DVD VIDEO_TS, ISO transcoding and RAR/ZIP file browsing solution

Hi, great product and I wouldn't ask for these features if I didn't know there is likely an easy way to implement them.

I'm not sure if you know of an open source project called "PS3 Media Server" but it is a java app that does a very similar thing to the Air Video Server, except for the Playstation 3 as the client. It also uses FFmpeg for the rendering on the fly and it works really well too.

They have implemented the above functions being;
DVD Video's in both VIDEO_TS folder formats and in .ISO files being able to be rendered on the fly
RAR/ZIP files being able to be browsed just like folders, then the file being able to be live rendered as per usual

I have seen that others have requested these functions here and I suspect you are going to be bombarded with more people asking for them as the product gets more traction.

You can see how PMS does it by downloading the source code here - http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/. I suspect that it is not as hard as you would think because lots of products like this and XBMC have done it for a long time now.

Thanks again for the great product and best of luck for the future.

Sponks

I don't think that's really the same. PS3 Media Server doesn't just use ffmpeg. It also uses mencoder (which can handle DVDs).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 03/09/2010 13:02:11

Admin wrote:I don't think that's really the same. PS3 Media Server doesn't just use ffmpeg. It also uses mencoder (which can handle DVDs).

ffmpeg can do vob's though can't it (only decrypted vobs though of course)? I believe the documentation says it can. Not sure how well though. Anyone else have any luck using ffmpeg with DVD formats? I supose even if it can, you still have the problem of extracting it from the container, but im sure this would be similar to how the RAR/ZIP file browsing works in PMS.

FFMpeg can handle VOB files as long as they aren't split to multiple files. Unfortunately on most DVDs they are. In that case ffmpeg can only handle the first segment. As for zip/rar support, I haven't had chance to look at how PMS has it implemented.

have you tried concatenating them then playing? Not sure if that's possible with the way you use ffmpeg though.

It would require extending ffmpeg. I'm not saying it's not possible, we just have features with higher priorities currently.

I understand. Thanks for your quick responses and looking forward to seeing what you have planned for us.

Hey there,

let me second what the thread starter said, airvideo indeed is a wonderful product and i'm very happy with it, it just works.
But i too am missing the ability to playback my dvd collection, i copied most of my dvd's to my hard drive(long before i bought this great app) and it would be the proverbial icing on the cake if airvideo could play them.

Anyways, thanks for this great product, i'm very happy with it.

Workaround (suggested in other threads) is to "export" single MPEG files (e.g. using DVD2OneX, DVDRemaster Pro, MPEG Streamclip, et.al on OS X) from multiple files under VIDEO_TS folders of mounted ISO volumes for titles you're interested in viewing with Air Video. I do that for playback with my old EyeHome media player. Of course it requires more disk space and having to pre-select titles.

I would also like to see support for ISO files- I'm in the same boat as the others- already moved my entire DVD collection to the hard drives in ISO format. I have 4.5 TB of movies I'd love to be able to access with this program. Thank you!

+1. Would love to buy the app, but not until it can handle DVD/Video_TS playback.

+1 I too bought Air Video sight unseen and I'm very, very sad to see that it's lacking such a major feature. I've long since converted my 300+ DVD collection to my file server and I have no desire to convert my entire collection all over again, and eat up all that disk space, just to use on this iphone app.

I guess what I'm most disappointed by is the repeated statements by the 'Admin' account on these forums stating that 'Air Video' isn't even interested in looking at this feature. Don't you want to support your user base?

I'm sad I spent the money on this App, and I'm looking forward to someone else stepping up and actually providing the services that people like me are looking for.

I too was hoping that this program would be able to play dvd folders. With over 900 DVD's already ripped to my server the time and storage of the suggested solution won't work for me.
I guess I'll check back later to see if this essential function has been added.

+1 for DVD/Video_TS playback support. It`s a very cool feature.

+1 on rar and ISO support (especially for the Linux version!). C'mon this is long over-due!