FFDShow - DVD Navigation Issues/Black Screen

[Flips]

I'm trying to get FFDShow working through Sage. According to what I read (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=ffdshow) it seems that when you pick FFDShow in the menu it is setup to use the default decoders (Nvidia in my case) and just run as a post processor.

Everything works great in zoomplayer which is setup to use Nvidia as the decoder and FFDShow as the post processor. But when I try to use FFDShow through Sage, depending on the DVD I get two results. One is that it plays the DVD okay, but I when I try to do navigation I can't see what menu I have selected. If I just hit enter it will play whatever I have selected. The other option is that I get a black screen and then when I try to skip chapters, I get a error message saying that operation is not allowed at this time. It seems that my road trip DVDs (backed up copies) experience the first option.

I've followed the htpcnews guide to get everything setup. In the codec section I have everything disabled except for raw video which is "all supported".

If I just select to use the Nvdia decoder in the Sage setup menu everything works great.

I would really like to use the FSE of Sage and not launch another play such as ZoomPlayer or Theatertek to run FFDShow.

Thanks for the help,
Flips

[bhyman1]

I'm having the exact same problem

I've tried using a different decoder, something other than the Nvidia one, and no luck.

[Flips]

bhyman1,

Which problem are you having? The black screen or the navigation problem?

From a search in avsforums I came across a way to fix the menu navigation problem in Zoomplayer. Basically you have to check a box in the settings that says always assume that you are on a DVD menu. The post calls it something a little different so I think they just changed the working in later versions of Zoomplayer. From that it seems that we won't be able to fix it by tweaking FFDShow, and it is a limitation in the DVD software (in our case Sage).

Here's the first thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...how+navigation
Which references this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...t=ffdshow+menu

I still don't know what the issue with the black screen is. I installed Sage on my main computer just to see if it was an issue there and it wasn't. I will have to play with it some more to see what is different between the two computers.

Is everyone that uses FFDShow have the menu navigation problem???

Thanks,
Flips

[Flips]

Sorry to drag up a really old thread, but just as closure in case anyone is having the same problem... I still don't know of a menu fix, but I was able to find a fix for the black screen.

I found that the MPEG decoder I was using (dscaler I believe) doesn't support the copyright decrypting. I installed AnyDVD and the problem went away. Another fix would be to make Sage use Nvidia as the DVD decoder, but I'm not sure how to do that. I believe Sage is supposed to use the default decoder (which I believe already is Nvidia). Other than that I don't know... Hopefully that will help someone out there.

Thanks,
Flips