Playing DVD's via network?

I just got the socket card, resco mapping drives, and I can stream audio but let me ask you this.

Can I map my dvd drive and instruct my axim to play whats in the drive?? Will Pocket WMP do this?

Will any other video player for the Axim do this?

Danke!!!

Wish it was that simple but that won't work. In fact streaming a DVD is doable but not simple. To stream it you would have to encode it. WME (Windows Media Encoder) can stream live content. The problem is playing the DVD and then streaming it. I have tried doing a screen capture of a DVD window using WME with no success. The only simple way I can think of is to connect a DVD player to a capture card on your computer.

I have not been able to pin down another way as of yet.

[sille]

You mean the only LEGAL way... convert dvd to .avi and use pocket tv fior quality playback of a dvd. In response to your initial question... No. I have tried to share dvd player through wifi network and its just not gonna happen. It is quite easy to share hardware resources from pc to pc but not pc to ppc.

~sille

[warlok1965]

Hi, long time lurker here... since I haven't seen anyone post about this yet (and since the PPC port is brand new):

VLC (aka VideoLan Media player) is a free, open source, multi-format video player and streaming solution. The original site is http://www.videolan.org, and the pocket PC executables can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/vlcpocketpc/ .

It is not a super user friendly solution, but with some trial and error (the documentation is rudimentary at best) I was able to stream a DVD directly from the DVD drive on my PC, over my network, directly to my Axim x3i. No ripping or re-encoding to a file, or any of that other nonsense. :rolling: :rolling:

You need to download the Windows executable from the first site and install it on your PC, then install the PPC version from the second site on your Axim.

The basic steps I used to stream the DVD are:
1) Connect your PPC to your LAN and obtain your PPC's IP address (assuming your are using wireless it is in the WLAN Status screen).
2) Open the vlc.exe on your PPC.
3) Click File -> Open Network Stream. Choose UDP/RTP and keep the port set to 1234. Click OK. The player is now looking for the stream (I found I had to do this step first or it didn't work).
4) With the DVD in the drive, open the VLC media player on your desktop.
5) Click File -> Open Disc. Choose either the "DVD (menus)" or the "DVD" radio button. Make sure the Device Name points to your DVD drive letter (mine was E) and the Title and Chapter are set to where you want to start from on the DVD.
6) Check the "Stream Output" box and click the "Settings" button next to it.
7) Check the "UDP" box and type your PPC's IP address next to it. Leave the port set to 1234.
8) For "Encapsulation Method" leave it set to "MPEG TS" (you don't have any other choices for UDP, but you do for other output methods).
9) Check the "Video codec" box and choose "mp1v". I used a bitrate of 128 and Scale of 0.25. Check the "Audio codec" box and choose "mp3". I used a bitrate of 64 and Channels = 2.
10) Click "OK", then "OK" again. Within a few seconds the DVD drive should spin up and the desktop will begin broadcasting the stream to your PPC (blue wireless LED should go crazy). A few seconds later the video should appear on the PPC.

There are a *lot* of options to play with: different output methods, multicasting, encapsulation methods, codecs, etc. These are the ones I found that worked for the PPC - many don't!

The one problem I had was that the mp3 codec does not downmix a 5.1 audio stream into stereo, but just keeps the left and right channels, so if the dialog is on the center channel you won't hear it. Choosing the A52 audio codec will broadcast all 5.1 channels to another PC running VLC, but that codec does not work on my Ax!!?? I hope one of you guys playing around with the program will come up with a workaround. ;-)

Sorry for the novel-sized post, but hopefully with some collective effort and sharing of experiences we can get this working reliably and watch our DVDs on our Axims over the network without having to re-encode them first!

[adrenal_medulla]

Are you sure about that first url? I tried videolan.com as well, but don't know what program(s) to download.

[adrenal_medulla]

nevermind - the first link works now

[warlok1965]

Sorry, there is a comma in the url that shouldn't be there but I can't edit my post, probably due to the ongoing site upgrades. The direct link to the VLC windows build download page is http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

[adrenal_medulla]

well, I got it up and working except that the video is green and blocky. The audio sounds great, though. Any suggestions?

[p0lar]

Can the PPC application display the stream in landscape on your x3i?

If so, :approve:

Something else that would be cool would be to point it at a ddns record so that you could watch it from almost anywhere -- of course, if you've got the bandwidth and the codec is set correctly. Just an idea, though.

[warlok1965]

A.Medulla: Which video codec are you using? I actually found that ".mp2v" seems to work a little better than ".mp1v". Try experimenting with different setups and you should find something that works for you. Also, you can try setting your processor speed to Maximum Performance.

p0lar: Yes it does do landscape/fullscreen mode. And you can set it up to stream via http:// or mms://, so you can watch it from anywhere without having to point it to a particular IP using udp:// (though I am still experimenting to get this to work well on the PPC version).

You should also be able to stream to other media players, such as WMP or Betaplayer...I haven't tried these yet but it would be interesting to verify that it works.

[warlok1965]

Also, you can try setting your video bitrate lower if it seems like the stream is still too wide for the Ax to handle smoothly.

currently BetaPlayer can't player streamed movie or audio. just files opened through network sharing, but it's not really streaming.

streaming support is planed in the future. streaming with vlc as server on the PC is very easy.

[adrenal_medulla]

mp1v and mp2v both have the same result - lots of green, but I can make out the openning credits. It's all very blocky, though. I have an X30 high that I'm running it on, btw. How would you stream it to Windows media player. I see the option for the WMV output in the PC program, but don't know where to go from there. thx.

[warlok1965]

What bitrates are you using? Are you using a wireless network? Did you try my suggestion about the cpu speed? I'd recommend playing around with the encoding settings to see if it makes a difference.

I haven't had success streaming to WMP yet, but I'll keep trying and let you know if I can get it working.

[adrenal_medulla]

I've tried using 128, 64, and 256, all with the same result. My processor's set to max performance (624 mHz). Yes, it's over a wireless network. I've played around with other settings but I really don't know what I'm doing.