Neither Client Nor PlaceShifter Does DVD Folders, Right?

[PeteCress]

I'm biting the bullet and re-ripping all my DVDs to folders instead of .ISOs.

The folders play A-OK via the HD200 running in connected-to-SageTV mode.

I suppose they also play on the HD200 in standalone mode too... but that's moot and I haven't checked.


But I'm finding that neither Client nor 'Shifter can play them.

Expected behavior?

No big deal to me if they don't bc VLM media player does the job Ok - albeit without the convenience of setting placemarks when one stops the movie.

But I wanted to make sure I'm not doing something dumb... which might have other consequences.

[GKusnick]

When in doubt, check the FAQ:

SageTV Client:

• Can play DVDs, using DVD-capable video decoder.

SageTV Placeshifter:

• Can not play DVDs.

As noted, you need a suitable DVD codec installed on the Client machine.

Also bear in mind that Client will try to access the folders directly over the LAN, so use UNC paths instead of drive letters, and make sure your Client user login has the appropriate permissions to access those shares.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

I'm biting the bullet and re-ripping all my DVDs to folders instead of .ISOs.

Just extract them with something like 7zip or winrar. No need to re-rip. You can just select all your ISOs and then right click and pick "Extract to individual Folders" (WinRAR) or "Extract to /*" (7zip) and they'll do exactly that, extract each ISO to a folder of the same name.

[PeteCress]

Downloaded MakeMKV and gave it a shot on the "Catch Me If You Can" DVD.

Some observations so far:

• The .MKV is a beeeeg file. About 7 gigs as opposed to 4.something for VIDEO_TS
• The .MKV plays via 'Shifter on one PC
• 'Shifter throws something about "Unable to create the Overlay surface..." on another PC when .MKV is opened.
• 'Shifter pops the little whirlygig hourglass substitute on a third PC and then just drops back to the title list when a .MKV is opened.
• HD200 seems to play .MKV, no problem
• With MKV, one loses the SageTV distinction between "DVDs" and "Titles": they all go under "Titles".
• Playback via VLC Media Player on my MIPS-challenged Atom laptop shows a lot of stuttering/herky-jerkiness... whereas using VLC to play the same movie from folders is totally smooth.

[gplasky]

MKV is a container. It's whatever you're transcoding it to that is making it big. Doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose of transcoding it and making the file bigger? You could keep it in it's native DVD format and have files sizes half of what you're ripping. Or rip it to an .mpg that would be about the same size as the DVD and be able to play with Placeshifter.

Shifter user opengl and overlay for the video. It's not DirectX. Shifter doesn't always work well with all video cards.

MKV is a video file. It's not a DVD.

Not knowing what you transcoded the video to and that it ended up being twice as big I'm not surprised that I think you mean Sage plays it back with a lot of stuttering.

If you want to play DVDs from folders and have the least amount of hassle and best picture quality you're better off with the SageTV client. That's what it is designed for. Placeshifter was designed for playing recorded TV over the Internet.

Gerry

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by gplasky

If you want to play DVDs from folders and have the least amount of hassle and best picture quality you're better off with the SageTV client. That's what it is designed for. Placeshifter was designed for playing recorded TV over the Internet.

That's what I'm coming around to.

[Taddeusz]

MakeMKV doesn't transcode. All it does is takes whatever streams you select from the DVD and muxes them into an MKV container. The resulting file size is going to be the same as, or probably slightly smaller than, if you did the same thing with DVD Shrink with no compression.

The resulting size of the movie is going to vary depending on a couple factors. One is whether the DVD is single or dual layer. The other is what additional audio streams you selected.

Ripping a DVD using MKV produces a file that is identical to the original DVD in quality because no transcoding is done. You will, however, be able to play said MKV on Placeshifter, whereas with a ripped VIDEO_TS folder you would not be able to.

[loomdog32]

There is a major advantage of using mkv for DVDs.. The container is CAPABLE (havent seen any programs really support it fully yet) of just about everything a DVD/BD does (ie menu, multiple videos with multiple audio streams and multiple subtitle streams).....

PlaceShifter already plays mkv, so transcoding DVD to mkv makes sense. Now if Sage fully supported mkv, then it would be like playback of the origional DVD. All in an OPEN SOURCE container!!

[stanger89]

Until anyone actually supports any of those features IMO it's not an advantage at all, let alone a major one.