Play External Disk app like in MBT?

[dimitrik 12]

I've been testing MBT and really like the new "Play External Disk" app.

 

Is there anything similar for MBC?

 

I know I can exit MBC and use the WMC DVD play functionality but that has several downsides from having to log back in as an MBC user to not being able to use the external player of your choice like MPCHC / madVR. You can only use the WMC internal player or the TMT WMC plugin.

 

Is there any way to do this now, or is there a plan to implement a similar app in MBC?

[ebr 14902]

There aren't any plans right now but you can easily accomplish this by just using the auto play capability of windows itself, no?  You can make it automatically launch the proper program when you insert a disc.

[dimitrik 12]

Hmm, yes that's true, but it means that one has to close MBC & WMC, so it won't be a very seamless experience.

I generally don't like to be outside MB if I can help it, because anytime I do, it starts to feel like I'm using a PC, some things need a keyboard/mouse etc.

 

If there was such an app, it could appear as a link similar to the collections in the client, which would be awesome.

 

It's not the end of the world if we have to use desktop mode to achieve it, but it does sort of detract from MBC's otherwise silky smooth perfection   , so I hope you'll keep it in mind for the future. 

[ebr 14902]

Why would you have to close MBC?  You just put the disc in and it should launch the proper program over top of us.

[dimitrik 12]

If you don't close MBC, WMC will be working in the background - I think there may be problems with it taking button presses from the remote etc. 

In an ideal scenario, the remote functions should be set up in the player so you can activate menus and the like, without bringing WMC to the forefront etc.

In any case I will test it and see.

[ebr 14902]

Test it because it shouldn't be any different than us calling an external player.

[dimitrik 12]

OK, tested it. Not a great experience.  I wanted to use MPC-HC for the excellent picture quality with MadVR. I also wanted to use the whole thing with an MCE remote, not a keyboard/mouse combo. 

 

Playing DVD's with MPC-HC was so-so in terms of usability with the remote, even though I customized the options. E.g. the left-right buttons didn't work right when in menus etc. Also accidentally pressing the MCE buttons (Guide, Green button) activated WMC so it was a bit of a mess.  Picture was amazing as expected and things like refresh-rate changes worked great too. Unfortunately the best way to use it is with a mouse/keyboard.

 

Looking for alternatives I tested Arcsoft TMT and their MCE plugin. That was OK - the remote worked smoothly and TMT's DVD upscaling to 1080 gave good results, definitely not as good as MPC/MadVR, but quite decent. 

 

So it seems TMT is as good as it gets from a usability/PQ perspective in WMC and there's no need for the "Play External Disk" in MBC.  

 

My long term hope lies in MBT, which seems to provide the best experience - just as soon as it matures a bit more (also when it gets the chocolate theme - I just can't live without it, especially the new version  )!

[dimitrik 12]

Ok, so it seems this isn't over. I've just realized that while we may not need a functionality to play DVD and BluRay discs, we really do need a way to play video files loaded in optical disks like DVD-Rs and BD-RES.

 

To explain: I have a big media collection ( 20TBs) and even with a large NAS I need to archive stuff. The best way to do it is to burn DVD-Rs and BD-RE disk with the entire folder contents of the media library, including the metadata, fanart etc. This makes it easy to re-import it into the library again or play it directly from Disk.

 

With the old mediabrowser, I could create a media collection called "Optical Drive" and point it to the optical drive. The collection appeared on the home screen when I loaded a disk and I could go inside it, view the metadata and pick the item I wanted to watch.

 

Unfortunately there's no way to do that now on any of the new clients, but it would be incredibly useful if there was a way to pop a disk into a drive and select a button or an app to browse and play it's contents.

 

I assume it's not too hard to implement, since the functionality to browse metadata on folders is trivial for MB.

 

Is this possible? Should I post a feature request?

[ebr 14902]

I assume it's not too hard to implement, since the functionality to browse metadata on folders is trivial for MB.

 

That's not really a valid assumption because all the logic for reading and understanding the items and metadata is now in the server, not the clients.

[dimitrik 12]

Understood. I actually was thinking about the old functionality in MB2 but of course MBC and MBT are completely new architectures.

 

Still I'd love to see this as a feature, it's almost a make or break for me actually. Would you consider it please?

[ebr 14902]

Not very likely to be in MBC anytime soon because, as I said, the logic that interprets the items and metadata doesn't exist in the client.

[dimitrik 12]

Well then, what about either (a) allowing optical drive paths in the server (which might also be nice because you could then play the content on other clients too ) or ( allowing the clients MBC & MBT to read the contents of the optical drives even without the metadata?

 

Otherwise one has to leave Mediabrowser and there's nothing that spoils the experience more than having to go in and out of the program.

[ebr 14902]

I think you have a very rare situation so I'm not sure much can be done about it in the short term.

 

However, you can type in any path reference you want when defining a library on the server so you could point a media folder to an optical drive if you wanted.  But you would probably need to execute a library scan whenever you changed discs.

[dimitrik 12]

Actually that doesn't work unless you put the disc in, THEN map the path, THEN execute the library update.

I'm not sure, perhaps after you do it once, it retains the path setting, I will have to check. Still it's hardly the right solution.

 

As to your point about this being arrae situation, I think that's a pretty spurious assertion. I mean archiving files to optical disk, is incredibly common (especially with large files) and everyone eventually faces space limits.

Anyone still on MB2 has this functionality but as they migrate to MBC/MBT, I believe many will want it.

 

I've already seen a similar case here on the forums, and I'd be surprised if there aren't others who will feel the same. I'll put it as a feature request to log it and you can consider it at your convenience,

 

Anyway, you guys are doing amazing work, so please don't read this as a complaint.

I've always supported MB because it's a great piece of software and will continue to do so.