Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[schmecky]

Just curious - what methods have people found most effective?

I use My Movies on my VMC, which is absolutely wonderful.

I've been through all the forums and tried the various tricks (I tried the script that creates the .wvx playlists and mpeg symlinks, but you get a 5-10 second delay inbetween each segment of the movie).  The only one (That I've found so far...) that works for the 750 in MCE mode is as follows: Rip to 1 single VOB, go into inventory of My Movies, and change from "Folder" to "File" and repoint to the big VOB file. 

Problems: No chapter skip (probably because of 1 big VOB, and running it not like a DVD, but like an MPEG)
I had my movie quit playing after 2GB, but then I upgraded to the latest firmware, and I THINK that fixed the problem, but since it takes me 20 minutes to fast-forward I haven't tested much.

--update The firmware DID NOT fix this problem VOBs over 2GB still quit prematurely..  It seems to stop at inconsistant points in the movie...  So in conclusion I still have NO WORKABLE method for watching my ripped DVDs on the 750.. If I can't discover a reasonable workable solution this MCE will go back in the box for a return.. I guess the only real solution may still be a full blown HTPC

As a generalization (because I think D-LINK is probably no more guilty than any other MCE manufacturers) why do we have to jump through hoops just to play our own DVDs on an MCE box?  Is this Microsoft, the MCE manufacturers, or combination of both towing the line for Hollywood studios to make it difficult for us to use our own content?  Have the movies studios threatened to sue the MCE folks if they make it convenient to watch our movies without RE-renting them online?

I guess I can't imagine a non-technical person using one of these devices... Why the heck would I want one of these things if I can't use it to watch my movies (that I bought, paid for, and OWN?!?)

Has anyone else found better workarounds for watching ripped DVDs on the 750?  Should I be exploring MediaLounge?  A different DVD file format? not using mymovies?

I'd like this thread to become some methods for the most effective solutions, and list the drawbacks.  I really like the mymovies interface since it gives a nice browse interface, with movie info etc... but I'd entertain another method id the movie playing functionality were more robust.

[ECF]

What media server are you using on you PC? Are you using the DSM-750 as an MCE extender or in Media lounge mode?

[schmecky]

I've tried both.  Using Media Center Extender (against my VMC) is certainly the nicest interface, but I understand that many MS imposed limitations will exist.  I'd REALLY love to get the My Movies plugin for Media Center fully working on the MCE, so I can use the same interface on my VMC as my MCE..

Media Lounge Mode seems to work ok, but is problematic as well.  I shared movies using TVersity, however same issue - TVersity doesn't share the "DVD" so you have to RIP into 1 large VOB file.  The interface is less than impressive in Media Lounge mode (several folder levels to get to movies, and a very unimpressive folder listing of files.

But I had problems where if I fast-forward or skip ahead in the movie, and then attempt to play the video freezes, but the player shows that time is moving forward at normal speed.  Sometimes the picture freezes, but the sound continues... It seems to be a bit inconsistant...

Maybe I'm starting with the wrong questions... 

What is the best way to watch movies from DVDs that I already own on the D-link, and retain the most basic (minus the DVD menus, I think that's the least of my concerns)
functionality (resume from last play, FF,Rew, skip forward/back)?

I'd say most of us are ripping our movies with DVDFABHD Decrypter or AnyDVD, and then using DVDShrink to remove menus/languages etc..  Is there a different/better way we should be doing this?

It seems odd to me that this basic functionality (that almost eveyone would want) seems to be escaping me, and the functionality already seems to be there... kind of
Simply take a look at the "My Movies" plugin for Media Center.  That's exactly what most of us want for functionality...  And it works just fine in MediaCenter, but is broken (by design it seems, as it's not a lack of playback capabilities from a technical capabilities point of view) from a Media Center Extender...

A nice, easy-to-use browse list of available movies... (not clicking down through some tree list of folders)
List of movies (with box art pictures) -> 1 click on name of movie to watch, "Watch/Play Now" button starts movie
Inside the movie I'd like to be able to FF, REW, at a few different speeds, plus a skip forward/back that advances or jumps back 2 minutes per click  or something like that.
Continue from last playback (so I don't have to click the FF button 284 times (which only advances 4 seconds per click)
Entire movie should play without pauses/hiccups. (If I need to make a playlist or make 1 big RIP file, I don't care, I just need to understand what the requirements are.)

Is this just something these devices are NOT GOING TO DO?  Or am I missing something... or is it something where the mfr/Microsoft will not make it EASY to do for liability/litigation reasons, and the community will be required to build hacks/work-arounds to get this functionality?

[ECF]

I would recommend recoding you video files to a supported format allowing some compression of the files you will see better playback of videos and proper indexing to allow feature like FF and RW to work as designed. The software you are using may be the issue.

[rob_t]

I use my DSM750 in media-lounge mode with a UPNP server.

I have no problem with large MPEG2 files. My largest is a high definition movie that is about 9.5GB (no I didn't slip the decimal point, it really is nearly ten GB). I have many MPEG2 and MPEG4 files of about 3GB (I have 2 terabytes on my server) and have never noticed a problem when playing the video from the start. Weird things happen when you try to seek or resume play from the middle, but just playing the movie seems to work.

My UPNP server is MediaTomb running on 64bit Linux.

Are you using wireless or wired networking? A humble DVD is recorded with data rates over 6Mbps. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot, it seems to be fast enough to break a lot of wireless links - I've never been able to get anything less than 802.11a to be reliable at those data rates (11g has never done it for me, despite the advertised numbers). Wireless can explain a lot of stutter and frozen picture/missing audio problems.

Right now my choice is to use MKV files with video at about 2Mbps and H.264 encoding for regular definition (and 5.1 AC3 sound at about 400Kbps). Previously I was using MPEG2 or 4 at about double the data rate but I'm recompressing many files now into this format. (MPEG4 and 5.1 AC3 sound had me ripping my hair out many times so I gave up on that). For high def I'm experimenting around the idea of a 1280x720 picture (ie "720P") at about 6Mbps and H.264 but I've not yet settled on a final set of settings yet. Handbrake and MediaCoder are my transcoding programs of choice, but I've also had some luck with Mencoder (a Linux only program). I haven't found a "paid" transcoding program worth the effort yet. (I've downloaded a few demos and they've all been pretty poor compared to the free programs I mentioned).

[schmecky]

Rob - thanks for the input:

I temporarily only have it hooked up via 802.11g, but have a wired connection in the area (just need to find my punch-down tool)

Can MediaTomb mount a windows share to share videos?  I'll check out Handbrake and MediaCoder .. thanks for the suggestions!

[rob_t]

Can MediaTomb mount a windows share to share videos? 

I've not tried that - I work the other way and use Samba to export the linux file system. The obvious drawback of using MediaTomb to share a non-local disk is it will need twice the network bandwidth, although that aside I'd expect it to be possible - just not tried it myself.