[sclaws]

Really hoping someone smarter than me can help out a bit here. I'm unable to play HEVC mkv's for some reason with Kodi 18.3's internal player in Win10. I also use PowerDVD as an external player for blu ray iso's, and am hoping to use it for my 4K HEVC mkv rips until I get help figuring out my internal player issue. Thing is, I'm doing something wrong editing my playercorefactory file and can't figure out what. Below is what I edited to try to use PDVD for all iso, and including only mkv's with "UHD" in the title. It now plays all mkvs with PowerDVD, not just those with UHD as intended, and won't mount iso files.

<playercorefactory>
  <players>
    <player name="PowerDVD" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
      <filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD17\PowerDVD.exe</filename>
      <playcountminimumtime>300</playcountminimumtime> 
    </player>
  </players>  

  <rules action="prepend">
    <rule filetypes="iso" player="PowerDVD" />
    <rule filetypes="mkv" filename="*.UHD.*" player="PowerDVD" />
  </rules>
</playercorefactory> 

I format my 4K mkv files like this: TITLE (YEAR).UHD.bluray.mkv

I prefer Kodi's internal player and hope to get this working properly somehow, but now I am stuck trying to implement a workaround for my problem (I feel like an idiot). I just want PowerDVD to play iso and mkv's with UHD in the title...can anyone point me in the right direction?

Also if anyone has thoughts on how I can track down my internal player issue, I did post here https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=346860 with a logfile https://paste.kodi.tv/mihuvexago 
I know just enough to be dangerous to my setup. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[PatK]

I don't use PoweDVD so the following is more or less what I think would be logical (at least you should have Kodi as default with the other players available in the context menu). Check this thread. https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...#pid957966 which mentioned the set-up for PowerDVD. note: spaces are important.

Code:

<playercorefactory>
  <players>
    <player name="PowerDVD" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
    <filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD17\PowerDVD.exe</filename>
    <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
    <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
    <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
    <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>    
    <playcountminimumtime>300</playcountminimumtime>
    </player>
</players>
  <rules action="prepend">
  <rule video="true" player="paplayer">
    <rule filetypes="iso" player="PowerDVD"/>
    <rule filename=".*HDR10.*|*.UHD.*|.*HDR.*|.*hdr.*" player="PowerDVD"/>
  </rules>
</playercorefactory>

I also note: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2831729

https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/49442.page
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=228866

Re: "Darbee scaler between my PC and receiver"

I don't have this hardware, perhaps others could advise.

[sclaws]

I don't use PoweDVD so the following is more or less what I think would be logical (at least you should have Kodi as default with the other players available in the context menu). Check this thread. https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...#pid957966 which mentioned the set-up for PowerDVD. note: spaces are important.

Code:

<playercorefactory>
  <players>
    <player name="PowerDVD" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
    <filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD17\PowerDVD.exe</filename>
    <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
    <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
    <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
    <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>    
    <playcountminimumtime>300</playcountminimumtime>
    </player>
</players>
  <rules action="prepend">
  <rule video="true" player="paplayer">
    <rule filetypes="iso" player="PowerDVD"/>
    <rule filename=".*HDR10.*|*.UHD.*|.*HDR.*|.*hdr.*" player="PowerDVD"/>
  </rules>
</playercorefactory>

I also note: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2831729

https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/49442.page
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=228866

Re: "Darbee scaler between my PC and receiver"

I don't have this hardware, perhaps others could advise. 

Thank you very much for your response and the xml revisions. I tried your updates and its much closer! I can now launch the UHD mkv's now with PowerDVD, and my other mkv's work as expected with the internal player. There is a different issue with this, in that my blu ray iso's appear to be trying to launch with the internal player? I get a Kodi warning indicating the movie I am trying to launch is encrypted (which it is..I use AnyDVD to decrypt my iso's) and it does not attempt to mount the iso. I have my system setup to let PowerDVD mount the iso itself. Is there any other adjustment in your xml revisions that might correct for this and allow PowerDVD to mount exclusively?

Sorry for the additional question...I hope this is doable. Either way I appreciate your response and effort.

[sclaws]

Here is updated playercofefactory.xml. I tried to narrowly specify for PowerDVD to open the UHD mkv's, but now PowerDVD is not launched at all. The procedures are getting lost on me...I thought this made sense where you specified paplayer for video, with rules indicating all iso and any *.uhd.bluray.mkv to be played with PowerDVD. Can anyone point me to where I'm failing with this version?

<playercorefactory>
  <players>
    <player name="PowerDVD" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
    <filename>C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD19\PowerDVD.exe</filename>
    <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
    <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
    <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
    <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>    
    <playcountminimumtime>300</playcountminimumtime>
   </player>
  </players>
  <rules action="prepend">
    <rule video="true" player="paplayer">
      <rule filetypes="iso" player="PowerDVD"/>
      <rule filename="*.UHD.bluray.mkv" player="PowerDVD"/>
  </rules>
</playercorefactory>

[scott967]

If I'm not mistaken I think the filename rules have to be in regex?  "." is a "special char" in regex and if you want a literal "." you have to escape it as:
\. 

I think what you want is more along the lines of
.*\.UHD\.bluray\.mkv

meaning 0 or more characters followed by <literal>.UHD<literal>.bluray<literal>.mkv will match the rule.
Though I guess .*UHD.bluray.mkv would also work, but would also match
UHDxblurayxmkv in addition (where x is any char).

scott s.
.

[sclaws]

If I'm not mistaken I think the filename rules have to be in regex?  "." is a "special char" in regex and if you want a literal "." you have to escape it as:
\. 

I think what you want is more along the lines of
.*\.UHD\.bluray\.mkv

meaning 0 or more characters followed by <literal>.UHD<literal>.bluray<literal>.mkv will match the rule.
Though I guess .*UHD.bluray.mkv would also work, but would also match
UHDxblurayxmkv in addition (where x is any char).

scott s.
.

Thank you Scott...I will try this when I have a chance and report back!

[sclaws]

If I'm not mistaken I think the filename rules have to be in regex?  "." is a "special char" in regex and if you want a literal "." you have to escape it as:
\. 

I think what you want is more along the lines of
.*\.UHD\.bluray\.mkv

meaning 0 or more characters followed by <literal>.UHD<literal>.bluray<literal>.mkv will match the rule.
Though I guess .*UHD.bluray.mkv would also work, but would also match
UHDxblurayxmkv in addition (where x is any char).

scott s.
.

Thank you Scott...I will try this when I have a chance and report back! 

Just wanted to follow-up and thank everyone for their help. I believe I finally have a working xml Not sure if it can be cleaned up any, but my testing so far seems to do as expected. Figured I'd share it here if its of any interest or help to others. One note is I changed my UHD file naming to just end with *UHD.mkv instead of *UHD.bluray.mkv:

xml:


<playercorefactory>

  <players>

    <player name="PowerDVD" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">

    <filename>C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD19\PowerDVD.exe</filename>

    <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>

    <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>

    <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>

    <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>    

    <playcountminimumtime>300</playcountminimumtime>

   </player>

  </players>

  <rules action="prepend">

    <rule video="true" player="paplayer">

    <rule filetypes="iso" player="PowerDVD"/>

      <rule filetypes="mkv" filename=".*UHD.*" player="PowerDVD"/>

    </rule>

  </rules>

</playercorefactory>

[PatK]

Thanks for sharing, thread title edited for easier search.

Thread marked solved.