gerry

[Fuzzy]

yeah, i saw that one.. I was hoping to be able to instead intercept the play function for bluray material only. It seems possible, I'm just not quite that comfortable in Studio to do so.

[stanger89]

http://download.sage.tv/api/sage/api...age.MediaFile)

[Fuzzy]

yeah, I know about the api and that check. My point was i need to learn enough about the default stv to figure out where to PUT that check. Just will take some playing around, and I've yet to figure out a clean and easy way to step through studio... really just not enough time to play with it yet.

[stanger89]

You'd have to go find all the calls to "Watch(MediaFile)" and stick and "if IsBluRay(MediaFile): launch external app, else: Watch(MediaFile)".

Unfortunately they're all over the place (I found them once in an experiment to see if I could stop the STV from stopping playback before starting the next file) and I'm not sure what the getMediaFileForSegement returns. You'll probably need to use that with some path logic to get the root path to the Blu-ray.

[Fuzzy]

some progress.. the GetFileForSegment(MediaFile) does return a path for DVD and bluray mediafiles. It is, unfortunately, the path INCLUDING the /BDMV, so I'll have to strip that off the end (I THINK replaceAll(GetFileForSegment(GetMediaFileForAiring(Airing)),"\\BDMV","") should return the right path that I need to pass to tmt...

[Fuzzy]

Success... got it working with TMT3. Was not really all that hard. Info is in the first post.

[stanger89]

Woohoo!

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Woohoo!

Well, if anyone is Old-Skool enough to run PC based clients still, give it a shot.

[SWKerr]

Well I downgraded to the Default STV to try this out. Changed it to point to TME (Full Version). Running on Windows7-64.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Extreme\Digital Theatre\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" "%1"

Works great.

One problem. I hate the default interface.

Can some please port this to SageMC. Please, Please, Please

[briands]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Well I downgraded to the Default STV to try this out. Changed it to point to TME (Full Version). Running on Windows7-64.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Extreme\Digital Theatre\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" "%1"

Works great.

One problem. I hate the default interface.

Can some please port this to SageMC. Please, Please, Please

I'll second this request...

SWkerr... what are you doing for control?

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by briands

I'll second this request...

SWkerr... what are you doing for control?

I use EventGhost today and have the MCE button toggle between different application setups. Hit MCE once and it skips to Hulu where the power button launches the Hulu client. Hit MCE again and it goes to TME. The other buttons a customized for each application.

This plugin is great because the remote is great for controlling the basic functions but I still really need the keyboard to open up a disk. With this I can navigate to the disk in Sage start the BluRay and then toggle to TME controls watch the disk and when I am finished just close TME and end up back in Sage without touching the keyboard.

[Fuzzy]

I'm using girder for control of totalmedia. I actually added some girder event lines before and after it in the batch file that switch girder to totalmedia mode (disabling the SageTV Group, and Enabling the TotalMedia Group). Then, I have a button on the remote (the same button I use for back/exit in sage) that closes the player down, so the batch file continues, and switches girder back to sage mode.

As a Bonus, this will work for playing directly off a disc as well. Just add your BDROM drive's root to sage's media import, and it will show up first on the list (since it won't have a name). Choose it, and it will launch it with the path to the drive (D:\, etc), which will put TME in disc mode. Really works great.

As for SageMC, I'm not sure it's needed. I Thought there was already an option for launching an external player. (Haven't used MC in a while though, so can't be sure). This is only like 10-15 studio lines to bake this work, so it should be easy enough for someone familiar with sagemc in studio to put it in.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

This plugin simply latches on to the error that is triggered when BD Playback is attempted in the client................
As a Bonus, this will work for playing directly off a disc as well. Just add your BDROM drive's root to sage's media import

Will this run off the error you get when you try to play a BD disc directly from the "Media Center>Play DVD" menu path, or must you use the Videos path?

If not, can you update it? The wife is accustomed to using the DVD menu item. Can't test right now as she is actually watching a movie. Ha!

[Humanzee]

So you don't appear to be able to add bluray drive as an import directory, at least when it resides on a client machine. I shared the drive and used UNC. It says path does not exist when I try to add it.

Ripping a disc now to test otherwise.

[Fuzzy]

I have had no problems sharing optical drives. I think you DO have to have a disc in the drive when you add it though, otherwise when sage tries to browse to it, it will get an error from windows. I currently have a BD-ROM drive, and HD-DVD drive, and the DVD-ROM in my desktop, all shared on the network, and they all show up in the video library. (They will only show up there after a rescan IF there is playable media in there when you do the rescan).

[Humanzee]

Had a disk in, dunno what the deal is. Could be a Windows 7 thing.

Well the testing didn't go so well for me as I found out that PowerDVD 8 will not allow command calls to open BD on HDD. The plugin will open PowerDVD but not the folder tree as if it were a disk. Further, PDVD8 will only allow you to access network resources if you do "open meda file", not when you try to open a folder set. So even BD rips stored on the server are useless with out converting to some other file format or mounting some how.

Is TMT3 the software that comes with the HD-PVR? Does it support 7.1 audio / TrueHD etc?

What is the "%1" in your bat file. Does that contain the media source info?

BTW, when you go to play a BD in the sage interface with the "Media Center>Play DVD" menu path. It just says "No DVD in Drive __" Can you put an hook in there to launch your .bat? At least that way I could get it to open PDVD when I know there is a disk in the local drive.

[Fuzzy]

I don't think PowerDVD will even play disc media from a path anyways. This is the main reason I went with TMT3. No, TMT3 is not what comes with the HD-PVR.

Yes, %1 contains the path to the media object.

I'm not sure about hooking into the No DVD in Drive error, as it would then launch the external app when there genuinly WAS no disc in the drive. If you are just wanting to launch PowerDVD to play an inserted disc, best option would be to add a seperate menu item for it via Dynamic Menus.

The sharing may be a win7 issue. I have mine shared via 'Advanced Sharing', with Read permissions assigned to 'Everyone'.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I'm not sure about hooking into the No DVD in Drive error, as it would then launch the external app when there genuinly WAS no disc in the drive.

That's not what I mean, There is no DVD in the drive, but there is a BluRay in the drive, it just can't play it and therefore reports that there is no DVD. Launching an outside app then would be ideal as this should only occur when the media in the drive is unplayable by Sage.