DVD playback

[Daldana]

Hi all,

I know I must be missing something in my setup, but I can't play a dvd disk in GBPVR. While in Live TV, I use the menu to go to the DVD button, press ok, and then the screen goes blank (no spinning up of disk either). In the config, I have DVD Navigator selected and have tried both the System Default and Cyberlink video decoders (which are the only two option showing). The disk, a retail disk, plays back fine in VLC and in Nero Showtime but will not even start in GBPVR. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Dave

[pBS]

check the logs as they should show why...[pvrx2xx.log]
checked the drive letter is correct in config?
what audio codec is set for dvd?

[Daldana]

Thanks for the reply.

To answer your questions, the drive letter is correct and I'm using AC3 for audio.

I can't see what is wrong by reading the logs, but I'm not sure what to look for. I don't see any error messages in them. Here they are though.

[Daldana]

Anyone have ideas why this is not working?

[johnsonx42]

do you have the full cyberlink powerdvd installed (such as from a disk included with a dvd drive), or just the decoder from a codec pack? While I don't know for sure, I've wondered whether the codec-pack version is enough to actually play a retail dvd.

[Daldana]

Just the codec. I do have the Nero Essentials software that came with the DVD hardware. I usually play dvds in VLC, but I'd like to use gbpvr as my one stop player.

Thanks for your reply and help.

Dave

[crlorentzen]

Daldana, can you play the DVD in another Directshow based player, e.g. Media Player Classic? VLC is not a good test as it uses built in codecs and dvd decryption. I would recommend the MPEG-2 decoder from Gabest, MPV Decoder.

[Daldana]

I installed the MPV decoder filter, but still no joy. When I try to start the dvd player, the screen just goes black and no audio comes out. I'm not on the PC using gbpvr at the moment so I can't post any log files at this time. I will do that when I can get to that PC. Thanks again.

Dave

[johnsonx42]

Actually I didn't think the MPV Decoder had the ability to decrypt CSS... it is in the list of supported DVD Decoders, but if it can do CSS that's a new one on me.

Aside from Nero and VLC, do you have any other DVD player software? Most of us have PowerDVD disks laying around all over the place, they come with every DVD drive we've ever bought. I just installed an old copy of PowerDVD 6 on my box, DVD's play fine (indeed, I use that decoder for all playback). I'm still thinking the PowerDVD 8 decoder you got from a codec pack doesn't have everything required to do CSS (but I admit I could be barking up the wrong tree).

Alternately it might be possible to trick gb-pvr into using your Nero decoder for DVD's. I have no idea if this will work, but you can try:
Edit config.xml (with Notepad or Notepad++ please, don't open in Word or Wordpad!), and in the section near the top titled "<SupportedDVDDecoders>" add "Nero Video Decoder" to the comma separated list. Then you should be able to select Nero on the DVD tab in config.

edit: also, one other question... do you have a non-encrypted DVD you can try, to see if CSS is the problem? or can you rip a DVD and put the Video_TS folder inside a folder in your video library directory and then play that?

[Daldana]

Sorry for taking so long to get back, but thanks. I downloaded the trial version of Powerdvd and used the cyberlink decoder that came with it and viola! The problem is resolved, I can now play dvds from gbpvr. Thanks again.

Dave