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[Jong]

As I said in an earlier post today I am a new MC17 user (>10 years an HTPC nut) completely amazed with the brilliance of MC17.

I do though have a few I think pretty easy requests/thoughts on Blu-ray/.iso handling.

- I am still not ready to abandon using ,iso - an ANYDVD .iso rip with protection intact is still the safest way IMO to guarantee trouble-free playback. Please, please, please could you just add .iso to the list of Video file types. This would mean that an iso in a folder with the movie name would be recognised as a movie and its metadata would be found correctly without having to rename the .iso manually. The current process of converting from a "data" type to "video/movie" AND renaming the iso is a bit of a pain!

- It would be good if Blu-rays in .iso were recognised as "HD". It is currently quite hard to do this manually.

- It would be good if you could populate some of the metadata (especially duration), either from online sources or by looking at the contained files. MeediOS opens each .iso and uses MediaInfo to find the necessary info when importing

- It would be great if you could support ripping to iso in JRiver. That would make things that little bit easier.

Not so easy, but I also hope you are on top of what the open source community is doing with playing basic Blu-ray menus. If you could do this too you would have menus not only for 'simple' discs but even Java discs using the AnyDVD Speedmenu, which would be a significant leap forward in Blu-ray navigation. Your current menus are useful, but this would I think be a significant advance.

Thanks for reading!  

[Jong]

No thoughts anyone?

I see lots of chatter about isos going back a long time. It is surprising that still they can only be imported as 'data'. I tried amending the tag as it was imported, using the option to set tags. The media subtype can correctly be set to 'movie', but the mediatype stays 'data', even if you try to set it to 'video'.

Who wants to import isos as data anyway? Anyone! Surely we should be able to decide what media type an iso in a particular import folder is. Obviously importing isos to any media type would not be enabled by default.

[jmone]

There are a couple of edits in the Wiki on this...but you are basically correct, we should be able to mark these as Video on import.
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/ISO_Files
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DVD_Library_in_Media_Center

FYI - Matt has had some discussion over time about where to use the existing ISO parsing code to "look" inside ISO to see what is in there and what info to pull out but to date nothing more has come from this.

[Jong]

Thanks for your post. Yes, I'd seen the wiki entries and used them to get things working. The quality using MadVR  and LAV video/audio is fantastic! All we need is a proper automated process to import and, ideally, populating the library correctly with metadata on duration/quality etc.

I searched for all Matt's posts mentioning isos and could only find one post on Super Audio CD. Do you know the thread?

[jmone]

Sorry but the thread is in the closed Beta forum.  The best bet is if Matt is reading this thread for him to provide an update of the current thinking from a JR perspective!

[JimH]

Sorry but the thread is in the closed Beta forum.  The best bet is if Matt is reading this thread for him to provide an update of the current thinking from a JR perspective!

I moved it out:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=70528.0

[stevenjw]

I totally agree with Jong.  I'm also new to MC17 and use AnyDVD HD to rip my large collection of DVDs and BDs.  I also prefer to keep the BDs in .iso format.  I have followed the process explained in http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/ISO_Files Wiki and was able to get MC17 to import all of my BDs off my mounted Synology RAID.  It was cumbersome, but worked.

However, I keep running into an issue with MC17 importing newly added .iso BDs in that directory.  I followed the steps in the Wiki for Autoconfig and knwo that it worked importing my early .iso files.  I just can't get it to recognize any new ones added to this directory.  There has to be an easier way to import BD .iso files.  I've also tried dragging/dropping the .iso file into the Video -> Files -> M: -> BD area (where the rest are located), but that didn't work.  I've run auto-import and import on that single directory, but neither works.

I can mount this new rip using Virtual CloneDrive and play it with TotalMedia Theatre 5.  Why does MC17 have an issue importing it?

I'm about to pull my hair out.  This is so frustrating and I don't understand why MC17 doesn't make this easier.  It seems to work fine/easier for everything else under the sun including SACD .iso files.  What's the deal with BD .iso files?  I really need help with this one.  Fix this and I'm a happy camper; don't and I can't recommend this product to anyone really.

[stevenjw]

Don't mean to high-jack this thread, but seemed like a good idea to add a post to existing thread on the same issues with BD .iso files.

Well, I did a search and found the .iso file was imported under Documents!   I have no idea why since my earlier imports following the Wiki page worked fine after getting it set up and working.

So, I need to know:

1) How to get this to show up under Video and not under Documents?

2) How to prevent this from happening in the future and having the .iso import under the correct media type?

[stevenjw]

I added Media Type and Media Sub Type to the header row.  Looks like the Sub Type is correctly set to "Movie", but Media Type is "Data".  Not sure why, but I can change that manually to get it into the correct library.  Then I'll look into why Auto-import doesn't change Data to Video for .iso under this mounted directory when importing.

Man, I wish this was easier.  And makes me beg the question, don't people use MC17 to manage photos, audio, and video as opposed to data?  Seems to me that more work can be done to make importing .iso BDs easier/automatic. Is it really that difficult to build this into the product vs. the use of tags manually added by customers?

[stevenjw]

OK, found the error.  I had a typo in the Auto-Config settings for that directory.  Changed it to =If(ISEqual([file Type],iso,8),Video,[Media Type]) so hopefully all is well.  I had a { in there instead of the first [.   

I still think there ought to be an option for that rather than have new customers go through the learning curve and hassle of searching/reading a forum for .iso and then having to manually edit/add that syntax in the input field.  It's 2012 and this should be a simply check box or other feature since BD .iso files will continue to be used by MediaCenter customers.  User friendliness is a big selling point when trying out or recommending a product.  Just something to think about....

[Matt]

We don't have an ISO parser, and don't have a way to get LAV filters to read inside an ISO.

Using a mounting program is only sort of a solution, because it falls down if you need to read several ISO files at once (threading!).

For this reason, JRiver recommends ripping to a BDMV folder instead.

ISO support is possible, but more limited and complicated.

[Jong]

What is the problem with multiple drives? Several mounting tools including virtual clone drive support multiple simultaneous drives, if that is really needed, or simply limit people to one mounted iso at a time.

[InflatableMouse]

- I am still not ready to abandon using ,iso - an ANYDVD .iso rip with protection intact is still the safest way IMO to guarantee trouble-free playback.

I realize its somewhat offtopic and I'm certainly not in the business of changing your mind but I do like to understand why you believe its the safest way.

I just went through a lot of trouble to figure out how to get my music blurays in a convenient way on my HTPC with MC18. I first ripped it to a BDMV folder as ISO's aren't supported, but I don't like having that entire file structure there. An issue with all-in-one ripping tools I found is that they refuse to put LCPM passthrough audio in an MKV or M4P container (they don't support LPCM) or properly convert it to Flac (it gets resampled). Mkv does support Flac though and many Music blurays have LPCM.

So I then decided to demux the m2ts files to a .h264 and WAV LPCM. I converted the Wav to Flac and dumped both in a MKV container. Video is the original from the bluray, audio is lossless 24/192. Doesn't save much space but it does give me one file instead of an entire file structure. I could decide to compress the video too now that I know how to do it.

[Jong]

When it comes to "safety", if you buy discs close to their release it is not uncommon for there to be some issues with AnyDVD and new forms of protection. These are rapidly ironed out and if you buy a bit later you are probably OK. Buy, if you do buy and rip close to release there is a chance you will need to do it all again a few weeks later. Ripping to a protected iso means the latest version of AnyDVD is used each time you play, so this risk is eliminated.

Other reasons for using .iso are:

Not all "full disc" players will play from a folder and PowerDVD removed this ability some years ago in regular mid-year patch, not even a new version - the studios hate folder playback because it is used almost exclusively for ripped content. If you like to play the full disc at least some of the time, eg. For extras, .iso gives you most flexibility

3D playback almost mandates using .iso. Even if you can use folders a 50GB blu-ray can turn into an 80GB+ folder if unpacked from an iso.

[InflatableMouse]

Fair enough, tx for explaining that.

[Matt]

or simply limit people to one mounted iso at a time.

It's a big problem if the program can't import, thumbnail, etc. a movie because one happens to be playing.

Media Center is highly threaded (which is good), so import analyzes multiple files concurrently, multiple thumbnails build concurrently, etc.  Also, playback is zoned meaning the program must be able to play multiple movies at once to different zones.

If we could work with nevcairiel (of LAV fame) to natively read from an ISO, there'd be no need to mount the files.  But last I asked him about this his answer was basically "yuck."

[InflatableMouse]

He should open up a paypal donation account. Then everyone who wants this feature buys him a beer .

[Jong]

It's a big problem if the program can't import, thumbnail, etc. a movie because one happens to be playing.

Media Center is highly threaded (which is good), so import analyzes multiple files concurrently, multiple thumbnails build concurrently, etc.  Also, playback is zoned meaning the program must be able to play multiple movies at once to different zones.

If we could work with nevcairiel (of LAV fame) to natively read from an ISO, there'd be no need to mount the files.  But last I asked him about this his answer was basically "yuck."

I do get all that, but I doubt there are many PCs out there that could be serving multiple bluray streams anyway. And I would certainly put up with a slightly slower than usual import of bluray .isos rather than treating them as media-less data discs, as at present. I guess the real issue here is without LAV support you need to build something special to handle .iso and you'd like to avoid that. I understand, but I hope that doesn't mean us poor .iso users continue to be left out in the cold!

[InflatableMouse]

If I understand correctly the problem is that the process is highly threaded and therefore each thread can potentially hit a few ISO's and that slows down the entire import process. Worst case is that the entire import process locks up becasue each thread needs to import an ISO and is waiting for the other thread to finish. The import process is very fast at the moment so I can understand they don't want to change this.

What you could consider is a quick scan to determine how many ISO's there are, and then dedicating a few threads to the import of ISO's only and let the rest of the threads handle regular import. Slow ISO import can then continue in the background while the rest finishes quickly as ever.

But what I don't get is why you need to read the ISO's for import? The folder and/or filename should tell you what it is, just like regular mkv's, avi's and the like?

[Jong]

But what I don't get is why you need to read the ISO's for import? The folder and/or filename should tell you what it is, just like regular mkv's, avi's and the like?

To fully support .iso it needs to be mounted, if only to get the media metadata (resolution, frame rate and, most importantly IMO, movie duration). This is all MeediOS, which I have moved from used to do. It may be that Matt would want to do a more thorough check for other media on the disc that may need thumbnails etc; I am not sure. As I said, though, most .iso mounters allow mounting of more than one image. It could be possible at least to support 2 - one for any playing movie and a 2nd for any potential import task. It is messy of course having to determine which virtual drive has which image on it and forcing all .iso imports to a dedicated thread, but I'd be surprised if that was insurmountable.

But, I agree, if we had to put up with no movie metadata as a first step to better .iso support, that would still be good progress.  

[Hendrik]

- I am still not ready to abandon using ,iso - an ANYDVD .iso rip with protection intact is still the safest way IMO to guarantee trouble-free playback.

IMHO, this is a paranoid approach that blocks any good way to support it. I've been thinking about ISO solutions, and supporting reading an ISO directly would be somhow an approach that could be implemented.
However, this doesn't work if the ISO is still protected, because you absolutely need to mount it into some drive, so AnyDVD can work on it, so any smart solutions with LAV somehow accessing the ISO without requiring a 3rd Party mounting software are out the window. Thanks Jong.

It should be quite clear to anyone that relying on some third-party software to be available is always a not-so-perfect solution. The need for AnyDVD to play Blu-ray discs is already quite annoying for users, requiring a mounting software to play ISOs doesn't make it better - even when the mounting software at least is free. Hence Matt's reluctance to go that way.

[Jong]

Sorry Nev! What can I say? I get your point. I understand any solution you come up with cannot work with protected .iso. But, I don't think it is paranoid to use them. There is no doubt that AnyDVD is not perfect in the early weeks of a release.

Since AnyDVD is so prevalent it would IMO make sense to at least support VCD for mounting. It is lightweight and doesn't have a lot of game-orientated bloat.

[Jong]

... And, by the way, SamuriHL has been recommending creation of protected isos in his "semi-official" ISO Creation Guide on Slysoft forums since the very early days. There are a lot of people with a lot of protected isos! (I have about 200 I'd have to convert) 😢

[Hendrik]

Sucks for them, i suppose.
I don't remember when i last had a disc that needed an update to play properly, and i'm usually even too lazy to update AnyDVD, until the balloon message about new versions bugs me too much. :p

[Jong]

I guess 😭

[InflatableMouse]

The more I think about this the more I believe mounting is not the way to import them. Either read them natively or don't do it at all.

200 protected ISO's is a lot, but with a little creativity I'm sure you can script it to batch convert them to unprotected ISO's. You woudn't have to rerip them.

I think if you start now you'd be done by the time Matt comes around with a native ISO reader  .

[Jong]

 

As I said, reading the iso is only needed for certain nice to have things. If Nev did agree to do an iso parser and this was the way Matt wanted to do it then I would understand if I, and all the others who have been ripping this way for 4+ years, didn't get that extra metadata info 😰. But:

- that shouldn't prevent the iso being somehow easily imported into the right type/subtype and. The current hoops people have to jump through are a bit obtuse!
- it shouldn't prevent the last played tag getting set sensibly. At the moment it is set as soon as the iso is mounted. I'm not sure if this is just because the media duration is not set, or because of some other limitation of isos in MC.

And...
- from Matt's earlier post I didn't think there WAS a firm plan for a native parser
- not sure it is very hard to also allow mounting to get the metadata, if the user has a 3rd party tool and accepts importing metadata from iso will be slow

[greynolds]

I'm not sure if this would help the situation or not, but Pismo Mount could possibly help here:

http://www.pismotechnic.com/pfm/ap/

This allows you to mount an ISO where it is in your folder structure.  So as an example, if you have a folder named "Blurays" that contained a bunch of ISO files (Avatar.iso, Spiderman.iso, TheAvengers.iso, etc.), you could mount all of the ISO files and end up with a folder structure that looks like:

..\Blurays\Avatar.iso\BDMV\...
..\Blurays\Spiderman.iso\BDMV\...
..\Blurays\TheAvengers.iso\BDMV\...

At this point, JR Media Center would have no idea that these are iso files - it would just see them as a bunch of BDMV directory structures.  You could even drop the iso extension from the filename to make the directory structure look cleaner when the files have been mounted (Pismo forces the mount name to be the original filename).  So if the iso files had no extension, the directory structure would look like the following after mounting:

..\Blurays\Avatar\BDMV\...
..\Blurays\Spiderman\BDMV\...
..\Blurays\TheAvengers\BDMV\...

There's a command line interface for Pismo, so it would be possible to setup a script to mount all the iso files when the PC boots (the mounts don't survive reboots).  This would also give one a way to automatically mount newly ripped movies.

AFAIK, there's no limit to the number of iso's that Pismo will allow you to have simultaneously mounted unlike most other mounting tools, such as Virtual Clone Drive, that are limited to some number of drive letters so it should be possible to have a sizable Bluray collection mounted all at once.

[Hendrik]

The problem is that some people apparently like ripping their Blu-ray ISOs with the copy protection still in place, so they need to properly mount it to an actual drive that AnyDVD HD can then process and remove copy protection.
Somehow i doubt this would work with that Pismo tool.

[greynolds]

The problem is that some people apparently like ripping their Blu-ray ISOs with the copy protection still in place, so they need to properly mount it to an actual drive that AnyDVD HD can then process and remove copy protection.
Somehow i doubt this would work with that Pismo tool.

Probably not, but it would work fine for those who rip with the copy protection removed.