Play DVD discs

[JonTom]

Is there any way to play physical DVD media within Phoenix? I saw some discussion about launching external programs but I've never done that before and that seems like overkill. I'd be fine with just an easy way/button press that launched the default UI DVD player if I can't get the Phoenix player to pay them.

[sflamm]

Just add the drive path to the import folders... then the DVD will show up under 'New Movies'...

Then just play and enjoy.

[JonTom]

Haha, really? It's that easy?

[JonTom]

Do I have to wait for a media scan to complete before the DVD will show up everytime?

[bialio]

Originally Posted by JonTom

Is there any way to play physical DVD media within Phoenix? I saw some discussion about launching external programs but I've never done that before and that seems like overkill. I'd be fine with just an easy way/button press that launched the default UI DVD player if I can't get the Phoenix player to pay them.

Physical media is SO last decade We will support local DVD playback eventually - there just hasn't been a lot of demand yet for it.
btl.

[JonTom]

I agree, but my wife does not. Which means, somehow, despite my best intentions, physical media playback is suddenly a priority for me...

[sflamm]

The new media shows up surprisingly fast... worst case just ask the UI to immediately rescan (on options menu) - which takes only a minute.

[JonTom]

I have thousands of imported files - a scan takes several minutes.

[bialio]

I think I can work up a fragment that will add this more or less - it'll basically jump over to the default UI, start the DVD, then jump back to phoenix. Stay tuned.

btl.

[sflamm]

Do I have to wait for a media scan to complete before the DVD will show up everytime?

In the meantime, I believe that SageTV searches the import path in the order they are listed...place the DVD first in the order and I believe it should appear very quickly.

[bialio]

Here's the fragment. It adds "Play DVD" to the Videos menu if there's a DVD in the drive.

I can't swear it will work if you have more than one DVD drive on your client, but it should work well for a single DVD which should be most common.

Extract the attached file (will end up as a playdvd.xml) to this directory:
C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\userdata\Phoenix\Menus

Or it's equivalent if you are linux based. This will be a standard part of future releases, so you can delete it eventually.

btl.

[bialio]

This doesn't work QUITE as well as I'd like - for some reason it's not hiding the menu item when the DVD is removed.

If you select 'Play DVD' when there isn't one in the drive it'll just pop you to live TV.

btl.

[JonTom]

Thanks!