Simple Blu-ray Playback with SageTV, SageMC and Total Media Theatre 3

Sometimes I forget how much I love SageTV, SageMC, and TMT 3. This forgetfulness usually occurs when I have started tweaking things but not found enough time to set things up properly. I had experimented with various methods to launch Blu-ray playback on an old SageTV install before I moved to Windows 7. I had gotten ripped BR folders to play on my HD200, and discs to playback on my full client. However my method of setting this up wasn’t the most straight forward. Sometimes things are easier than we make them.

Tonight everything changed. I took a look at SageMC’s External Player capabiliites. Suddenly eveything fell into place. In less then ten minutes I had my SageTV launching TMT 3 for playing back both ripped Blu-ray folders and discs. If you have SageTV, SageMC, and TMT just follow these simple steps.

Edit the following file in C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3\SageMC\

– dvd_player.cmd : Replace existing text with this (including quotes, alter drive letter as necessary): "C:\Program Files\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\uMCEDVDPlayer.exe" %1

Save and Close the file. Then launch SageTV, goto SageMC Setup->External Programs, and then enable External DVD Player.

Ta da! Full support for Blu-ray folders and discs from SageTV on your HTPC. Only issue I seem to have is that when SageTV wakes back up the W7 menubar is on top of it. I’m pretty sure I can resolve that.

EDIT: Solved the problem with focus, used EventGhost to do a Bring to Front on SageTV.exe.