Forum.HaveTheKnowHow.com

I think I have most everything installed and working on my new server except for the Media streaming function.
I am really struggling with what to do here.
There are really 2 functions that require software here.
1) How to get content formatted and transferred from my CDs and DVDs to the server.
2) Stream that content to the media streaming device (LG BD570 BluRay player in my case)

These 2 things seem to be sort of dependent each other. The format of the video needs to be compatible with the player and the media server needs to be able to stream content to the player. I can't seem to figure any of it out.

I am now learning that if you have the right player you don't even need to server software. It will just play directly from the Samba share! (who knew???)

I have about decided that I want to store my videos in either ISO format or .VOB files in a VIDEO_TS folder. As far as I can tell this is about the only way to copy a DVD without losing any quality, plus this would make it pretty simple to burn the video back onto a DVD if I ever needed to do that.

My player does not seem to be able to play videos stored in this manner so either I need to figure out how to get it to do that or I need to store them in a more compatible format.

So, I need to figure out what format I need to rip my dvds to, which means I have to find to right software to do that with and I need to figure out which media server to install on my linux server. I would really appreciate some help in deciding what to do here. At this point I am not opposed to spending a little money to accomplish my goal. And by little I mean my upper limit is around $50.

Thanks,

I have been trying out some different media servers with pretty poor results so far.
I am using a LG BD570 bluray player to stream video.
I have a couple of movies ripped with handbrake into mp4 files, and I have one movie in a VIDEO_TS folder with several .vob/.ifo files.
Here are my results so far
Without a dlna server:
It seems to play the mp4 file fine, but it doesn't see any files at all in the VIDEO_TS folder. I changed the .vob ext to .mpg and it will play them one at a time, I can't figure out how to link them together so they will play uninterupted.

Using PS3mediaserver:
the BD570 saw the server and I am able to navigate all around. The interface seems to think my LG BD570 is a WD LiveTv box. It seems to present the content in various ways which is nice and I see all the movie titles. but so far I can't get it to play anything. Every time I try to play something the player freezes up and I have to turn it off and back on. So far this one is a bust. My player is not listed as one that is supported. I suppose I could get it working with some tweeks, but I am going to try others before doing that.

Next I am going to try Serviio. It is java based like PMS and the website says it does support LG players. So maybe this one will work.

I am giving serious consideration to one of the paid servers that say they have specific support for my player. But this is a last resort, as I am trying to keep this project using only free software.

Hi Larry,

That's depressing, isn't it. Have you looked at any "proper" streamers? You can pick one up for not a lot of money and you'll have far more success with it than you will with your LG. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your LG per se but those sort of toys don't tend to be able to play a decent selection of codecs/containers.
So, you could rip everything in a format that the LG will be happy with. BUT, if you add another client to your setup at some later date then you might find you have to rip the same movies once more but in a format that THAT client will support.

When I was at the same point in time as you are now I decided to tackle the issue the other way round: I decided on how I would like my collection to be stored on my server. In my case it was 100% lossless, nothing added, nothing taken away (FLAC for audio, ISO for DVD/Blu-ray with all the menus trailers, soundtracks etc intact). THEN I went looking for a streamer that could support this.
A few years back a streamer that supported blu-ray ISOs with menus didn't exist but that didn't make me change my mind about what I wanted to achieve, I just waited patiently until that streamer had been invented.

How about this for an idea: buy a "proper" streamer from a store that has a decent returns policy. Get it home, try it out and THEN decide whether you want to continue with trying to get your LG to play nicely.

Just my opinion of course

Ian.

Ian,
You must be a single guy

My wife thinks I'm crazy spending all this time on this. She is happy with the way things are now. So spending more money on this is going to be a pretty hard sell for me. Plus, I just spent buckets of money on the TV, bluray player( you know, the one that can stream all our movies from that new linux server), stereo and surround sound speakers.
She asked me how much my latest new toy was going to cost, and I said, "Oh, nothing, I have this old computer, and all the software is FREE, so we don't have to spend a dime!" About the only money I can spend has to come from sources like Amazon gift card I get from our credit card rewards program and my change jar I keep on the chest of drawers (I have about $75 in that!). It's sort of pride thing.

My best bet is to save up credit card points and keep emptying my pockets of change into the jar, and maybe some day I can get a proper streamer, who knows, by the time I have enough saved up there will be something out that is even better than what I could get today, and probably cheaper.

Speaking of streamers, My bluray player has all these "apps" like netflix and vudu. There are several of these that come on the player. I only actually use a few of them. They all seem to have the basics, like netflix and youtube, but what if the set of apps I want doesn't come on one player? I would have to get multiple players to get the set of apps I want.
Then I look at my iphone, and there is this app store, where I can get just the set of apps I want. If something new comes along I can get a new app for it. What if media streamers worked that way too? Maybe you could even select apps for the different music and video formats you wanted to stream. Wouldn't that be cool? Is there such a streamer that works like that?

LarryJB wrote:Ian,
You must be a single guy

If only My kids each have streamers in their bedrooms and we have one in ours. Plus one in each of the main rooms downstairs. If I didn't spend all this time "fiddling with computers" then they'd not have any of that (and life would be so much more dull )

I can totally understand where you're coming from on the money front. I guess my point was to think about the toss up between spending a bit of extra cash and getting something that "just works" or spending hours and hours pulling your hair out trying to come up with the combination that works with your LG.
Have you tried looking on the LG forums to see what other people are using as the DLNA server (or whatever)?

LarryJB wrote:who knows, by the time I have enough saved up there will be something out that is even better than what I could get today, and probably cheaper.

I can absolutely guarantee that! Actually, I say that, but I think "the future" is cloud computing where everything will be stored "out there" and you'll just pick and choose what you want to watch or listen to from a massive library. The days of buying the physical media are numbered I suspect
I'd give it 5-10 years before that is common place.

Ian.

LarryJB wrote:Speaking of streamers, My bluray player has all these "apps" like netflix and vudu. There are several of these that come on the player. I only actually use a few of them. They all seem to have the basics, like netflix and youtube, but what if the set of apps I want doesn't come on one player? I would have to get multiple players to get the set of apps I want.
Then I look at my iphone, and there is this app store, where I can get just the set of apps I want. If something new comes along I can get a new app for it. What if media streamers worked that way too? Maybe you could even select apps for the different music and video formats you wanted to stream. Wouldn't that be cool? Is there such a streamer that works like that?

LOL, our posts crossed. You're looking at "the future" there Larry. Currently it's a bit of a mish-mash but is going to mature over time. Some of them will not be around in the future but new ones will come along to replace them.
Now, whether it will all be "over the air" (3g/4g) or wired (down your telephone line) is another matter. Probably a bit of both

Update:
I installed Serviio on my Windows machine to see if it would work any better than all the others I have tried. I was hopeful that it would work due to it actually naming LG blu ray players in it's list of supported devices.
Well good news! It worked pretty much without any "tweaking" at all. It seems to play the VOB files, MKV, mp4, etc. However it doesn't seem to be able to interact with the menus and the like. It even recognizes the meta data and displays cover art and it categorizes the movies by genre, director, actors, etc.. I have come to the conclusion that I am just going to use Handbrake to convert my DVD collection to MKV or MP4 file and play them that way. I will still need to hold onto the disks so that if I upgrade to something that will play the uncompressed files properly, I can rebuild my library.
So I must say, Serviio rocks! (For me anyway).
Next step is to install Serviio on my Ubuntu server.

Another Update:
After further review, it seems that Serviio does not play nice with my BD570 when it comes to transcoding. Apparently there is a "bug" in the BD570 that prevents it from streaming transcoded content from Serviio. So even though Serviio can transcode MKV containers with MPEG2 content, the BD570 ignores it. (I think that was the explanation on the Serviio site).
I ran across another media server called Mezzmo, which is supposed to do transcoding to the BD570, BUT it is a windows only application, AND it costs money However, I was thinking that if I can get it to work with my setup by running it on my windows computer and stream from the Ubuntu server samba share, I would go ahead and give it go. I am going to try out the 15 day trial to see what happens.
I will do this after my server build party this coming Friday (June 24, 2011). I will keep you posted about my results.

Thanks for the update Larry. Maybe your server build buddies can give you some tips on how to get your LG to play nicely with your server. Maybe it means, at least in the short-term, ripping your media to a format that the LG supports natively rather than trying to transcode it on the fly.

Ian.