Playing DVD over the Network on P1

meppy · Post by **meppy** » Thu May 29, 2008 22:33

I just upgraded to the latest firmware hoping that playback of DVDs ripped to a folder on a network share would work, but it seems that all you can is play each VOB file as before.

Is DVD playback from a folder a planned feature? It sucked on my old Netgear but they were working on it at least.

Will putting them in ISO format work?

Gully · Post by **Gully** » Thu May 29, 2008 23:01

Making an ISO won't make it work.

Playing DVDs is on the wish list, so it would be worth looking at that.

meppy · Post by **meppy** » Fri May 30, 2008 08:58

Thanks, I did search but didn't read through that.

Is that just a joe member wish list or is it something that the Beyonwiz developers look at and take note of? Do they have any comments on what they are looking at doing?

In the mean time I could encode my DVDs to something else and lose the ability to navigate chapters, etc. Any recommendations on what format that will still look good on the Big TV?

meppy · Post by **meppy** » Fri May 30, 2008 09:01

I would have thought this functionality would be easy to put in, after all the S1 plays DVDs, so why not just make that work with content on a network share instead of disc?

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Fri May 30, 2008 09:36

Hi Meppy,

meppy wrote:Is that just a joe member wish list or is it something that the Beyonwiz developers look at and take note of? Do they have any comments on what they are looking at doing?

The Bug, wish and UI lists are monitored and actioned by Beyonwiz.

Regards,
Ian.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Fri May 30, 2008 11:58

It is something that can be done with telnet and some "fancy" loop mounting of the ISO image.
Regards

ocdi · Post by **ocdi** » Fri May 30, 2008 12:42

tonymy01 wrote:It is something that can be done with telnet and some "fancy" loop mounting of the ISO image.
Regards

Is there a guide somewhere for this one?

I'm aware of loop mounting on a Linux workstation, but I need to know the paths for the beyonwiz to pick it up.

grunta · Post by **grunta** » Fri May 30, 2008 20:50

I'm sure I saw a "command" postulated by Peteru, and a comment that "it should be as easy as something like ........"

correct me if I'm wrong - maybe

Peter may have been assuming ......"it should be as easy as something like ........"

K1LL3M · Post by **K1LL3M** » Fri May 30, 2008 22:39

meppy wrote:I would have thought this functionality would be easy to put in, after all the S1 plays DVDs, so why not just make that work with content on a network share instead of disc?

+1

This would appear to be something easy to implement, but that's from a layman.

How would it be really ?

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Sat May 31, 2008 00:46

Ok, I have been fiddling with this tonight and there are some serious limitations.
1. Loop mounted takes more resources, and so the vid stutters quite a bit
2. Loopmounted ISO gives access to the VIDEOTS/etc file structure, but the Wiz plays these as it would play VOBS (really it is just playing VOBS, you are conveniently mounting the ISO to enable access to the vobs). i.e. all the inconveniences of having to find the right VOB out of the list, not having menu, audio etc options etc.

I was hoping to find the DVD mount point and convince the Wiz to play the ISO mounted to the normal point that the optical DVD drive is mounted to, but there is a catch or two.
1. You would need an S1 to play these anyway, as I am sure the P1 would not offer to play a DVD from the file player menu
2. The Wiz doesn't appear to mount the DVD drive when playing a DVD....

Regards

Gully · Post by **Gully** » Sat May 31, 2008 00:50

Any obvious way to point at a folder containing a VIDEO_TS folder and treat it as a drive

peteru · Post by **peteru** » Sat May 31, 2008 13:15

Yes, a bind mount, instead of a loopback mount. It's a shell one liner, but won't help if the BWiz is trying to access the DVD drive directly as a block device, instead of going through the file system.

Gully · Post by **Gully** » Sat May 31, 2008 15:57

peteru wrote:Yes, a bind mount, instead of a loopback mount. It's a shell one liner, but won't help if the BWiz is trying to access the DVD drive directly as a block device, instead of going through the file system.

Sounds like it would be helpful if someone felt like testing that. And see if it works on the S1 and P1.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Sat May 31, 2008 17:10

As I said, and Peter confirmed, it can't be done as the Wiz doesn't mount the DVD drive as a normal ISO drive (it doesn't mount it at all). If it did, then it would be a piece of cake to get the Wiz to play DVDs from the HDD rather than drive. But this would still leave P1 owners out in the cold, as the code to launch a DVD presumably isn't in the file player menu of the P1. So the only thing we can do now is to mount the ISO image, which will then give VOB files, and you know how lame the VOB playback of the Wiz is...(well, compared to playing a DVD... actually, that is almost lame too!)
Regards