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[Superserial]

Hi.

Thinking about buying Media center to use together with MadVR to better handle HDR videos on a projector.

I have tested the evaluation software for a couple of days and one thing I really miss is the possibility to play video files directly from rar archives. Most other players support this but MC doesn't which is kind of a deal breaker.

Is there a setting I'm missing, a plugin to install, or is this simply not possible?

[zybex]

Why have video in RAR/Zip/7z archives? It's mostly incompressible. Multi-part splitting?

[Superserial]

It's not me that made that decision, I just have to live with the consequences

So, do you know of a way to solve this in JRiver MC or do I have to look at some alternative? Would be a shame, because other than this issue I really like it.

[zybex]

You could extract them all and get rid of the RARs. If RAR is used just to provide a CRC, you can achieve the same with any MD5/SHA hashing tool out there. I even wrote one to do that.

Short of MC adding the feature (sit down while waiting), there's no other good solution. You can use some tool to mount the RAR archives as folders or drives, like these below, but that requires a lot of management overhead and is, to me, an awkward solution.
https://pismotec.com/pfm/
https://www.winarchiver.com/virtual-drive.htm

[Hendrik]

We do not support reading videos from archives, and its not a planned feature either at this time.

[JimH]

When I searched for RAR video, I found that XBMC (now Kodi) used it, maybe still does. 

The equivalent method now would be using MKV files, which JRiver does support.

As zybex said above, there is no advantage to using RAR or ZIP since the files are already compressed.

[Awesome Donkey]

Yeah, seems like a big waste to me too. Whomever made that decision to use RAR archived videos should probably highly reconsider, in my opinion. Though I'd be interested in knowing the rational behind that decision, because I can't think of a single potential benefit, just disadvantages.

[Hendrik]

The origin of those is videos obtained from the high seas, where they get stored in multi-part RAR archives for easier downloading. And then for some reason people not wanting to unpack them. Just do that, I guess.

[JimH]

Removed discussion. 

[BryanC]

https://unpackerr.zip/

[Superserial]

Ok all, thanks for the help. I guess I have to look at the alternatives then.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible for me to solve this by writing a plugin? Or is file source format out of "JRiver MC plugin scope"?

[JimH]

You can tell MC to use an external program for any file type.

There is a Developer link at the bottom of the page.  And here:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DevZone

MCWS is where you could start.

From that page ...
To view the documentation in WSDL format, use:
http://[library server address]/MCWS/v1/WSDL

If you're on the same computer as the server, you can use:
http://localhost:52199/MCWS/v1/doc (where 52199 is the port that Library Server is running on)

[Superserial]

Thanks, I noticed that there seemed to be (quite good) support for third party devs to make plugins. But a quick glance didn't answer if it was possible to add support for new filetypes.

Using an external player is something I would like to avoid. It's mostly ease of the "bundle" of player with madvr support that brought me to JRiver MC. If I have to use an external player I would, in all honesty, go with Kodi/MPC-HC (and save a few bucks in the process).

I'll have a look at the developer docs and see if I can find my answer.

[Awesome Donkey]

You'd have to end up decompressing the RAR archives regardless in order to playback the videos every time you watch it, so it's a roundabout (and waste of resources) way of doing it. This means to watch the video you'd have to decompress and extract the videos (to the temporary files/cache directory in the OS) then watch that. You can't directly use/watch/listen to the file(s) inside the archive without decompressing it from the RAR archive first. Taking the time to unpack all the videos from the RAR archives once and using only the extracted video files is the path of least resistance and it'll avoid issues like this (and maybe keep power consumption lower). In my opinion, of course.

[Hendrik]

A different source for videos is not something a plugin can do.

[JimH]

I think the external program could probably decompress and hand back to MC for playback.

[EnglishTiger]

Win11 users don't need any additional programs, or plugins, the right-click "Extract All..." option/feature now has the ability to handle rar files.

[Superserial]

No offence, but can everyone please stop telling me how to decompress rar files? That is not the question Iäm asking and if it where, then it would have been done by now and this thread would not exist

The files are on a shared disk that I have no control over so the alternative would be to download and unpack all files on a local disk which I would like to avoid.

A different source for videos is not something a plugin can do.

Ok, no need to actually read the development docs then?

I think the external program could probably decompress and hand back to MC for playback.

Interesting. In real time or as some sort of "pre play" hook? The latter is probably not an option as it would be pretty much the same as manually unpacking the videos beforhand.

Any hints on where where in the docs to look for instructions on external programs?

[Superserial]

You'd have to end up decompressing the RAR archives regardless in order to playback the videos every time you watch it, so it's a roundabout (and waste of resources) way of doing it. This means to watch the video you'd have to decompress and extract the videos (to the temporary files/cache directory in the OS) then watch that. You can't directly use/watch/listen to the file(s) inside the archive without decompressing it from the RAR archive first. Taking the time to unpack all the videos from the RAR archives once and using only the extracted video files is the path of least resistance and it'll avoid issues like this (and maybe keep power consumption lower). In my opinion, of course.

Many players support streaming the content of rar files in real time. No need to unpack them to temporary files first. A raspberry pi 3 can manage without issue while still playing the actual video/audio contents inside.

Kodi has excellent support and even shows the contents of the archives while browsing the files.

[zybex]

Interesting. In real time or as some sort of "pre play" hook? The latter is probably not an option as it would be pretty much the same as manually unpacking the videos beforhand.

As a pre-play hook. I suggest you look at the 2 links I gave above - you could use this to mount the RAR into a drive letter, start playing from there, then unmount (or leave it mounted and just replace the drive mount on the next play). The other link actually does what you want with ZIP files (mounting as a folder instead of a drive) - you would need to use their SDK to add RAR support.

Any hints on where where in the docs to look for instructions on external programs?

In Tools->Options->File Types you can select "external app" as the playback action for a given type. However, RAR is not there; I think you can add new types by editing some file in MC folder, but I've never done that.

Many players support streaming the content of rar files in real time. No need to unpack them to temporary files first.

If it's a solid RAR archive this may not work for some video containers that have an index at the end.

[Superserial]

Thanks a million, you've been a great help.

I will have a look into this. Being able to do a pre play hook might solve the issue, even if it's not the cleanest solution