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Author Topic: DVD playback across a network  (Read 1891 times)

chinchin

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DVD playback across a network
« on: January 06, 2012, 01:25:05 pm »

Hi everyone

Recently purchased MC and I am very impressed. I've re-ripped my CD collection to FLAC (with DB Poweramp) and the Audio part seems near perfect with great sound output. I feel this is the program with the potential to bring all media together. Thanks for making this great product!

My setup is with two PCs - an PC in my home office  & a HTPC in the living room, with all media located on a NAS . The intention was do run the Office-PC as a server and use the HTPC as a client. I've set this up (hopefully) correctly and have absolutely no problems on the Audio side of things.

I've now started ripping my DVDs with MC17 and am having some playback issues on the HTPC. This is a rough description of what happens:

1) I start the movie "The Matrix" and everything looks OK
2) Three minutes into the movie the picture suddenly freezes and the audio continues for a couple of seconds
3) Then the picture unfreezes and the playback is in "fast forward" mode and some frames are shown; the audio may or may not return
4) After a while things go back to normal playback
5) The movie now shows a total length of 21:04 and when this is reached, the movie is stopped
6) I then open another movie and the feature length is always shortened

I suspected a bad rip, so I had a look at the movie on the my Office-PC; everything wokred fine. I then re-ripped the DVD and tried again; same result on the HTPC. I then made a new library on the HTPC, imported the movie and had a look - everything was fine. I also noticed that with this setup, you don't have full control over the movie on the HTPC, i.e. "DVD Menu" & "Jump To" options are missing.

I've now come to the conclusion that either my setup isn't correct or that I have configured something incorrectly. So now I'm not really sure in which direction I should be going. Only thing I know for sure is that my Office-PC needs to continue to be the management/rip PC.

Any ideas or pointers would be most welcome :)
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JimH

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2012, 03:00:41 pm »

Welcome to the forum.

Are you using Red October Standard for video?

What is the full version of MC?  Is it the same on both sides?
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KoolADE

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2012, 03:10:28 pm »

I once had a problem similar to what you described. Movies would play at 10x their normal speed and without audio. For me, the problem went away after updating my graphics card driver and rebooting.

So it might be a long shot, but have you made sure your drivers are up to date?
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chinchin

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2012, 03:50:59 pm »

Thank you JimH.

Yes, running Red October Standard on the HTPC and HQ on the Office-PC (tried out RO Standard on the Office-PC too, didn't think it should make a difference and it didn't). Both PC's running 17.0.62. And both rebooted before testing again.

The HTPC is an AsRock 3D Vision i5 btw, I think the hardware should be sufficient.

Could a prior (now uninstalled) v16 installation have an influence? Should I be expecting good playback with my setup, or should I try another setup, i.e. with the HTPC as a server?
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chinchin

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2012, 03:53:42 pm »

I once had a problem similar to what you described. Movies would play at 10x their normal speed and without audio. For me, the problem went away after updating my graphics card driver and rebooting.

So it might be a long shot, but have you made sure your drivers are up to date?

Thanks for the reply, KoolADE. Yes, all drivers are up-to-date.
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JimH

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2012, 04:06:04 pm »

Make sure you're not running the Media Server from MC16.  Check MC16's startup options.
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chinchin

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2012, 04:08:47 pm »

MC 16 has been deinstalled from both PCs a while ago. Was thinking that maybe some lingering registry entries could be the problem.
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JohnT

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2012, 04:11:15 pm »

For DVD and Blu-ray playback, this might be the best way to go:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Sharing_a_media_library_with_multiple_users_on_a_home_network_(LAN)
This will allow the client to play the titles just like they were on the local disk, so menus and everything would work correctly.
Others can chime in on the best way to use UNC paths in this scenario.
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John Thompson, JRiver Media Center

chinchin

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2012, 04:46:20 pm »

This could be a work-around, but from my point of view a "last resort". Or is my setup totally unfeasable? I may have misunderstood the workings of the media server/network.
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IanH

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2012, 11:54:57 pm »

Was there a resolution to this?  I'm having the exact same problem with an almost identical setup.
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IanH

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Re: DVD playback across a network
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2012, 02:35:19 am »

Nevermind...

Set up as per John above. Works perfect.
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