2013-10-28, 16:56
I've been experimenting with External Players for BluRay ISOs and I ran into a few issues initially but I've now figured out what was causing my problems so I thought I'd share.
XBMC 12.2 Frodo running on dedicated HTPC (Windows 7 Home Basic)
Media library hosted on a NAS server running unRAID with XBMC accessing media (including BD ISO images) via NFS shares over a gigabit ethernet connection.
I'm using VirtualCloneDrive to mount the BD ISO files and I've experimented with Arcsoft TotalMediaTheater 6, WinDVD 11 and DVDFab Player 2, all successfully.
Some things I discovered along the way that are worth knowing are:
1. NFS shares on Windows HTPC
The main thing that was causing me headaches is that my NAS where all my media resides is an unRAID NAS running Linux but my HTPC is a
Windows 7 PC and I'm using NFS to access my shares on my NAS from XBMC.
The problem is, this means that when XBMC launches an External Player on the HTPC running Windows 7 it hands it an NFS file path which
Windows does not understand and the whole process fails.
What it hands off looks something like this: "nfs://192.168.1.100/mnt/usr/movies/bluray isos/The Hulk/The Hulk.iso"
The problem is the first part of that path: "nfs://192.168.1.100/mnt/usr"
It is necessary to do some string substitution to change that path to something like this: "//unraid/movies/bluray isos/The Hulk/The Hulk.iso"
Then Windows will resolve that path properly, and any relevant software will be able to mount the ISO file correctly in Windows.
To solve this I've written a small C# application that XBMC can call that will do the path substitution and then run the right app to mount the ISO
and launch the appropriate External Player. I will post the app in this forum as soon as I've tested it a bit more and I'm sure it's 100% right.
2. The config of the playercorefactory.xml file is also very important
I found that the following works properly:
I have experimented with both Arcsoft TotalMediaTheater 6 and WinDVD 11 and both work well and both support 3D BD ISO well.
There does NOT appear to be any inherent issue with Frodo 12.2 supporting these external players and I have it working fine, just to be clear for those people who I've seen asking about this and who seem to think that Frodo 12.2 has issues with External Players somehow.
From what I've seen it's really all about having the right config in playercorefactory.xml and dealing with any funnies related to the paths XBMC hands off to the external processes.
In my opinion the most confusing part of everything I've seen regarding this so far is the various .bat files that are typically involved in the whole setup.
I will release my little C# app soon that is fully configurable and eliminates the need for those various extra batch files and will hopefully make life a lot simpler for a lot of people.
XBMC 12.2 Frodo running on dedicated HTPC (Windows 7 Home Basic)
Media library hosted on a NAS server running unRAID with XBMC accessing media (including BD ISO images) via NFS shares over a gigabit ethernet connection.
I'm using VirtualCloneDrive to mount the BD ISO files and I've experimented with Arcsoft TotalMediaTheater 6, WinDVD 11 and DVDFab Player 2, all successfully.
Some things I discovered along the way that are worth knowing are:
1. NFS shares on Windows HTPC
The main thing that was causing me headaches is that my NAS where all my media resides is an unRAID NAS running Linux but my HTPC is a
Windows 7 PC and I'm using NFS to access my shares on my NAS from XBMC.
The problem is, this means that when XBMC launches an External Player on the HTPC running Windows 7 it hands it an NFS file path which
Windows does not understand and the whole process fails.
What it hands off looks something like this: "nfs://192.168.1.100/mnt/usr/movies/bluray isos/The Hulk/The Hulk.iso"
The problem is the first part of that path: "nfs://192.168.1.100/mnt/usr"
It is necessary to do some string substitution to change that path to something like this: "//unraid/movies/bluray isos/The Hulk/The Hulk.iso"
Then Windows will resolve that path properly, and any relevant software will be able to mount the ISO file correctly in Windows.
To solve this I've written a small C# application that XBMC can call that will do the path substitution and then run the right app to mount the ISO
and launch the appropriate External Player. I will post the app in this forum as soon as I've tested it a bit more and I'm sure it's 100% right.
2. The config of the playercorefactory.xml file is also very important
I found that the following works properly:
Code:
<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="ISO_Player" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>INSERT PATH TO APP TO LAUNCH HERE</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen</args>
<forceontop>false</forceontop>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</player>
<player name="Disc_Player" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="false">
<filename>INSERT PATH TO APP TO LAUNCH HERE</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen</args>
<forceontop>false</forceontop>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
<!-- Bluray ISO -->
<rule filename=".*iso.*|.*BDMV.*|.*mpls.*" player="ISO_Player"/>
<!-- Bluray Disc -->
<rule protocols="bd" player="Disc_Player"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>I have experimented with both Arcsoft TotalMediaTheater 6 and WinDVD 11 and both work well and both support 3D BD ISO well.
There does NOT appear to be any inherent issue with Frodo 12.2 supporting these external players and I have it working fine, just to be clear for those people who I've seen asking about this and who seem to think that Frodo 12.2 has issues with External Players somehow.
From what I've seen it's really all about having the right config in playercorefactory.xml and dealing with any funnies related to the paths XBMC hands off to the external processes.
In my opinion the most confusing part of everything I've seen regarding this so far is the various .bat files that are typically involved in the whole setup.
I will release my little C# app soon that is fully configurable and eliminates the need for those various extra batch files and will hopefully make life a lot simpler for a lot of people.
