DVD over Extender Frustrations

[VikingCrown]

I've been trying to get this working for a while now. I am running the latest Sage and using MLBDude's Media Center with Sage on my PC and an Extender downstairs. I have been backing up my library into movie only VOB files using DVDShrink. On my PC, I am able to import the files into My Movies, I can get the IMDB information and I can play the file and everything.

However, once i try the same functions on my MVP I can't get it to do anything. I have tried adding various things to my Sage.Properties file and the file in the Clients folder, but nothing has worked. I have restarted my Client under services multiple times but nothing seems to work. I am including the various properties files, and It would be great if someone could look at them and see if they look ok. If there is something i'm missing please let me know. If they look alright, i'm truely interested in anyone elses suggestions on how to get this working.

Regards,
Brian

[PGPfan]

You need to add a property to the Sage.properties file like so:
media_server/transcode_quality/DVDVOB=-f dvd -vcodec copy -acodec mp2 -ab 128


Then another to the appropriate properties file in the "clients" folder:
miniclient/transcode_mode_vob=DVDVOB

Since you are ripping to one .vob file everything should work fine for you, but keep in mind that you wont have the ability to navigate the DVD menu structure (not possible without a lot of software re-writing on the part of Sage). The closest that you can get is amg's .stv HERE which will automatically play back all the vob files back in the correct order.

That should get it working for you.

[garyellis]

I had the same problem because of the audio being in AC3 format.

And the solution that PGPfan gave you above worked for me. It now transcodes the the AC3 and plays to the MVP.

Gary

[cbarrett]

I'm new to Sage, so I'm probably missing something, but I too have been trying to get DVD playback working on the MVP with no luck. The above statements just don't make any difference to my setup....I still get the same error message from the MVP - can't recall it right now...but it does seem to imply that it is trying to play VIDEO_TS, which is a directory...so my problem may be associated with that. After following the DVD Shrink tutorial and getting all my DVD's on my hard disk in movie/VIDEO_TS and movie/AUDIO_TS format, what else (besides the above two statements) do I need to do?.

I also did the "re-author" part of DVD Shrink, backing up only the main movie, thinking I would end up with a single "vob" file, but as it turns out...I end up with many vob files. For example:

I:\my_dvd_videos\Some Movie\VIDEO_TS:
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB
VTS_01_5.VOB

Incidentally, AUDIO_TS has nothing in it.

Then I put I:\my_dvd_videos as a media center import directory. What am I missing?

I seem to remember reading somewhere on this forum that Sage 5.1 would support DVD playback on the MVP (?). Will it do what everyone wants it to do...i.e. just play the above dvd directory with no tinkering needed? If not, why not? Seems like a huge feature to leave out...maybe I'm missing some obvious reason why this is not already part of Sage?

Thanks in advance for any advice,
Chris

[VikingCrown]

I have tried putting those lines into the Sage.Properties file as well as the one in the Clients folder, and it didn't work. Is there somewhere in particular in all that code that I need to place them? Or are there some steps that I need to take before modifying the files that I might be missing?

My setup is also the same as above, T:\Movies\Some DVD\Video_TS, interestingly my Audio_TS also has nothing in it, however the audio certainly works when I play the movies on my PC through sage.

Is it possible that the problem could be the decoders i have set for audio and video in settings? What should I have set in the DVD section through my MVP Settings options? I really hope that 5.1 can fix this as it should be an intigrated function in the standard installation IMHO.

[PGPfan]

You need to place those lines in the appropriate properties files, but MAKE SURE you are exiting Sage COMPLETELY before the changes are made. This is a common mistake.

Regarding the audio_ts folder, it is commonly empty. In fact, I've NEVER seen a audio_ts file with something in it.

As for the decoders, it doesn't matter at all. The only decoders that are in use with the MVP are it's 'built-in' HARDWARE decoders, which you can't change.

Hope this helps!

-PGPfan

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by cbarrett

I'm new to Sage, so I'm probably missing something, but I too have been trying to get DVD playback working on the MVP with no luck. The above statements just don't make any difference to my setup....I still get the same error message from the MVP - can't recall it right now...but it does seem to imply that it is trying to play VIDEO_TS, which is a directory...so my problem may be associated with that. After following the DVD Shrink tutorial and getting all my DVD's on my hard disk in movie/VIDEO_TS and movie/AUDIO_TS format, what else (besides the above two statements) do I need to do?.

I also did the "re-author" part of DVD Shrink, backing up only the main movie, thinking I would end up with a single "vob" file, but as it turns out...I end up with many vob files. For example:

I:\my_dvd_videos\Some Movie\VIDEO_TS:
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB
VTS_01_5.VOB

Incidentally, AUDIO_TS has nothing in it.

Then I put I:\my_dvd_videos as a media center import directory. What am I missing?

I seem to remember reading somewhere on this forum that Sage 5.1 would support DVD playback on the MVP (?). Will it do what everyone wants it to do...i.e. just play the above dvd directory with no tinkering needed? If not, why not? Seems like a huge feature to leave out...maybe I'm missing some obvious reason why this is not already part of Sage?

Thanks in advance for any advice,
Chris

Hi Chris,

The MVP will NOT play from a directory. It will only playback .vob files (which are IN the video_ts directory). As for Sage playing back a DVD via the MVP, please understand that the MVP was NEVER designed to playback DVD files. It can't descramble the files, let alone handle the ac-3 audio track. The folks at Sage are making the MVP do WAY more than it was EVER designed to do. In fact, of all the software that is available for the MVP, only Sage has it doing this much (with even more to come!) What Sage is doing is "transcoding" the audio into a format that the MVP can understand in real-time or "on the fly". The MVP cannot understand the menu structure of the DVD (which is the .ifo and .bup files you described above), so that is why it can't playback a DVD. If you use the .stv file I referenced above, you can have Sage automatically playback each .vob file (of which a DVD rip usually has several of - VTS_01_x.vob where x is 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 in your example) in the correct order to 'appear' to the viewer as though you are watching the whole DVD.

In reality, it is just a video playlist that specifies which .vob files to play, and in what order to play them.

Does this make any sense to you?

-PGPfan

[cbarrett]

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm a bit worried about how noticeable the delay will be between each file in the playlist, but I'll just have to try it and see. I'm trying not to sound like a "complainer", but I just want to understand why the feature of playing a dvd via the extender was either overlooked or intentionally avoided (?). I'm not trying to lay blame, just understand the issue. Obviously, from your post, the issue is not Sage, but rather Hauppage. I thought that the MVP was a fairly recent thing...well after the point where people were already putting DVD's on computers (for convenience and immunity to scratches). Maybe the box is older than I thought. It begs the question - will there be a new box sometime soon?

Anway, I'll try out this STV...in the thread you point to, there is never resolution on why you couldn't get the playlists to show up on the extender, I'm assuming that did get resolved somehow.

[PGPfan]

Hi Chris,

Yeah, the DVD playback limitation is a Hauppauge thing - or really a DVD consortium thing. Understand that the DVD licensing prohibits streaming a DVD over any type of network. This is why Hauppauge didn't design the MVP with the ability to playback a DVD.

Nobody (the DVD consortium) anticipated that we'd be able to transcode in real-time to make an effective 'workaround'. Also, remember we are only doing this with our own non-CSS DVD's since at least in the US it is illegal to bypass the CSS to allow storage of the DVD's on a hard drive.

Really, Sage is doing an incredible job with the MVP. My hat is truely off to them.

As for the problems I've been having with amg's .stv, I'm still working on it. Others have had success, yet some are still having problems and I guess I'm in the latter category.

-PGPfan

[VikingCrown]

PGPFan, first, thank you for your prompt responses. I have tried adding the lines to the appropriate files but with no luck. Here is exactly what I did:
1.Opened Windows services and Stopped the Sage Service
2.Completely Exited Sage
3.Went to Sage.Properties file and opened it with notepad
4. Added line of text to end of the file and saved.
5. Opened the file in the Clients folder (file named with numbers.Properties)
6. Added the other line you gave me to the end of this file and then saved.
7. Restarted Sage and did a full reboot of the MVP once Sage was restarted.
8. Browsed to the file on the MVP (Aeon Flux in this case, a movie only .vob rip from DVD Shrink which plays through Sage on my PC) Select Play and get no error messages or anything and nothing plays.

File location is T:\Movies\Aeon Flux\Video_TS
Import Directory for my movies is T:\Movies

Am I missing anything?

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by VikingCrown

PGPFan, first, thank you for your prompt responses. I have tried adding the lines to the appropriate files but with no luck. Here is exactly what I did:
1.Opened Windows services and Stopped the Sage Service
2.Completely Exited Sage
3.Went to Sage.Properties file and opened it with notepad
4. Added line of text to end of the file and saved.
5. Opened the file in the Clients folder (file named with numbers.Properties)
6. Added the other line you gave me to the end of this file and then saved.
7. Restarted Sage and did a full reboot of the MVP once Sage was restarted.
8. Browsed to the file on the MVP (Aeon Flux in this case, a movie only .vob rip from DVD Shrink which plays through Sage on my PC) Select Play and get no error messages or anything and nothing plays.

File location is T:\Movies\Aeon Flux\Video_TS
Import Directory for my movies is T:\Movies

Am I missing anything?

well i have make this to, i shrink to one vob file and copy a jpg in video_ts file with name "folder.jpg". after restart i see the cover and when i go to play, i become a error 19. (but i live in germany (PAL)) so that i can the german error message put in this trade, but i think the error says to me, there is no...to play this file.

what is wrong?

[VikingCrown]

So i'm still not able to get this working, have I missed anything that anyone can see? I'd really like to get this working.

[JUC]

Dibu is close on this one. This is what I do. I rip the main movie to one .vob only. So--i only have one large .vob file. I then take that one .vob and place it in its own named folder and put in a folder.jpg image in it. Now, the mvp can see the file and play it back. So, I remove the Video_TS folder out of the equation completely and just put it in its own folder.
JUC

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by JUC

Dibu is close on this one. This is what I do. I rip the main movie to one .vob only. So--i only have one large .vob file. I then take that one .vob and place it in its own named folder and put in a folder.jpg image in it. Now, the mvp can see the file and play it back. So, I remove the Video_TS folder out of the equation completely and just put it in its own folder.
JUC

ok i ripped 5 dvds. 3 are show on my mvps ans 2 are wrong (sage error: -19)

al ripped with the same pc and the program and the config.

[VikingCrown]

Ok, i'll give that a try when I get home. When I browsed to the movie folder through the MVP, i was able to import the IMDB information about the movies, do you think that by removing the Video_TS and having the vob files in T:/Movies/Aeon Flux/vob files it will retain that information?

[JUC]

Originally Posted by VikingCrown

Ok, i'll give that a try when I get home. When I browsed to the movie folder through the MVP, i was able to import the IMDB information about the movies, do you think that by removing the Video_TS and having the vob files in T:/Movies/Aeon Flux/vob files it will retain that information?

even if it doesn't you can just reimport them.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by DIBU

ok i ripped 5 dvds. 3 are show on my mvps ans 2 are wrong (sage error: -19)

al ripped with the same pc and the program and the config.

Dibu--so are 3 working and 2 are not? If so that would be really weird because you ripped them all with the same program and info. Are you only placing the .vob file in its own folder (you can rename the .vob file too)?
JUC

[cord]

I've run into issues where some DVDs work just fine when ripped to just a single "naked" VOB files, and others don't. For example, the region 1 Coupling disks are fine as VOBs, but the "Dead Like Me" VOBs won't play. If I rip DLM to a DVD-structured layour (with audio_ts, video_ts, etc), they play without trouble. I've not been able to figure out why, so I've just learned to live with it.

[VikingCrown]

JUC, it worked!!!!!!!!!!!! I was able to play a movie (single VOB file) perfectly. Some of my movies were ripped with multiple vob files (1gb vob split from DVD Shrink) so is there a way to get sage to recognize there is 1 movie in multiple files, and not show me 4 seperate vob files? Also, have you had any luck getting the correct time to display, the few that i tried showed about 1/2 the total running time of the movie even though the whole movie played.

I am so grateful that its working now, i think that if the few little bugs could be ironed out (and i'm sure they can) This will make the WAF skyrocket!!!!

Regards,
Brian

[JUC]

Glad it worked. Funny you should mention the time thing because I started a thread about that a little while ago. Never really got resolved though.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19022

Regarding the multiple file playback-right now you will have to navigate to each individual vob. There is a custom .stv available that combines them all into one playlist but I haven't tried it out yet.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19067

Juc