Playing back HD-DVD files from network share in PDVD

[tfboy]

From what I can tell, it's not possible to play back an HD-DVD rip off a network drive.

Whilst you can do it fine if you've ripped a movie onto your local hard drive using anydvdhd, if you save it on a remote PC / server, when you go to PowerDVD Ultra and select play back movie files from hard drive, it will allow you to select the movie (the root directory before the HVDVD one) but when you click on OK, there's an error message which pops up:

FSE_FAILED: Failed to Open
the File. Using file ""

I've contacted Cyberlink about this and the answer was unfortunately not very promising:

Thank you for contacting Cyberlink Online Customer Support.

We understand that you are getting error when try to play the HD-DVD files from harddrive.

In regards to your issue, we regret to inform you that PowerDVD Ultra can support playback of HD-DVD's from DVD drive directly, not form harddrive.

It could be the reason for your issue.

Well, sounds like they won't even support having an HD-DVD image on your local hard drive, let alone a remote one.

So in my aim to have a "back room server" with all my HD-DVDs on it, I'm now stifled

Anyone else played around with network-shared HD-DVD images and found a workaround?

A bit annoyed now. The cost of the software (PDVD) isn't exactly cheap and I can't even use it for what I bought it for

 

[dharris]

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

 

[bingobill]

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

Same here, on my networked Maxtor 500GB shared storage device I created a folder within my existing 'Video' folder and named it 'HDDVD' and then mapped the folder as a drive and put the ripped 'BATMAN_BEGINS_HDDVD' folder inside that, it plays just fine.

 

[Peer]

I've contacted Cyberlink about this and the answer was unfortunately not very promising:

Well, that answer is nonsense, their software has the explicit option to play back files from harddisk and it also works fine. Support people sometimes don't know their product to well...

I suppose, PowerDVD simply has a problem when using a network name like

\\server\share\folder\....

and requires a drive letter instead.
Didn't try that myself yet, though.

 

[tfboy]

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

Ahh. Just tried that and it works. Cheers

 

[SamuriHL]

Couldn't you make an ISO of the disc and mount the ISO file from the remote share?

 

[GreenJelly]

Skipping

I have a network drive, that is shared as above. Its on a Gigabyte network that easily gets 32Mbps, yet the movie skips like it cant keep up with the bit rate. The movie plays fine locally.

Edit: When you add a network drive in Vista, it sets up Indexing, and since I had a large number of files in the directory that I maoed, it may have used up the network or drive capabilities. Runs fine now

 

[roog]

In my experience, you need a gigabit network, with no other substantial traffic, in order to play a HD DVD or Blu-ray titlle remotely.

 

[roog]

Well, that answer is nonsense, their software has the explicit option to play back files from harddisk and it also works fine. Support people sometimes don't know their product to well...

I suppose, PowerDVD simply has a problem when using a network name like

\\server\share\folder\....

and requires a drive letter instead.
Didn't try that myself yet, though.

Watch how quickly they change their tune when something else becomes available.

 

[willywonton]

Umm...

A network share (Microsoft mapped drive) works fine on my system and has done always. Plays back HD-DVD content quite happily. Network connection is 1000Base-t so bandwidth is not realistically limited. But 100Base-t should be fine, unless other traffic is dominating on the link.

 

[GreenJelly]

Yea,

Story:
I bought the XBox HD-DVD drive (which works great), and was playing movies locally on my main machine (core2duo x6800 corsair, 1066mhz memory, Radeon x1900xtx, Soundblaster X-Fi, 3 DVD Burners, XBox HD-DVD, Gigabyte Eithernet, water cooled and soon to be 12x500mb disc raid 5 array plus 2 drives for XP and Vista) aka dream machine (named Monster), with Power DVD. I went to my HTPC to test it out and found that the playback was screwy. I had to sort out if this was a network issue or a computer issue so I transfered the backup of the horrible movie that came with the XBox to my media directory (which contained some 190 gigs of music), created a network drive, to the HTPC, and immediately played it on my Monster computer. The result was a skipping. I started to look into a way to increase the cache of the network drive, and thats when I came across the indexing setting.

Thus when you create a network drive in Vista, it defaults to indexing the files. Since I have a duel core, I don't really care if I have indexing on, because my machine rarely saturates both cores (and indexing service is a low priority process). However, after realizing what was going on, I tried it again, this time with success.

This lead me down the path of figuring out why my HTPC wasnt playing the files. The result? My HTPC video card (NVidea 7300 fanless) isn't "powerfull" enough for HD-DVD. Even though I run it on a PCI Express 16, with a core 2 duo 6400, and 800mhz memory (also watercooled). Also, the NVidia drivers are absolutely horrible for HTPC's running Vista 32 bit. They support HD-TV, but they don't have any options to enable over scan. Therefor the desktop goes off the screen on all four sides. After much research, there is a way to turn "fix" this, by selecting a resolution less then the HDTV 720p resolution, however this results in a black boarder around my screen. Since I have a Plasma screen, this boarder spells death to my picture quality, (if used for a long time). So I live with a over sized desktop.

BAH, NVidia and PowerDVD is stupid.

Mike

Summary: Networked Drives DO work with PowerDVD. MyMovies is a great add-on for Vista Media Center. Nvidia and Power DVD sucks. Vista DOESNT natively support HD or Blue Ray formates, though they have included native DVD support. AnyDVD HD is a great product.

 

[SamuriHL]

Ah, something like Windows Search, perhaps?

 

[GreenJelly]

Ah, something like Windows Search, perhaps?

Since I had included a huge number of music files in my shared drive, it was probably indexing the files for playback, search etc. This might have resulted in a saturation of the remote hard drive and/or the either net.

By the time I figured out indexing was turned on, it was probably done with the process, and the playback worked find.

Jelly

PS, the Music was moved to my HTPC because my Raid array (and drives) are showing up from New egg today. Please pray for my 550w PSU!

 

[SamuriHL]

Windows Search has its own indexing beyond what the disk indexing service does. I find Windows Search indexing to be FAR more intrusive. Shut off the service(unless you use it I guess) and see if that helps your performance. When it's indexing, it's taking up cpu AND disk resources!!

 

[GreenJelly]

Windows Search has its own indexing beyond what the disk indexing service does. I find Windows Search indexing to be FAR more intrusive. Shut off the service(unless you use it I guess) and see if that helps your performance. When it's indexing, it's taking up cpu AND disk resources!!

Not to hijack the thread too much but///

In XP this service was simply set to be a low priority service, which means it will use your computer resources anytime it wasn't doing anything else. It would basically put the indexing logic on the bottom of the process query.

In Vista, they have come up with a Idle process setting, which goes a step further then low priority with more advanced detection of a computer that is in use. It does this, by managing the input devices, and other logic. Thus it doesn't querry the process when your using the computer. It also shares indexing tables with other computers connected to it. This makes searching and accessing files MUCH faster. You can find out more from the Microsoft website. I would recommend keeping this service on in Vista.

If you have a large DVD and or Music collection, this service will actually lower the amount of resources you use when working with files, especially over a network. As Ive learned, just be prepared when creating a network drive for this initial crunch.

You may always turn of the service under the control panel (classic view) -> administration -> Services. Or you may disable the indexing of networked drives in the network drive properties, or when creating a network drive. This will slow down the wonderful search features available for Microsoft Media, Applications, and other files. Once you start using this feature, you will see how awesome it is.

I was highly disappointed with XP's indexing performance and would give the advice you stated above to almost anyone running or using Windows XP.

However Microsoft has done a wonderful job with Vista's service. I would go a step further and say Microsoft has done a wonderful job with Vista. Its the Best OS they have ever made.

 

[SamuriHL]

Fascinating. I guess I'll have to do some more research on Vista's implementation of Windows Search. I found it was taking up a lot of resources when I had it enabled. I hardly never need to search for things on my machine, so, I didn't see it as a big loss to shut it off. But, maybe I'll give it another shot and see if I find it to be useful.

 

[roog]

Story:
I bought the XBox HD-DVD drive (which works great), and was playing movies locally on my main machine (core2duo x6800 corsair, 1066mhz memory, Radeon x1900xtx, Soundblaster X-Fi, 3 DVD Burners, XBox HD-DVD, Gigabyte Eithernet, water cooled and soon to be 12x500mb disc raid 5 array plus 2 drives for XP and Vista) aka dream machine (named Monster), with Power DVD. I went to my HTPC to test it out and found that the playback was screwy. I had to sort out if this was a network issue or a computer issue so I transfered the backup of the horrible movie that came with the XBox to my media directory (which contained some 190 gigs of music), created a network drive, to the HTPC, and immediately played it on my Monster computer. The result was a skipping. I started to look into a way to increase the cache of the network drive, and thats when I came across the indexing setting.

Thus when you create a network drive in Vista, it defaults to indexing the files. Since I have a duel core, I don't really care if I have indexing on, because my machine rarely saturates both cores (and indexing service is a low priority process). However, after realizing what was going on, I tried it again, this time with success.

This lead me down the path of figuring out why my HTPC wasnt playing the files. The result? My HTPC video card (NVidea 7300 fanless) isn't "powerfull" enough for HD-DVD. Even though I run it on a PCI Express 16, with a core 2 duo 6400, and 800mhz memory (also watercooled). Also, the NVidia drivers are absolutely horrible for HTPC's running Vista 32 bit. They support HD-TV, but they don't have any options to enable over scan. Therefor the desktop goes off the screen on all four sides. After much research, there is a way to turn "fix" this, by selecting a resolution less then the HDTV 720p resolution, however this results in a black boarder around my screen. Since I have a Plasma screen, this boarder spells death to my picture quality, (if used for a long time). So I live with a over sized desktop.

BAH, NVidia and PowerDVD is stupid.

Mike

Summary: Networked Drives DO work with PowerDVD. MyMovies is a great add-on for Vista Media Center. Nvidia and Power DVD sucks. Vista DOESNT natively support HD or Blue Ray formates, though they have included native DVD support. AnyDVD HD is a great product.

Have you tried using the Radeon x1900xtx with your HDTV because under HDTV support in Catalyst Control Center you can resize the display output.

 

[GreenJelly]

You may remember that Microsoft was planning to release a new file system that would replace NTFS, and that they claimed that this file system was going to be allot faster then any current file system on any OS to date. This project was canceled probably do to the logistics and overhead.

NTFS is VERY fast when looking for a specific file because of its logical nature. It doesn't need to hash, then rehash the entire System when ever a file is added/deleted because it contains directories that logically separate the data. I'm certain NTFS uses some hashing within individual directories for optimization but thats another topic.

What NTFS fails to do, is to provide cross directory file relationships, and a flexible system to store and retrieve meta data (music titles, artists, document text, etc). To do this, you need a relational database (the index service). My music is sorted by artist directory, then album directory. Some Albums don't belong to a specific artists, since they are collections. Thus, using NTFS, searching for an artist requires you to search every directory, and every file.

The only other option would be to have every application to build their own relational database's that contain file information. The result would be having 5 applications all working on the same thing, collecting file information and meta data. This would result in duplicate data collecting, and would slow the system down.

Therefor Microsoft built a database application and object library that would unify the work, and save the system from the above problems. Turning this service off in the Services tab, doesn't prevent the system and applications from using this library and tool. What it prevents it from doing is automatically updating the data when your not using the computer, thus forcing it to update when you open up your media player.

If your media is located remotely (over the network), then the index service becomes more important. Instead of creating individual databases on every machine, index tables can be queried remotely, and indexing can be controlled in a distributed environment.

Depending on how you use your machine, and how the applications you use are written, will depend on the advantages or disadvantages of having the OS index your media. If your media players/applications don't use the indexing library, then there is no point in having this application indexing in the background.

However, if your like me, and have tons of media that is served to many different computers, then the indexing features can be awesome. Microsoft Media Center and Microsoft's Media player are much faster when I open the applications and attempt to look at my music libraries from a remote machine.

 

[GreenJelly]

Have you tried using the Radeon x1900xtx with your HDTV because under HDTV support in Catalyst Control Center you can resize the display output.

Unfortunately, Monster, the one with the awesome video card, is not my Media Center, but my server/gaming/work machine. However, I have ran 6 channels of audio + component video the 30 feet needed to reach my TV in the other room (hey, sometimes I want to play my games on the big screen). I also bought a USB extender (max length of USB isn't very long)

In XP (and soon in Vista when I get the Urge) I created 2 profiles in ATI's control center that will change the resolution to HDTV, and shut off my two monitors (and then another that would return it back to the original state). I have to work on this a bit, because when playing a game on the HDTV, I need the video card to convert the processed resolution into the HDTV's native resolution. I hear this is possible ATI's Vista drivers however I have not done it so far.

Summary: ATI's vista drivers are awsome, while certain Nvidia drivers (in this case the 7 series), are horrible (bare bones). If you own a NVidia card, don't buy Windows Vista. As a side note... Dont expect to use your awesome Sound Blaster X-Fi driver utilities that came with the sound card, they wont install under vista, and sound blaster hasn't come out with updated versions.

 

[roog]

Unfortunately, Monster, the one with the awesome video card, is not my Media Center, but my server/gaming/work machine. However, I have ran 6 channels of audio + component video the 30 feet needed to reach my TV in the other room (hey, sometimes I want to play my games on the big screen). I also bought a USB extender (max length of USB isn't very long)

In XP (and soon in Vista when I get the Urge) I created 2 profiles in ATI's control center that will change the resolution to HDTV, and shut off my two monitors (and then another that would return it back to the original state). I have to work on this a bit, because when playing a game on the HDTV, I need the video card to convert the processed resolution into the HDTV's native resolution. I hear this is possible under ATI's Vista drivers.

Summary: ATI's vista drivers are awsome, while certain Nvidia drivers (in this case the 7 series), are horrible (bare bones). If you own a NVidia card, don't buy Windows Vista. As a side note... Dont expect to use your awesome Sound Blaster X-Fi driver utilities that came with the sound card, they wont install under vista, and sound blaster hasn't come out with updated versions.

Hi Mike,

Assuming that you're using the USB for your keyboard and mouse, you should try the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000. It's Bluetooth and has a range of 30 feet. The keyboard is so light that it almost feels like a remote control. Also, you don't have to use the mouse, if you don't want to, because mouse functions are available on the keyboard.

If you have a DVI or HDMI input on your HDTV you can use them instead of component cables. Newegg.com has a good selection of reasonably priced long cables for this purpose.

Also, if you have a digital coax input on your receiver, you can use a single cable to connect it to your soundblaster card (if needed you can get a mini plug to phono plug adapter at Radio Shack).

roog