Setting up WHS / Client(s) for DVD’s

[firenice]

Hello all in this forum.
I am a BTV convert and I have to say I am impressed with SageTV. I am currently using V7.0.15.237 Beta and while the core is rock solid and it records and plays everything I want it to, some of the extras, have been a head banger.

Let me get to the main purpose of this post. I use WHS and a Win7 client as you see below and they were not talking to one another the way I believed they should. For recorded TV and playback everything was fine although for DVD / ISO integration I was lacking the fundamental networking experience. I was receiving playback exceptions. Well, I solved that, with head banging and a lot of beers, so here is a synopsis of what it took for me to get it right.
I will insert a disclaimer at this point. This worked for me and may not work for all but it can be considered a starting point.

I will start with the client. Win 7 box called winbox, fairly plain jane, but I do login with user name and a password. My username is username and password is password. I also have the administrator account setup so I have to log on to my username every time I boot. Enough said about that. I run a SageTV client on this machine and it does what it suppose to do. It schedules recordings and plays them back when I want them. Had a Placeshifter but it wouldn’t do what I was attempting to do with the DVD’s so I uninstalled it and installed a SageTV client. I’ll come back to the SageTV client later after dealing with settings on the WHS.

I am running a WHS box called whsbox. I like WHS. I like SageTV on WHS. Set and forget as the saying goes. That is for basic functions as PVR software. When delving in to what has been afforded to us in V7.0.xx you have to pull the manuals out not only for SageTV but for networking, server / client and particle physics. The procedure I used to setup the WHS is:
Setup a user login on the WHS. This can and should be the same login that your client uses. All this was done in the console view with the advanced admin console but can be done via rdc.

Command prompt
control passwords2

Box will appear with tabs for “users” or “advanced”
Click “advanced” tab
Click “advanced” button on this tab
Under “user” choose the user you will login as, right click and choose properties
On the “member of” tab add “administrators” (Note administrator with an s) there is a difference. If you are not sure click “add” and enter administrators in “Object names to select”. Click "check names" and if it is there it will show “servername\administrators”
Click OK, OK and close local users and groups box.
Go to the “users” tab. Scan the list and highlight the user to login as. With this user highlighted uncheck “user must enter a password to use this computer”
You will have to enter a password at this point and it should be the same as logon password.

Now we need to set the SageTV service to use the same login. To get to the services right click on my computer and click manage. Services will be at the bottom.
Go to the WHS services and highlight the SageTV service.
Right click on “properties”
Click the “Log On” tab and click “This account”. Browse to find the user name established above. The best way to do this is click “Advanced” and then “Find now” and it will populate a list of the users. Choose the user from the list and it will go in the user box as .\user. Enter a password (the same password as above). Click "Apply" Message will say that it will not take affect until service is restarted. At this point it is best to reboot the server. The new login created will come into affect and you can have a beer as you bask in the glory that that was the easy part. The SageTV client still needs some tweaks so I’ll move back to it.

As a reminder this is a SageTV client and not a SageTV Placeshifter.

The SageTV client in this case is on my winbox. I watch DVD’s from both the whsbox and winbox so all folders for my videos and movies on winbox are shared with everyone and have to be for whsbox to see them. Basically they are network shares.

Start the SageTV client and go to “Setup” “General” “Media Center Import Directories” “Modify”.

At this point you will probably see \\localhost\videos, music, photos and maybe a few others. The “localhost” was part of my issue. You have to use the localhost name when setting paths for imports.

“\\localhost\videos” should be \\servername\videos (UNC paths only)

Server side my video path is \\whsbox\videos as an example.

Client side my video path is \\winbox\video as an example.

“localhostname” can be the machine’s IP address. (i.e. \\192.168.1.xx\folder) but not recommended unless you are using static IP addresses.

When all paths are set the way you want you have to rescan your library before you will be able to see any videos. The path has to exist or you will be asked if you want to create it. You don’t because it will create it on the root of C:\ on the server and browsing does not give you the UNC path.

Note: Avoid duplicate folder names between server and client. I have DVDs on the server and DVD on the client. If you duplicate folder names only one will show up for some unexplained reason. Another thing that I ran across was the folder structure has to be set 2 deep because the videos would not show up in the root of a folder.
Explanation:
This didn’t work
Drive:\Root Folder\DVDfolder or ISO
This did work.
Drive:Root Folder\folder\DVDfolder or ISO

Go to “Detail Setup” “Advanced” “Rescan Existing Library Files” “Rescan Now”
Now it would be time for another beer or two if you have a lot to scan.

Back out of setup and go to “Videos” “Folders”
You should now see all your DVD’s / ISO’s and be able to play them. Now I will make a disclaimer. You can read it fast if you like or just skip to the end if you want.

This is an out of the box setup. Addins are SJQ3.x, SageAlert 2.x and the Comskip addin. Have virtual clone drive on both server and client.

I am able to watch DVD (folder structures), DVD (ISO’s) and BD (folder structures). Am unable to watch BD (ISO’s) at this time because I believe I may not have the proper setup for them yet.

Hope this helps and if anyone sees any errors in my setup please let me know. I know there are several other ways to do this and loads of addins for DVD movies but with SageTV7 Beta it is native and works good. If you use any other setup besides the setup above (i.e. XP Vista Linux etc….) it may not work. Vista maybe but I found the best way to make Vista work was to install windows 7.

Have a beer and watch some movies now.

Mike

[Fuzzy]

You shouldn't have to go through all this for basic playback (yes, even playback of DVD's and such). The only thing you'll be missing by NOT using common URL paths for your recording and import folders is the comskip playback plugin on the client won't be able to see the edl files. It won't stop playback though, as if a client can't access the file directly, the sage server will stream it through the client-server connection.