Watching a dvd over wireless network?

[patrickthebold]

One thing I would like to do with the one is watch DVDs on it when I'm at home. There's obviously not a DVD drive, but I was wondering if it would be possible to put a dvd in my desktop computer and watch the video over the wireless network. My main concern is if wireless g is going to be fast enough to do this. Has anyone tried this? Thanks.

 

[crackbook]

I have streamed DVD rips with VLC before, it would probably be easier to just rip them and then put them on a share or a make shift file server, I uploaded video files to my web server and streamed them to my iPhone and it worked too.

 

[lotus49]

I have tried this and it rather depends...

If you mean you want to stream a full DVD9 over 802.11g in real-time, you probably won't be able to. Firstly, can you copy 9GB of data over your wireless network in about 90 minutes - probably not. However, when I have tried this in the past, the real issue is the latency of wireless networks which is usually orders of magnitude higher than with a wired network.

If you rip them effectively, then you should be able to bring the size down a lot and if you buffer enough it might work, but I still doubt it. It would probably be easier either to copy the content onto an SDHC card or to use a USB DVD drive.

 

[gbee]

A 802.11g network would probably handle DVD bitrate video, it certainly handles high quality broadcast mpeg2 bitrates, however it's not very reliable. While it might not make a difference for transferring files or browsing the internet, when stream video you want a stable connection. Depending on the software you use, there might be enough buffering to smooth out the dropped packets but I can't think of any software that actually does support streaming direct from a DVD in a simple, one click action. VLC might offer the functionality, but setting it up each time you want to watch a DVD would get pretty tiresome.

A better approach would be to copy the DVD to disk, (I wouldn't bother re-encoding!) and then use a media streaming application, such as a upnp server along with a client on the One.

As others have suggested you might as well copy it onto a SDHC card, or get a USB DVD-Rom drive instead. Personally I plan to copy some of my recordings onto SDHC cards so that I can watch them on holiday etc. 4Gb cards only cost £5 and will hold between 2 and 5 hours of PAL (mpeg2) depending on the quality. I certainly wouldn't re-encode videos to higher compression codec like h.264 unless you want the battery to last 15 minutes - decompressing h.264 puts even fast desktop CPUs under pressure. If you don't mind losing a lot of the quality you can transcode to a lower resolution, but while this might be fine for an Ipod/Iphone with a 2in screen I wouldn't recommend it for the One.

 

[atarione]

Yes you sure can

install VLC on the network desktop (w/ DVD drive) and on the AAO (if you haven't already)

on the desktop you would go file file > open disc (select the DVD drive letter) > check the stream/save box and hit settings > in settings I chose HTTP for the output and MPEG 1 encapsulation w/ the the transcoding (audio) MP3 > OK >OK

then open VLC on your network connected (in my case i was connecting to the LAN via openvpn but I digress) AAO file>open network stream > 192.168.0.2:1234 (in my case the your desktops IP / port chosen)

i was pretty happy with the way it looks and i have no problems streaming over my g network (DD-WRT on WRT54G (ver2))

 

[ani88]

I can watch Netflix on mine just fine, but I have noticed that the WLAN card isn't as fast as my other 801.11g laptops.

 

[patrickthebold]

Thanks everyone, I'm pretty excited about getting one. I'm a little worried about the 2 different batteries/ssds but hopefully I will get lucky.

I also found on google:
http://openslx.org/trac/en/dnbd/
http://www.ks.uni-freiburg.de/download/diplomarbeit/WS05/01-DNBD-Linux-ThZitterell/01-DNBD-ThZ.pdf

Which seems to be designed for sharing block devices over wireless networks. If I can get it to compile I will test it out and compare to VLC. Obviously VLC is easier, but the above seems like a neat little project.

 

[IslandBookworm]

I tried watching a DVD over the network without success. When I tried to play directly from the DVD drive on my desktop, the DVD drive did spin up but I got no movie (using Intervideo WinDVD that comes with the One). Then I ripped it onto a shared folder and tried to copy it onto my One. No dice—after a while the One said there was no file there and quit. Then I tried just playing the ripped DVD from the shared folder and it did play but kept stopping and starting.

At this point I think I'll just connect my One via ethernet and copy over ripped movies that way. But the question remains, why won't it play (or copy) over the wireless network? According to Speedtest.net I'm getting nearly 5Mbps (and full bars). I actually wonder why I'm not getting more since my desktop (on the same router) is getting 30-40 Mbps (used to be 5, but after a cable outage they fixed something and my speed went way up.)

Am I doing something wrong?

UPDATE: I've been looking at my network utilization while trying to stream a ripped DVD from my desktop wirelessly, and the utilization keeps dropping down to zero (which is when the movie stops) and then back up to about 15%. I've tried disabling the Windows Firewall at both ends but that hasn't helped. Any ideas?

UPDATE 2: I tried streaming the DVD over my network in the opposite direction i.e. playing it on my desktop from a shared folder on my AAO. That went fine, with no breaks. So I guess it's not my desktop or my router, but something in the AAO. :?:

 

[jackluo923]

Why not just share the DVD drive through your LAN? The feature is already included in the windows xp OS.

1. Go to my computer
2. Go to Properties of the drive you want to share over the lan
3. Go to the sharing tab
4. Click "If you understand the risk but still want to share the root of the drive, click here"
5. Run the network setup wizard and create a workgroup
6. On your acer aspire one, mount your dvd as a network drive.

By using this method, I was able to acess datat on my dvd-rw drive at around 5~MB/s or 40~mbit/s.

A 200minute movie on a dual layer dvd has maximum a/v streaming data rate of about 1.2~MB/s or 9.6mbit/s thus wireless G network will be able to handle dvd video effortlessly.

 

[IslandBookworm]

Thanks for that. I didn't have it mapped as a network drive but I had it under "My Network Places." Maybe that is the same thing? I tried mapping the drive (under My Computer) and I could access the files but when I tried to play with Nero Showtime (1.5) it crashed. I tired it a few times with the same result. When I try playing from My Network Places I get a message saying "Cannot play DVD from this location." Grrr. The disk plays fine on my desktop, and Showtime plays locally saved DVDs fine on the AAO. WMP11 won't play a disk over the network either. At best I get garbled audio and no video.

Just to be completely clear:

If only the software would behave I could get back to the network speed problem... Grrr...

UPDATE: I updated to Showtime 2 and now I get an "Unexpected DVD Error" off the mapped drive and "Cannot play this media file..." through MS Windows Network. Is there a free player out there that can handle network drives?

 

[jackluo923]

If you can access the file, in theory, you can play the DVD.

Have you tried playing the .vob videos with windows media player from the dvd disk?

The .vob files are in VIDEO_TS folder.

I tried it on my computer and it works fine.

 

[jackluo923]

UPDATE: I've been looking at my network utilization while trying to stream a ripped DVD from my desktop wirelessly, and the utilization keeps dropping down to zero (which is when the movie stops) and then back up to about 15%. I've tried disabling the Windows Firewall at both ends but that hasn't helped. Any ideas?
quote]

Change your network buffering setting in windows media player to a larger value. eg. 60 seconds

 

[IslandBookworm]

If you can access the file, in theory, you can play the DVD.
Have you tried playing the .vob videos with windows media player from the dvd disk?

Yup, I get no video and garbled audio on WMP11, and nothing from Nero Showtime 2.
This is driving me nuts

Change your network buffering setting in windows media player to a larger value. eg. 60 seconds

Thanks, I've done that. Now if only I can get it to play...

 

[jackluo923]

[quote:3deicvsa]Change your network buffering setting in windows media player to a larger value. eg. 60 seconds

Thanks, I've done that. Now if only I can get it to play...

[/quote:3deicvsa]

The above was meant to make the dvd-rip play smoother through the network.


If you cannot get the dvd streaming to work, there are other alternatives.

1. download vlc player (free)
2. Follow the guide from the below link. It's too long for me to explain it here.
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-h ... /ch02.html

You can use the wizard or if you want a challenge, use the command line streaming.

 

[IslandBookworm]

The above was meant to make the dvd-rip play smoother through the network.

Yes, that's what I figured. I'm sure it'll help if I can ever get the DVD playing.

1. download vlc player (free)
2. Follow the guide from the below link. It's too long for me to explain it here.
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-h ... /ch02.html

1. Tried it. It won't play a DVD from my mapped network DVD drive.
2. Too much information!

I think I must have changed some network setting that is causing all this fuss. Yesterday I was installing software from that drive, and I'm trying to do that now with no luck. I should learn to take notes on every change I make.

I need chocolate. :cry:

 

[jackluo923]

[quote:386ert43]1. download vlc player (free)
2. Follow the guide from the below link. It's too long for me to explain it here.
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-h ... /ch02.html

1. Tried it. It won't play a DVD from my mapped network DVD drive.
2. Too much information!

I think I must have changed some network setting that is causing all this fuss. Yesterday I was installing software from that drive, and I'm trying to do that now with no luck. I should learn to take notes on every change I make.

I need chocolate. :cry:

[/quote:386ert43]

What I meant is to download VLC player and follow the guide to use it to stream videos. VLC can be a video player or a video streamer. If you find the guide too much information, then never mind.

I think cyberlink PowerDVD does this by using a much more user-friendly way, but PowerDVD cost about $100.

 

[IslandBookworm]

What I meant is to download VLC player and follow the guide to use it to stream videos. VLC can be a video player or a video streamer. If you find the guide too much information, then never mind.

I think cyberlink PowerDVD does this by using a much more user-friendly way, but PowerDVD cost about $100.

Thanks. I might try streaming some time when I'm feeling more adventurous. I'll save the link for future reference. At least I can download ripped DVDs to my AAO. I think there is some network configuration problem preventing me from accessing the DVD drive on my desktop, but that is a topic for another forum, I think.

 

[zeusenergy]

What I meant is to download VLC player and follow the guide to use it to stream videos. VLC can be a video player or a video streamer. If you find the guide too much information, then never mind.

I think cyberlink PowerDVD does this by using a much more user-friendly way, but PowerDVD cost about $100.

Thanks. I might try streaming some time when I'm feeling more adventurous. I'll save the link for future reference. At least I can download ripped DVDs to my AAO. I think there is some network configuration problem preventing me from accessing the DVD drive on my desktop, but that is a topic for another forum, I think.

Try diabling the atheros power saving mode under device manager if you use the XP version of the One. It's listed under the advanced tab.