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Support for media in rar-archives


korvgryta

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korvgryta

I've been using XBMC since its early days but I find that a centralized server - client solution would be so much better. Mediabrowser seems really nice however it lacks a vital feature and that is to play content from rar-archives.

 

Without this, it's unfortunately useless for me :(

 

I'm looking for a solution like XBMC uses where you are able browse content within rar-archives. Note that these archives are not compressed at all.

 

 

Thank you for this awesome piece of software! Hopefully with this feature it would be even more awesome and get a lot more users, I promise.

 

:)

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I'm curious why do you have your content in rar-archives?

 

Yeah, well, there really is no good and legal reason for this which is why I've always been reluctant to support it.

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korvgryta

I'm curious why do you have your content in rar-archives?

 

Short answer, that's the way they come.

 

 

Yeah, well, there really is no good and legal reason for this which is why I've always been reluctant to support it.

 

If a feature wouldn't have any negative effects on the software and would make a lot of people happy, then why not?

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AgileHumor

MediaBrowser does not support/enable those that steal.  Even if it makes them happy. 

 

Feel free to Google the many other products that do this already.  For example, Media Center Master does after paid registration.

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korvgryta

They aren't compressed you say, because video normally already is. Okay then, Why not extract to filetypes? There is no advantage to this format except to ease digital distribution and resumes of downloads and mask the actual extension. Why add features that appeal to 0.001% of the platforms users. Especially when the person requesting is shady about the request. Mentioning long noses and such that makes it clear, its for scene release piracy.

 

 

This is such a hot potato everytime it gets mentioned. I can't understand why. If you are not interested in a feature then please move along. "resumes of downloads and mask the actual extension" - you clearly don't know what you are talking about. 

 

Why not instead say hey, I don't understand why you would need this feature, would you care to explain? Then surely I would be happy to. Instead calling me shady etc. Nice. You know exactly what I mean, don't be a hypocrite. You don't think a huge part of media browser users downloads tv-shows/movies from the internet? How do you get movies/tv shows on to your computer without breaching copy right laws? You can't make backups of copy protected BD/DVDs legally. You are not allowed to record from TV in many countries, Ssubtitle files are illegal in some places etc. This is varies from country to country and it's a totally different discussion.

 

 

It is not 0.001% of the platform users? Have you seen any surveys that I don't know of? Please show me. This became a huge thread in the plex forums when they removed rar-support there. I've seen it being discussed tons of times on many forums. It's a feature that would be much appreciated by many users I'm sure. I also believe it wouldn't take much effort to implement.

 

I just wanted to make a simple request that ebr has now noted, we can end this thread.

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korvgryta

MediaBrowser does not support/enable those that steal.  Even if it makes them happy. 

 

Feel free to Google the many other products that do this already.  For example, Media Center Master does after paid registration.

 

I just wanted to add a feature request and not go into any discussions. Anyone thinking longer than their nose knows that your claim is false in so many ways.

 

Anyway, I'll leave it at that and if it's ever implemented, super nice. If not then well that's not the end of the world.

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Thanks for that... but this is what everyone has been assuming so far....the OP has not explained their reasoning yet...maybe I needed to emphasis the YOU. I mean if you download some thing how hard is it to un-rar it

Edited by Vidman
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The OP doesn't have to explain reasons. If enough people want it, we might look into it.

 

Although it does seem odd that you guys would be so concerned about cpu usage and then go and store your media in format that requires on the fly cpu decompression.

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They aren't compressed you say, because video normally already is. Okay then, Why not extract to filetypes? There is no advantage to this format except to ease digital distribution and resumes of downloads and mask the actual extension. Why add features that appeal to 0.001% of the platforms users. Especially when the person requesting is shady about the request. Mentioning long noses and such that makes it clear, its for scene release piracy.
 

Edited by speechles
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thefirstofthe300

But how does it relate to this topic?

 

Storing your media in a .rar archive means that in order for all of the clients to be able to even read the media file, the archive first has to be decompressed which takes a lot of CPU cycles.  On top of that, FFMpeg then has to use the CPU to transcode the file if necessary.  Since a lot of people are concerned about CPU usage when they have multiple streams that need to be supported, you can see why storing media in a rar archive is a bit of a concern.

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@@korvgryta

 

So this is Usenet posts of scene releases or straight up off an affiliates pre site? I saw your speed test posts. You have a godly connection. Any affiliate would be stupid not to want you as a courier. I totally get it.

 

Personally I extract my scene releases obtained this way, either from usenet or presite and keep just the video file. Others though, they want the original scene release in its original state. With this they can then repost to Usenet more easily to facilitate sharing these files via fills channels on irc, or Usenet to fill REQs directly, or to help fill missing par2 blocks for a particular release. I do know why you would want to keep this format. I just don't understand why you would want to play them too. I assume this is also split-rar in xxMB chunks. I get it. But not many other than those in the scene would want this. If Mediabrowser is appealing to sceners it would raise awareness for the platform. I wasn't questioning your ethics but more the reasoning behind your request.

 

What benefit does streaming from rar offer? To me little to none. But to you its the deal breaker. If it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of the product I do not see the harm in its addition mate. You took my words entirely the wrong way. We are brothers in arms sir. Both after the same enjoyment. Also, in case you didn't read earlier, damn you have fast Internets bro.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited by speechles
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swhitmore

It's very easy to setup your download clients to automatically unpack things after they have finished downloading. I would highly recommend that option.

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korvgryta

The OP doesn't have to explain reasons. If enough people want it, we might look into it.

 

Although it does seem odd that you guys would be so concerned about cpu usage and then go and store your media in format that requires on the fly cpu decompression.

 

Thank you.

 

As Vidman says and as I underlined, it doesn't need decompression as it is not compressed. It simply needs to be able to play the files from within the archive. Just as VLC, KODI (XBMC), MPC and some other players does. So far no transcoding/server software can do this, adding it to media browser would make it unique in that sense. I'm not a coder so I don't know how they do it, but KODI (XBMC) is open source so I guess you could mimic the method :)

 

 

@@korvgryta

 

So this is Usenet posts of scene releases or straight up off an affiliates pre site? I saw your speed test posts. You have a godly connection. Any affiliate would be stupid not to want you as a courier. I totally get it.

 

Personally I extract my scene releases obtained this way, either from usenet or presite and keep just the video file. Others though, they want the original scene release in its original state. With this they can then repost to Usenet more easily to facilitate sharing these files via fills channels on irc, or Usenet to fill REQs directly, or to help fill missing par2 blocks for a particular release. I do know why you would want to keep this format. I just don't understand why you would want to play them too. I assume this is also split-rar in xxMB chunks. I get it. But not many other than those in the scene would want this. If Mediabrowser is appealing to sceners it would raise awareness for the platform. I wasn't questioning your ethics but more the reasoning behind your request.

 

What benefit does streaming from rar offer? To me little to none. But to you its the deal breaker. If it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of the product I do not see the harm in its addition mate. You took my words entirely the wrong way. We are brothers in arms sir. Both after the same enjoyment. Also, in case you didn't read earlier, damn you have fast Internets bro.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

I do not use and have never used Usenet. I do not "upload" or share any media with anyone (as someone using torrents would). And I do not use torrents. I do not use "fills channels" on IRC. The connection I have is common in Sweden and has nothing to do with my use of rar-files. I've been using media within rar files since the early days of XBMC (10 years-something).

 

I use XBMC and play directly from .rar archives for convenience as that is how they come. Sure I can extract files, but if I don't have to do that extra step, then why do it. It's a simple feature request.

 

No offense taken buddy :)

 

 

It's very easy to setup your download clients to automatically unpack things after they have finished downloading. I would highly recommend that option.

 

Thanks, I know this. However it's an extra step that I want to avoid if possible, other players can do this and I will stick to using them.

 

If Media Browser ever implements reading from (again, no decompressing or extracting) from rar-files, then it would make it a great alternative for me.

 

Today I use XBMC and VPN to access my media. Streaming and transcoding over HTTP(s) would be much nicer.

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I think we have to be careful here that mediabrowser doesn't attempt to become the Police. I understand the fear of promoting piracy however unless you are certain that is the only use a feature could have then I don't personally see why it shouldn't be allowed. Whether or not someone is sharing media illegally isn't the business of MB, that person will still share and can use that material easily enough with MB should they wish.

 

From what the OP has stated, he is doing nothing wrong and until someone gives evidence to the contrary we should stop assuming.

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Chris Jones

Although i probably wouldn't use the feature, surely it would be useful in certain circumstances to store media in various formats (compress or not) such as zip or rar. Photos might be another good use for organisation for example.

It would be even more useful if all the scraped metadata/images/art could be optionally added to the archives too (configurable of course)?

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  • 1 month later...

I really hope this feature gets implemented.  Unfortunately, it is a deal breaker for me.  I was just about to install this to use with XBMB3C addon.  Thought I'd do a quick search to verify rar compatibility and was sadly disappointed.  I will still try this out as I've heard good things and it might help some folks out I know that need a similar solution as me.  Thanks and keep up the good work.

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I'm just curious for a little more information. Just for context, I am not asking these questions as a Media Browser developer because we would never try to tell you how to use the software. instead the software should adapt to you and if enough people want this then we'll look at it.

 

But as a fellow media enthusiast I have to ask why you think this would be a good idea to store your media this way. You limit your options right off the bat to applications that have added custom support for them. You lose the ability to do something simple like quickly test a file in Vlc or other media players that haven't added support for them. And you add additional cpu requirements to your server because it has to be able to unpack on the fly. If you decide you want to try new media software, you have to go and convince the developers to support it if they haven't already.

 

All of that is easily solved just by unpacking them to begin with, so I'm wondering why you're not doing that. Is there a requirement that is forcing you to keep them zipped?

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