Reality Check! ISO Files over LAN

January 6th, 2009

Hello all

I just want some veterans opinions if this will work or if there is an easier way to do it.

I want to put a central Windows Media Center computer on my LAN with lots of HDD space and have it host all my DVD's in uncompressed, DTS audio glory. I was then thinking that I could use XBMC to play these ISO's over the network using the HD AV cables and with the digital sound out on the Xbox.

Is this possible or is there an easier way? I just want all my DVD's on a central server and I dont want to compress or loose any audio quality.

Thanks all.

JM

This is not a XBMC related question. Go to Doom9.org for guides... You can use DVDShrink which is free or more advanced solutions

Sure, that'll work fine. Alternatively, rip to a folder rather than an ISO will also work just fine. I personally use DVDShrink to reduce the size (cut out menus/special features) and just rip the main feature + audio track of my choice without recompression to a folder on an old PC (200MHz) running debian.

Just make sure you share over a wired LAN - wireless is too flaky in my experience for DVD bitrates, regardless of how fast it advertises itself as.

Cheers,
Jonathan

yes. just select the images / the video_ts.ifo and off you go

Thanks for the replys guys!

Yeah I was going to do some tests with wireless and was hoping 108mb would be alright... Is anyone running pure DVD's over LAN via wireless?

JM

On a 54mb router with boost or turbo mode 108mb, any 54mb connection from my understanding will slow everything else down to 54mb. Before you are required to enter a security key a connection is made say by a neighbor not realizing they are using your wireless, that connection is used to verify the security key is valid, so the moment they get connected before they present a bad key your DVD network connection will drop to 54mb. If you watch packets from a busy neighborhood any one router with security enabled it is denying connections during the day at about once an hour. Every test I can perform on 54mb shows a periodically choppy picture and sound via wireless. What typically happens is the sound gets off track from the video like watching an old kungfoo movie with the lips moving and no sound. I hit pause and disconnect and reconnect and the video and audio synch up fine for a short period of time.

Run a cable if at all possible, like under the carpet.

I just got going with an XBMC, and I'm very impressed with what it can do with NAS stored ISO files. I like the idea that the movie playback experience is just like with a real DVD... being able to select a chapter from the menu. I am trying to make this simple so my non-techie wife will want to use it. Is there a way to keep the ISO experience, but strip out some of the non-movie stuff to save a little disk space? I've tried the approach of breaking the files out into a directory, but not wanting to see a lot of different files in the movie selection area... I'd ideally like to just see movie titles, genres, etc... but that doesn't appear to be an option.

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