[PLUGIN] UIMOD:Bluray/DVD External Playback

[Wakecrash]

Works great for me. VC-1 movies were choppy when played through Sage, play back is perfect. Opens TMT fast, closes fast and right back to Sage menu.

One small issue, when I tried to select the program to play DVD/Blu-Ray the pop up box would not allow me to navigate any directorys, it was stuck C: and D: drives, I would try to select C: and screen would not change, not even a spinning icon. So I went ahead and tried to play a ripped blu-ray, didn't work, then whent back to setup and it allowed me to then navigate and select the program.

I use TMT 2 on a Vista Client and the file I use to play is uMCEDVDPlayer.exe. It gave an option to install on server and client, I selected the client plugin only.

[banshee]

Any possibility of enabling this to work with ISO files -- and automounting using virtual clonedrive the way SageTV normally does? I tried it, and it doesn't seem to work...

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, I intend to get that going one of these days. It is something that could actually be handled in just the batch file, but I haven't worked out the best way to handle it yet. (I've never had a need for .ISO files before until I started ripping 3D Bluray discs)

[Fuzzy]

If anyone wants to give ISO's a shot, here's a quick batch file I cooked up that SHOULD work for ISO's using VirtualCloneDrive. You'll have to change the VCDLetter setting to the drive letter of your VCD.

@echo off

set VCDLetter=W:

if %~x1 == .iso goto :mount

:playfile
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Arcsoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" %~s1
goto :end

:mount
start /wait C:\PROGRA~2\ELABOR~1\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe /l=%VCDLetter% %~s1
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Arcsoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" %VCDLetter%
start /wait C:\PROGRA~2\ELABOR~1\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe /l=%VCDLetter% /u
 
:end

Initial testing was inconsistent, as I had AnyDVD installed and by default monitor ALL optical drives (including the VCD's). This was causing a delay in the images being available in the virtual drive, as anydvd had to scan the disk first. After disabling the virtual drives from the AnyDVD Settings -> Drives -> Selection window, i seems to be working great.

[sandyj]

I am using your plugin with TMT 5 and have found that movies are slow to load and there is a hour glass for some time before starting it always loads but is slow any reason for this do you think or is this normal. I have not tried it with TMT 3 to see if the same thing occurs.

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, TMT just has a long start up time. Not really sure there's much that could be done with it. It will depend on your system, and on the location of the movie.

[sandyj]

Thanks Fuzzy at least now I won't have to spend lots of time trying to fix it I will live with the load times for now pity TMT did not have some sort of preload feature or better scripting that would allow us to have TNT loaded at boot time running in the background. I see they might be adding a scripting feature in the future I read it in one of their forums some were but I would not hold my breath.

[banshee]

I tried the script and it partly worked. I may be running into the anydvd problem you mentioned. Unfortunately I have no choice but to use it since my projector only has vga outputs.

I find sometimes it mounts and plays correctly and other times it does not.

[Fuzzy]

You shouldn't need AvyDVD active on the virtual drives. In the AnyDVD Settings, you go to Drives -> Selection. All optical drive will be listed (including the virtual Clone Drives, which will probably be called ELBY CLONEDRIVE 1.4). If the protection was removed when the ISO was created, you don't need to have AnyDVD handling the virtual drive anymore, and since it doens't have any protection, it will work fine over VGA.

[rabbitslayer]

PowerDVD 9 will play from folder structure. 10 will not from the stuff I have seen on the internet. I can drag and drop folder structure onto powerdvd 9 and it will play dvd and bluray. And when I use this plugin (thanks BTW! ) it will play dvd just fine but, won't play blu ray.

The blu ray is ripped with anydvd hd and does work with drag and drop so it has to be a good rip. I did modify the batch file to the new path for the exe for powerdvd 9 but, it just won't play blu ray. What am I missing?

[Fuzzy]

I'm not sure. I've never used PDVD9, I'm not sure what it expects as the command line. I simply pass the folder that sage has stored for it's location, which works for DVD's and BluRay's. I'm not sure what PDVD expects, or even if it will work. You could try calling it with the BDMV folder, or the STREAM folder, perhaps one of them might work.

[panteragstk]

I've found that this will not work if the blu-ray is loaded into a playlist. Like for smm. If you enable the playback of trailers before the move your plugin will not open up the external player. Other than that no issues that I can see. Simply awesome.

[cmwm]

Thank you for a great program. It works well but I am using an mce remote and need a way to close tmt 5. I can easily control all of the basics of playback with my remote but just cannot close it.

I know that Fuzzy uses girder which I have not been very successful with in the past. Anyone else know of a way to do this.

I tried the menu button and it switches but back to media center and not sagetv.

Thank you,
John

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by cmwm

Thank you for a great program. It works well but I am using an mce remote and need a way to close tmt 5. I can easily control all of the basics of playback with my remote but just cannot close it.

I know that Fuzzy uses girder which I have not been very successful with in the past. Anyone else know of a way to do this.

I tried the menu button and it switches but back to media center and not sagetv.

Thank you,
John

Eventghost will do this for you. Very easy to use. Just map your power button to ctrl-x (i think) to close tmt. Or you could just use simple alt+f4. It has an mce remote plugin so it will already know the buttons of your remote. You can also supress the opening of mce with the green button by using this program that babgvant wrote. I map the green button to call sage and close tmt when I'm using it. Of course uninstalling media center all together helped more than anything.

[cmwm]

Thank you I appreciate your help. I am working on event ghost to see if I can make it work for me. I will let you know. Thanks again, John

[sbrinsfi]

Hi,

Hoping someone can assist.

I am unable to select the external DVD application as I cannot drill down into the directories to choose it.

In other words, under the DVD/DVD-BluRay External Application, I see the drives available but when I click on them they do nothing, (can't drill down).

TIA!

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, I've seen that reported before. I haven't had a chance to track it down. For now, you can set up your path in the sageclient.properties, in the fuzzy/WatchExternally_path= property. (keeping in mind that you'll have to close the client, then open/edit/save the .properties file).

[Wakecrash]

sbrinsfi,
Did you try to play a DVD, then when that fails go back into the setup.

[sbrinsfi]

Originally Posted by Wakecrash

sbrinsfi,
Did you try to play a DVD, then when that fails go back into the setup.

Amazing!

I let it fail then was able to choose my player.....

That got it!!!

Thanks a million!

[speck55]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If anyone wants to give ISO's a shot, here's a quick batch file I cooked up that SHOULD work for ISO's using VirtualCloneDrive. You'll have to change the VCDLetter setting to the drive letter of your VCD.

@echo off

set VCDLetter=W:

if %~x1 == .iso goto :mount

:playfile
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Arcsoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" %~s1
goto :end

:mount
start /wait C:\PROGRA~2\ELABOR~1\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe /l=%VCDLetter% %~s1
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Arcsoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" %VCDLetter%
start /wait C:\PROGRA~2\ELABOR~1\VirtualCloneDrive\VCDMount.exe /l=%VCDLetter% /u
 
:end

Initial testing was inconsistent, as I had AnyDVD installed and by default monitor ALL optical drives (including the VCD's). This was causing a delay in the images being available in the virtual drive, as anydvd had to scan the disk first. After disabling the virtual drives from the AnyDVD Settings -> Drives -> Selection window, i seems to be working great.

OK Here's the deal, wondering if you could be of some help. I'm looking to move away from 7WMC, but my "old" (still in tact if I need to go back ) setup, is a server with loads of disk space, and backed up DVDs (in folder structure) and BD's (in ISO structure), using MM, Virtual Clone Drive. All works well, as well as on the client upstairs (MM, Virtual Clone Drive, 7WMC), which will play DVDs internally, and BDs using PDVD10 Ultra.

I installed Sage7 server on the server, and Sage 7 client on the client (betas of both since the dependency for SageMyMovies). All drives on client are mapped the same letters as the "physical drives" appear on the server)

Read, searched, read some more, and got everything setup including PlayOn (I'm trying to "cut the cable"). Everything is beautiful. DVD's play over the network fine, I can play my NetFlix and Hulu on demand stuff, it's just BD ISO's that have me stumped. (I'm on the trial, and if I can get this last thing working, I'll wind up buying the MC license, Client License, and probably a couple of placeshifter licenses).

Here's where I hit the wall. I installed your (Fuzzy's) External Player plugin - and set External Player for BD to yes, and specified the external player to be the PowerDVD10 executable. This would just launch PDVD10 and PDVD would just sit at its idle screen. A quick look at the "My computer" shows me that there was no ISO mounted.

So I tried the batch file earlier in this thread, replacing the Virtual Drive letter with V: in the SET statement, and verifying paths to the VCD executable, and had it launch PDVD by passing the drive letter. I set the external player to the batch file (launchplayer.bat, which I put in the root of C: for ease).

I pick a BD to play, and it does nothing. I added a PAUSE statement to the batch file so I could see at least if the batch file is running, (and would hence be waiting for a keypress before closing), and it appears it isn't even firing the batch file off. I have another thread where people directed me over here for my questions.

Any and all help/hints would be appreciated. If I need to pony up for TMT3, then so be it (do they even sell 3 anymore? I looked in their store and only saw TMT5, and I vaguely remember someone saying that 5 had some additional restrictions, and I may have the opposite problem - will TMT3 or 5 play folder structure DVDs?), but the ISO+VCD+MM+7WMC solution has been working solidly - so I know PDVD can handle (mounted) ISO's.


Thanks in advance for your guys' time!


Sean