BluRay BDMV folder playback

[Razillian]

If Sage will now playback the files (skipping menus) that are in a bluray folder format, is there any reason this was never done with regular DVDs and placeshifter? i.e. Having a DVD folder structure (like most of us already use for imported videos) and Sage placeshifter playing back the files (skipping menus).

I know there is a pseudo hack to make it work involving adding VOB extensions and what not, but that affects all DVD playback and not just placeshifter.

Just curious...

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by Razillian

If Sage will now playback the files (skipping menus) that are in a bluray folder format, is there any reason this was never done with regular DVDs and placeshifter? i.e. Having a DVD folder structure (like most of us already use for imported videos) and Sage placeshifter playing back the files (skipping menus).

I know there is a pseudo hack to make it work involving adding VOB extensions and what not, but that affects all DVD playback and not just placeshifter.

Just curious...

Are you asking why they never implemented main movie playback on DVD's, or playback of DVD's in general (wasn't sure by your wording)? This has been a feature (Playback of DVD's on the hard drive) for the extenders for a while, and I use it every day. As for Placeshifter, I would imagine it's a technical challenge they haven't addressed yet, but we might see in the future.

As for skipping menus on Bluray, that is not a feature, but more of a limitation. There are many requirements to using all of the features and menus of a Bluray, like alot of RAM, Storage, PIP capability etc..... For this reason, they are limited to just playing the main movie of a Bluray.

[Razillian]

I meant placeshifting DVDs. I know if VOBs are changed to MPGs they will placeshift fine (changing the file extension, not reencoding), so I figured the technical limitation was with the menu type stuff, chapter files, etc (all the stuff that is not a VOB).

I would think using the same feature/limitation that they put in for Bluray playback would likewise work for placeshifting regular DVDs.

[Ryokurin]

I think you have it mistakened as they were saying that you can take a standard blu-ray disk and stream it. That isn't possible. You can take a BDMV that you have stripped the protection from or made yourself (similar to a VOB) and stream that as it's not up to them to determine how you got the content, all they know is that its valid and not protected.

Trying to authenicate and decript standard discs on both the blu-ray and dvd side is entirely different and streaming that basically unprotected can open them up to litigation, and since we are on the topic changing it to a different type of protection still can get them in trouble as well as the Sony vs. Bleem case showed a few years back. Protection is protection and is a copyright violation if you attempt to work with it unauthorized.

[bcjenkins]

They could apply the same thought and make some decisions for you.. I had this conversation a while back with SageTV, but it never went anywhere.

B

[Razillian]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

You can take a BDMV that you have stripped the protection from or made yourself (similar to a VOB) and stream that as it's not up to them to determine how you got the content, all they know is that its valid and not protected.

This is what I'm talking about, except with placeshifting DVD VOB files instead.

All my DVDs are on my server hard drive in standard DVD folders (VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS). If I rename each VOB file to a MPG extension instead, I can playback these files via Placeshifter. But this screws up the whole playing back the DVD as a DVD using Sage Client, media player and HD100/200. I can not, however, playback the menus through placeshifter. So my assumption is that the menu portion of the DVD is the problem with placeshifting an imported DVD.

A solution to this would be to have placeshifting of these imported DVDs (which have no copy protection on them, because they are all home movies. Really.) act like the BDMV playback on the HD200. i.e. if you are placeshifting an unprotected DVD, transcode the VOB files and skip the menus.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by Razillian

This is what I'm talking about, except with placeshifting DVD VOB files instead.

All my DVDs are on my server hard drive in standard DVD folders (VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS). If I rename each VOB file to a MPG extension instead, I can playback these files via Placeshifter. But this screws up the whole playing back the DVD as a DVD using Sage Client, media player and HD100/200. I can not, however, playback the menus through placeshifter. So my assumption is that the menu portion of the DVD is the problem with placeshifting an imported DVD.

A solution to this would be to have placeshifting of these imported DVDs (which have no copy protection on them, because they are all home movies. Really.) act like the BDMV playback on the HD200. i.e. if you are placeshifting an unprotected DVD, transcode the VOB files and skip the menus.

You could try creating links to the files, so you don't have to rename them.

fsutil hardlink create VTS_01_1.mpeg VTS_01_1.VOB

This will create a link to the file that the placeshifter would understand in standalone mode.

[Razillian]

That worked great. Thank You.