Thanks, big improvement. I have a couple of non-starters but then they may be bad DVD coding to begin with. But 95 per cent of the time it starts the main movie now.

Now if I could just get that new NS4300n Promise server to show up on the extenders-----

John

---

XPS420: Quad, 4 Gig, 650/1T internal, 3 eSata
Dual ATI Cable Cards (SA-800 M)
T-W W Valley (LA)
ATI Radeon HD3870 (DVI/HDMI)
3 Maxtor NAS (320/500/1T)
2 XP, 1 Macintosh X (10.4.11), HP 280N extender, Linksys DMA2100, DMA2200
Promise Ns4300 Raid 5

Hi,

I just installed v2.3 of transcoder and now everytime I try to play a DVD, VMC dies. I tried to go back to go back to v2.2 but it doesn't work anymore. I installed the new transcode.dll in eHome and registered it. Am I forgetting something ?  The only option I see is to reload my system... Any idea ?

Sorry my mistake, simply forgot to set the transcoder cache directory again.... Everything is working great now.

Glad to hear that. Unfortunately I have not come across any way to identify the main title correctly 100% of the time, so I simply play the title with the most chapters, which usually works and is very easy to implement. If anyone knows of a simple way to identify the main title more accurately, I'll be happy to incorporate it.

---

Asus Crosshair motherboard
Athlon X2 4600+
4GB OCZ SLI-Ready memory
MSI 8500GT
Western Digital Raptor for OS
Dual WD SATA 2 drives in RAID 0 for TV
2TB Raid5 external ESATA media storage
Dual Hauppauge PVR-1600 hybrid tuners
Origen X15e case

For future reference, to disable the transcoder all you have to do is delete the value "Transcoder" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaCenterPeripheral and reboot.

---

Asus Crosshair motherboard
Athlon X2 4600+
4GB OCZ SLI-Ready memory
MSI 8500GT
Western Digital Raptor for OS
Dual WD SATA 2 drives in RAID 0 for TV
2TB Raid5 external ESATA media storage
Dual Hauppauge PVR-1600 hybrid tuners
Origen X15e case

For everyone that was having problems running the CreateWVX script. There is now a utility that automates the entire link process.
http://www.nedmug.com/DVDLibraryonExtendersHowTo/tabid/168/Default.aspx

It works for NAS and WHS too.

--Pete

---

---------------------------------------
Pete Stagman
Media Center MVP
President, Home Theater PC User Group
www.htpcug.org

Okay, I am not a total noob at this, but for some reason I cannot get this to play my .mpeg files.  I have a number of files that I used dvddecrypt to backup in IFO mode and renamed them from .VOB to mpg.  I can play these through MM but I cannot get them to show up in DVD library.  Anyone?

File location d:/DVDs/MovieName/VIDEO_TS

Thanks!

bob2229:

Okay, I am not a total noob at this, but for some reason I cannot get this to play my .mpeg files.  I have a number of files that I used dvddecrypt to backup in IFO mode and renamed them from .VOB to mpg.  I can play these through MM but I cannot get them to show up in DVD library.  Anyone?

File location d:/DVDs/MovieName/VIDEO_TS

Thanks!

Are you using Vader's transcode.dll with the player as described in his download read me?

If you are, then you do not rename the files, the transcoder and player will take the vob and stream it to the extender as an mpeg file.

Once you install the dll file and registry update you should see the dvd play turn to dvd library both in VMC and on the extender. In the enxter you should be able to add movies and point to your d/dvds folder and then it should find your movies as long as they're vob files.

Also make sure you've set up the control panel for transcoder so it points to a temp file for the streamed mpeg files and the number of files you want it to store.

---

XPS420: Quad, 4 Gig, 650/1T internal, 3 eSata
Dual ATI Cable Cards (SA-800 M)
T-W W Valley (LA)
ATI Radeon HD3870 (DVI/HDMI)
3 Maxtor NAS (320/500/1T)
2 XP, 1 Macintosh X (10.4.11), HP 280N extender, Linksys DMA2100, DMA2200
Promise Ns4300 Raid 5

I am not using Vader's transcode.dll, should I be?  What are the benefits?  I would also like to play avi's on my extender since I have a good number of them. 

I'm using Vader's system and it works very well for me. I have a dvd library on each extender and it will play dvds without renaming, etc. Of course you don't get menus and occassionally it gets tricked if the dvd coding is a bit off or if there is an "extra" with a lot of chapters. You'll find a link to the download earlier in this thread and the current version is 2.2.

Haven't tried avi files. You need to download a player, a directshow library and set up the system in specific directories which are all outlined in the readme file with the transcoder.dll and control panel.

 

---

XPS420: Quad, 4 Gig, 650/1T internal, 3 eSata
Dual ATI Cable Cards (SA-800 M)
T-W W Valley (LA)
ATI Radeon HD3870 (DVI/HDMI)
3 Maxtor NAS (320/500/1T)
2 XP, 1 Macintosh X (10.4.11), HP 280N extender, Linksys DMA2100, DMA2200
Promise Ns4300 Raid 5

Isn't it pathetically sad that we have to jump through all these hoops just to play a DVD across the network? Thanks Microsoft.

 

 

Hello vader,

thanks for the great transcoder, it works fine most of the time.
I got one problem; the wife wan't subtitles. And I can't get them to work with your transcoder.

As stated before mencoder should support it, if I'm reading the manual correctly.

Did you try it? Or did anyone else? Any help is appreciated!

Thanks Remon

It is possible, but only if you reencode the video. This is necessary so that the subtitles can be overlayed onto each frame of the movie. Of course, this takes a lot more CPU than the simple remuxing that I am doing.

If you'd like to try it, you can replace the transcoder arguments string with the following :

-dvd-device "{0}" dvd://{2} -alang en -slang en -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:keyint=18:vstrict=0:aspect=16/9 -vf scale=720:480,harddup -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -ofps 30000/1001 -o "{1}" -quiet

Just replace the "en" after -slang with the language code of your choice. This is  for NTSC, btw. For pal you would have to use a slightly different string, which I don't have handy at the moment.

---

Asus Crosshair motherboard
Athlon X2 4600+
4GB OCZ SLI-Ready memory
MSI 8500GT
Western Digital Raptor for OS
Dual WD SATA 2 drives in RAID 0 for TV
2TB Raid5 external ESATA media storage
Dual Hauppauge PVR-1600 hybrid tuners
Origen X15e case

Vader-

I was hoping you might be able to help me. I have all my movies on a NAS, in straight Video_TS format- just a straight rip with DVD Shrink. They show up fine in VMC. I used the utility to create Hard Links in my C: drive to these... and I got the .mpeg files that link to the vobs and the folder.jpgs copied. I installed the transcode on that page (I think it was 1.7... but I see you taking about versions above 2.0- are there two different transcodes???). I SEE the videos on my MCE (a 2100), but when I play them, I get a Video error, the correct codec is not installed.

Any idea what I can do to get this going better?

Thanks!

Dave

Yes, transcode.dll at the beginning of this thread is not the same as mine. Mine does not use playlists or symbolic links. It does all the work for you. But the real reason I wrote it is that I needed something that worked with DVD changers.

You can get mine at http://www.hi-techhabitats.com/downloads.aspx Follow the instructions in the readme. Then you can get rid of all the symbolic links and playlists you made.

---

Asus Crosshair motherboard
Athlon X2 4600+
4GB OCZ SLI-Ready memory
MSI 8500GT
Western Digital Raptor for OS
Dual WD SATA 2 drives in RAID 0 for TV
2TB Raid5 external ESATA media storage
Dual Hauppauge PVR-1600 hybrid tuners
Origen X15e case