External DVD Player NOT launching (1 Viewer)

[Wooble]

I want to use PowerDVD 7 as my external DVD player to play my Physical DVDs directly from my DVD drive.

Under DVD external Players I configure MP to use PowerDVD, but MP only uses the internal player.

If i configure the VIDEO external Player to use PowerDVD, MP will correctly Launch PowerDVD and open and play my DVD (directly from the DVD drive). BUT i don't want to use PowerDVD as my VIDEO player just as my DVD player.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

[-Manfred-]

This is a known issue and will be fixed for MP 1.0.2. There is even more broken behind the external player handling and thus we can't jeopardize 1.0.1 release with quick hacks.

 

[magao]

Just for interests sake - why do you want to use and external DVD player? The internal player works wonderfully. You can even use the PDVD7 codecs if you want (in fact, I highly recommend using the PDVD7 navigator and codec in MP's internal player for DVD).

You need to use an external player for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

 

[Wooble]

Thank you for the replies.

Magao , 2 reasons for the desire to use PowerDVD as an external player.

1) As you mentioned Blu-Ray

2) DTS and DD out will not work with DVDs or ISOs with the internal player.

I have AC3 Filter and have tried enabling SPDIF settings on it , The moment I enable SPDIF pass through , the MediaPortal Internal Player will no longer play Physical DVDs or mounted ISOs.

I love the IDEA of Media Portal , I look forward to contributing money towards it. But as it stands it is un-usable for me and has taken up hours of my time in trying to configure it. ( I work in IT , I've configured BSD and used it for NAT etc , I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty but this whole HTPC business is nothing compared to building UNIX based firewalls etc )

If i could find a single external player that could handle many various Divx files etc... and play Blu-Ray ISOs AND play them in DTS / DD then maybe i could use a single player everything. AND THEN maybe I could use Media Portal.

 

[magao]

You should definitely be using PDVD for Blu-Ray. Preferably PDVD8 Ultra. However, DTS and DD work just fine for me with DVDs and ISOs with the internal player, and I much prefer the feel of the internal player.

I don't use AC3 filter, and recommend against it these days. The ffdshow-tryouts AC3/DTS decoding is as good as (if not better) now, and tends to be much more compatible. Make sure you configure MP to use ffdshow for DVD (and video!) audio. AC3 and DTS should be enabled in the ffdshow-tryouts audio codecs, and in the "Output" page you should select AC3 and DTS passthrough.

Make sure you grab the latest SVN from clsid at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=173941&package_id=199416

I use the clsid builds as he tends to be the most regular builder. Generic vs ICL10 doesn't really matter. The XXL builds are not unicode-aware.

Also, I highly recommend for non-AC3/DTS audio, to post-process with ffdshow - resample to 48KHz, mix to 5.1 (or whatever setup you have) and encode to AC3 (640kbps) to send over the S/PDIF. I've found I get much better audio doing this than allowing my receiver to set up its own sound field from a stereo (or other) signal.

 

[Wooble]

Thanks again magao ,

Between posts I downloaded and installed XBMC , after simply installing with hardly any configuration at all. I was playing DVD ISOs with DTS and DD , as well as playing physical DVDs. Also the built in Movie Trailers played out of the box ( vs messing with add ons and settings in MP ).

I don't have Blu-Ray ISO capability.... but might end up Muxing my BD ISOs. I think MP will be awesome ... in 2010 or 2011.

I will will try the ffdshow route you explained it sounds great. I tried PDVD8 Ultra but had issues with DT lite and PPVD8 ISOs.


IF IF IF , i could have the internal player (via ffdshow ) play DTS and DD , AND have the external player work ... well that would be workable. I just have to decide if i want to delve into ffdshow , if it is anything like my experience so far... it would be a 2 day event )

I hope I can get the ambition to try it , I've had about a week's worth of tinkering to get almost nowhere so far.

Thank again. The community here is great, and you've been a big part of that for me.

( if you have an ffdshow link / resource ... to point me to , that would be great )

Thanks again.

 

[magao]

I haven't tried XBMC for a while, since at the time I was building my HTPC XBMC gave me massive tearing during playback. Another major thing against it is it doesn't use DirectShow codecs - it uses ffmpeg directly (I don't know if that's changed). I like to do post-processing of video (debanding, etc) so this is a deal-breaker for me. I've thought about having another look at it, but MP works really nicely for me most of the time, so there's a fair bit of inertia there.

Don't use Daemon Tools with MP - instead use the latest beta of Virtual CloneDrive, which includes a Daemon Tools-compatible interface now. There are threads on these forums about it.

I've found that the first time you're setting up a HTPC it can take a lot of time - I spent 5 days (and 10 hard drive images) to set up my current one. About half of that time was trying to get my Harmony remote working reliably with the built-in iMON receiver (only to give up and buy a USB MCE-compatible receiver). And I was already very experienced with codecs, etc - I was just being really careful. Plus I had a series of missteps in the build (was trying Vista, gave up, etc).

I also expect to be tinkering with my HTPC for months, gradually improving it. My feeling is that HTPC setups are reasonable for technical people who are willing to put up with a few problems now and then, but I wouldn't build one for my parents ...

The DirectShow codecs/filters you want are:

1. ffdshow-tryouts. Don't go anywhere without it.

2. A DxVA H.264 codec (MPC-HC or PDVD).

3. (Optional) CoreAVC 1.9.x (H.264, offloads to recent nVidia (only!) video cards, also allows post-processing).

4. Haali's media splitter.

You don't need anything else.

BTW, I'm using RipBot64 on my Blu-Rays, producing high-quality Matroska (.mkv) files.

 

[Wooble]

Thanks again Magao,

Thanks to your help, you've inspired me to try yet again.

I've downloaded the suggested software and re-installed MediaPortal. Things are progressing. I did hit a few issues before hitting my pillow last night.

1) Virtual Clone Drive. It works well , but i could not integrate it with MP, and I didn't get to finish researching how to make it work. I just quickly tried pointing the MP DT path to VCDMount.exe but it is apparently not that simple since MP took no action when selectiong ISOs after pointing it there.

2) External Player launching under MP , This is a matter of messing with things. I did have PDVD set to always on top and full screen but I think I'll get this straightened out eventually.

With your help I did get FDDShow to handle my DD and DTS audio with the internal player ! That was exciting. I did try using the FDDShow as the Video Codec in addition to the Audio Codec and that gave me odd results ( primarily green pixelated bar at the bottom of my screen ). But that does not concern me, I can use PDVD for video.

ALL to say Thank you , and I hope I can the Virtual Clone Drive issue figured out , that and the external player for Bluray images.. and THEN , THEN i get to move on to things like finding out if i can get Moving pictures working , or 'My Trailers' maybe... or fix my MP3 collection to look prettier with album art that works !!

Thanks again for the inspiration and good advice. I'd have given up by now without it.

 

[magao]

1. You need the latest beta of Virtual CloneDrive - 5.4.2.3. It has a separate application in its directory called Daemon.exe which is a wrapper that provides DT compatibility. Point MP at Daemon.exe.

2. There is a plugin on these forums to launch PDVD from MP. It automatically minimises MP when PDVD is launched. Apparently Moving Pictures also has this capability now, but I haven't used Moving Pictures yet.

3. Don't use FFDShow as the video codec for DVD. Apart from the fact that it has problems with the built-in DVD navigator, you want to be using DxVA for this if your video card supports it. For DVD, use the PDVD codec (and PDVD navigator) or the default Navigator with MPC-HC (I haven't tried this). This allows the video decoding to be offloaded to your video card.