Popcorn Hour BD network playback

[dfergie]

Converted my Star Trek S1 HD DVD set to mkv, awesome...

 

[TheForce]

I never use a BD player any more. First thing I do when I get a new BD is copy the ISO onto my NAS and watch it using my popcornhour.

When you play the iso file does it play just the movie or all the previews and extra features too?

 

[gadgtfreek]

What does that do for compression of PQ and HD audio?

 

[TheForce]

Jason- I believe the compression is already in the Blu-Ray formats. There are a couple authorized. The ISO form is lossless. Not sure what is being done in the Popcorn hour box. It may be limited in bit rate display sampling etc. but then so would any player have those various limitations.

To my knowledge there is no way to stream an iso file to a home theater device like xbox 360 or PS3 unless you convert the blu Ray file to a compressed recognized format like wmv or MP4.

Another concern is whether the Popcorn Hour can stream certain file structures and reassemble them properly such as the Disney BD's that use a huge string of smaller m2ts files that need to be playlisted. If it can't playlist a disk like that then it may be restricted on those iso files. Looking forward to mike answering these questions.

I have always avoided the media server concept for everything because it was always limited to standard DVD's until now. FWIW- I have about 70 programs and movies on one computer now that I stream to PS3 or xbox 360 but these have all been changed from mpeg 2 to wmv files for compatibility. Now with 3D, that opens up more compatibility issues. Can a 3DBD be iso'ed and served up over this PH box? Maybe if the video is converted to SBS half first, then it would all be handled on the 3D TV and the PH box just a pass through handling it just like any m2ts file.

 

[gadgtfreek]

The popcorn hour would be very interesting to me if I could ISO without PQ loss, and pass HD audio to my AVR. I too have been skeptical, I also have not looked into ISO for Blu-ray (I ripped a lot of DVD in the day) because I was unsure how the security is on them.

Im interested to hear more.

 

[dfergie]

There is no PQ loss, the ISO is the disc image, just in a different form, with the popcorn hour you do not need to convert to ISO to retain complete functionablity...

 

[gadgtfreek]

Thanks Don.

Same with audio capability? Is moving a BR disc to PH something that can be done with every disc, or not?

 

[dfergie]

You move the disc to a EHDD and use either with a server or connect directly to the popcorn hour, you have all the options available that you have with the disc... mine plays dts-MA HD, Dolby True HD etc ...

 

[gadgtfreek]

Cool!

So how does one "move the disc"?

Id probably just do PH and EHD.

 

[dfergie]

Rip it with one of the available tools, Anydvd etc ...

 

[gadgtfreek]

Gotcha, was just looking at Slysoft, used to use Anydvd a LOT many moons ago. So Anydvd HD will iso it for me, then I just let the PH read it off the EHD. Cool.

 

[mike123abc]

When you play the iso file does it play just the movie or all the previews and extra features too?

It is the full blu ray with all the menus and everything else. But, that being said the slysoft software "fixes" things so that you can skip forward, fast forward, access the title menu when you want. In other words they fix it so that they cannot force you to watch all the copyrights, previews or anything else you might want to avoid. But, you have the full choice to watch if you want - full disc image.

Now you can just decide to use third party tools and rip out the main feature if you want. I just copy the whole BD.

The Popcorn Hour box does all the audio formats, I use the HDMI connection for full uncompressed audio.

 

[dfergie]

I just copy the whole BD.

Same here, the demo disc dl at AVS plays perfectly ... I make my own

 

[gadgtfreek]

Cool. I was just reading the the PH site and looking at the 210. Seems like a nice box and appears to have plenty of video processing capability, especially with up to 100mbps and 24p.

So, one would need:

1) PH 210
2) At least 1 EHD
3) Slysoft AnyDVD HD
4) A Blu-ray drive

I only have laptops, so i guess i'd just get an external BR drive, pop the Blu in, then write the ISO to the internal HDD directly to the EHD? Once the EHD is connected to the PH, it sees the movie and you can play it?

 

[Ramy]

How do you get the Blu-ray's that have small chunks of the movie broken up, copied onto one disc in proper order?

 

[gadgtfreek]

Other concern after thinking, at 30-50 gigs a movie, wont take long to eat a 1TB HDD.

 

[dfergie]

The popcorn hour is like a virtual BD player, you have a Movie or even a AVCHD file (example my Sony HD Cam) and the Popcorn hour opens as a disc.

 

[diogen]

How do you get the Blu-ray's that have small chunks of the movie broken up, copied onto one disc in proper order?

No need to worry about this.
The playback order is governed by the PLAYLIST database file on the same disk.

Diogen.

 

[dfergie]

Exactly ...

 

[diogen]

I believe the most dedicated cinema-philes don't watch the extra footage more than once.
Therefore, it can be left on the disc, no need to copy to the HD.

The movie itself with one lossless soundtrack is hardly ever more than 20-25GB.
For example, the BD release of the Star Wars comes on 9 BDs, i.e. 9x50=450GB.
IIRC, all 6 movies (with DTS-MA English soundtrack each) are not even 200GB.
And those are all 2h+ movies...

Diogen.