[mythtv-users] Playing XVids off a CD
Jeff Simpson
jeffsimpson at alum.wpi.edu
Thu Apr 13 16:09:15 UTC 2006
On 4/13/06, Phill Edwards <philledwards at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, it's not elegant but you could symlink your CD drive into your
> > Myth videos folder, then either use the browse by filesystem view or run
> > the video manager/import to import the files for playing as needed. I
> > like the later because once the metadata is in the system and you don't
> > delete it the next time you run the video manager and it sees the
> > missing files because the CD isn't mounted, you can just insert the CD
> > and play
>
> Thanks. I did try that once before but went off the idea because it
> kept asking if I wanted to delete the vide as it couldn't find the
> file in video manager. I might think about a shell script that finds
> the file name on the CD and launches it that way - or something.
As a follow-up additional idea, I'd like to see a myth-format dvd/cd,
it would work as follows:
Either a standard data dvd with the mpg files saved on it or a dvd
video format disc.
For either type, the database entry for the recording is stored to the
disc along with the data, and in a format where myth can easily read
it when you insert the disc.
The DVD method is preferred, since you can play the videos in a
standard DVD player AND have the ability to access them from within
myth. It could effectively be the same thing, however. The meta data
would just specify the filename, be it an MPG from a hauppauge card, a
VOB, or a DivX/XviD avi. All myth would have to do is launch mplayer
on the file anyway. (so the dvd menu would only be accessible from a
dvd player, from myth you would see a myth recordings menu listing all
the files on the disc and play them directly).
I suggest XML for the file format of the meta data, since it's not a
lot of data and XML is easily read using libraries and easy to extend
to include more information without breaking old files.
Operation would be to insert the disc and in the Media section it
would go through a test to determine the type of disc
(audio/dvd/vcd/myth-format/mp3/data-with-a-video-file) and act
accordingly.
A good extension would be for myth to remember discs that you use
(like how software cd players remember the cddb information for discs
you insert). As such, you could pull up a list of all the discs it has
seen and select one. If that disc isn't in the drive, it could pop up
a box asking you to insert it (by name, since it knows the name of the
disc).
Another good extension would be for the plugin to make a hash of a
disc when you insert it, and keep the information server-side. That
way it would still be able to handle discs without the myth tags on
them.
It's a big idea, but I think it could be done in smaller pieces.
Thoughts?
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