[mythtv-users] DVD Playback across the wire

[Jonathan Stoneman]

Eric NICOLAS wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Sorry if that question has already been answered, I cannot find any
> clue about that in the documentation or in the mailing lists, so I'd
> figured I just asked.
> 
> I would like to build a system with two machines:
> 
> # One machine would sit near my stereo and have the big hard drive
> with all the music, output the sound to the sterero, be connected to a
> small TV for viewing TV programs, play games, etc... It would also have
> the I.R. receiver for the remote and the DVD-Rom drive.
> # One tiny machine would sit near my video project and have the DVI
> output plugged into the video projector
> 
> The two machines would be connected via ethernet LAN (as well as my
> main computer, an Apple Mac).
> 
> Is this even possible ? I assume the first machine would be what you
> call the "back end" and have one "front end" running in it as well,
> while the second one would be a second "front end" ?
> 
> If I want to play a DVD, how would it work ? Can the back end stream
> the DVD data from its DVD drive to the front end on the other machine ?
> In which format does that happen (I don't want any re-encoding of the
> DVD MPEG2 data !!). Would the DVD menu keep working as well ?

I'm doing this using ccda_server which is provided by xine.  IIRC, to 
set this up in debian you need to:

On the backend...

   apt-get install libdvdcss
   apt-get source xine-lib
   cd xine-lib-1.0/misc
   make cdda_server
   ./cdda_server /dev/hdc 3000

On the frontend...

   apt-get source xine-lib libdvdcss
   cd libdvdcss-1.2.8
   patch -p1 < ../xine-lib-1.0/misc/libdvdcss-1.2.6-network.patch
   ./bootstrap
   ./configure
   make
   make install

In the mythconverg mysql database...

   UPDATE
     settings
   SET
     data = 'xine -pfhq dvd://<backend_server>:3000'
   WHERE
     value = 'DVDPlayerCommand'
   AND
     hostname = '<frontend_server>'

MythDVD on the frontend should then play DVDs in the DVD drive of the 
backend, menus and all.

Assuming this works, you probably want to set up a startup script for 
cdda_server on the backend.


HTH... Jon.