Which Media Centres Supports ISO Files

[pcuser007 2]

Play On -  No

Plex - No

Emby - No

Jellyfin - No

Media Portal - No

Kodi - YES With full Menus !

 

So if you have Digitized your DVD and BD Collection its best to use Kodi Media Centre.

 

If you like the Display used by Emby / Jellyfin then Kodi used to have a lookalike skin available called Embuary Skin but that skin does not work with the latest version of Kodi v21.0 Omega.

 

The problem with Media Centres not supporting ISO files is that the programmers don’t really know how to do it, and they think not many people are archiving their media collections on ISO files any more.

 

To stream a Disk Image the clients need to wait for the entire ISO package to download then be mounted and it will pay with menus.

 

Unlike streaming a MP4, where the Clients (Players) commence Playing as soon as they have a little bit of the file received and buffered.

 

So when playing ISO there is a short delay while the entire ISO package is downloaded then Mounted.

 

 

 

 

[Ronstang 293]

Why would I want to archive to ISO?  You can't compress an ISO.  I have over 60TB now and that is all compressed quite a bit using HEVC.  I also don't want all that other crap on a disc.  I don't want extras and I don't need all those languages and other useless junk.  I want the movie or the show, that's all I want.  

I tired Kodi when I was deciding what to replace WMC with and I did not like it.  I tried emby and it was pretty much exactly what I wanted.  It has it's issues but I love it and me and my family used it daily.

I'm not sure who you're trying to sell Kodi to because most people savy enough to build and maintain a media server have already tested all the software available and are using the one that suits their needs the best.

[pcuser007 2]

I digitized all my DVD and BD disks to ISO and threw out the plastic disks.

I have 110TB of Data and all the Movies & TV Shows are now easy to find, and no more scratches on the plastic disks.

I like all the junk on the Disks, all the Menus are great for the TV shows, the Extras are great!, as i paid for all the junk I am keeping it.

Movies in various languages are great fun to watch, they are often edited different for the different countries to fit their society.

I will be happy if I can find a Media Centre to play the ISOs as converting them to MP4 would take many years to do, as ripping them took 15 years to do.

Kodi seems to be the only Media Centre that will play ISO.

 

[rbjtech 5284]

2 hours ago, pcuser007 said:

I will be happy if I can find a Media Centre to play the ISOs as converting them to MP4 would take many years to do, as ripping them took 15 years to do.

ISO as a 'live' media format is dead, you need to accept that and plan to migrate to a modern container that is well supported. 

ISO > MKV as a 'raw copy' (maintaining all the old codecs etc) is as quick as it takes to copy the data.    Yes you'll lose the menu's - but via an app such as Emby, you'll gain rich metadata - with the ability to search your entire collection for titles, actors, key words, producers, collections, chapters etc with the touch of a button.  Not to mention direct play in identical quality (a remux), or stream/transcode according to the players own capabilities.. the list goes on.

Edited June 13, 2024 by rbjtech

[pcuser007 2]

rbjtech thanks for great idea.

Even ISO to MKV copy,  will take forever there are thousands of ISOs.

I may have to just use Kodi with its Embuary Skin if they ever get that skin working again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iso

I think i will just use Kodi for the time being.

[Luke 42077]

Another way of looking at it is the sooner you start the sooner you finish. Maybe try converting a few to mkv and then see how much you enjoy the broader compatibility with more software. That might motivate you to convert more.

[pcuser007 2]

Luke,  Thank you for the kind words, i think Movies, Docos & TV series episodes there must be about 50,000 of the dam things.

Bring on AI computers where i can tell the computer to just convert about 115TB of ISOs to Mp4 or MKV and let it do it.

Some ISOs are mp4 HEVC (265) ISOs instead of the old MPEG2 ISOs but that does not matter, players simply won't wait for the entire ISO package to download, then auto mount the ISO package and play it.

Most dumb Media Centers when they stream the ISOs the client starts too early and just plays the Video file it finds and the other files get ignored.

It is tricky to tell clients its a ISO file so hang on till its fully downloaded. then mount it and play it. client don't like being told what to do by some smart remote server.

[rbjtech 5284]

3 hours ago, pcuser007 said:

Some ISOs are mp4 HEVC (265) ISOs instead of the old MPEG2 ISOs but that does not matter, players simply won't wait for the entire ISO package to download, then auto mount the ISO package and play it.

Most dumb Media Centers when they stream the ISOs the client starts too early and just plays the Video file it finds and the other files get ignored.

It is tricky to tell clients its a ISO file so hang on till its fully downloaded. then mount it and play it. client don't like being told what to do by some smart remote server.

..and that will be another key advantage of a streamer friendly container format - they will be converted to a stream friendly format such as HTTP/HLS 'on the fly' so you will get immediate playback on any device - doesn't matter of you have 10 gig LAN or streaming over 4G/5G on your mobile phone - the method to 'deliver' it is the same.

3 hours ago, pcuser007 said:

Bring on AI computers where i can tell the computer to just convert about 115TB of ISOs to Mp4 or MKV and let it do it.

There are many free tools to do this already, you just need a 'batch' crawler that you set and forget.   MakeMKV with batch scripts would be a good start.  Or if you wanted to remove tracks, add logic/functionality, convert codecs etc to reduce storage then use something like Tdarr.

Edited June 15, 2024 by rbjtech

[deibit 18]

it's a bit of an old post, but just wanted to enhance the list of (current) media centers that support 4K UHD ISO reproduction

Infuse (no menus though)

Dune HD (all new models, both realtek and amlogic)

Zidoo (all new models, both realtek and amlogic)

R-volution (all new models, both realtek and amlogic))

Zapitti (though this one is not really current)

Oppo 203/205 with JB (or any player with Oppo/Mediatek firmware)

Personally i use:

Living Room (4K Samsung QN85A 65)

Ugoos AM6B+ with Kodi --> It's cheap and has full Dolby Vision support (which most players can't support), Supports 3D MVC as well (wich many can't do).. such a powerful little box.

Home Theater (4K+3D JVC NP5 Projector)

Oppo 203 JB with Emby --> Emby (served from an Unraid docker) is only used forUI/Cataloguing purposes, the ISO is then "casted" to the Oppo when i play it from Emby. This is a real certified 4K UHD player s it offers you everything you can wish (perfect menus, perfect DV, perfect 3D... etc..)

 

I also have Infuse, Zidoo and DuneHD (several models), which work fine but I don't really use them...

Edited November 17, 2024 by deibit

[Caesarius 0]

On 6/13/2024 at 8:14 AM, pcuser007 said:

I digitized all my DVD and BD disks to ISO and threw out the plastic disks.

I have 110TB of Data and all the Movies & TV Shows are now easy to find, and no more scratches on the plastic disks.

Same here...everything as iso

But 110TB? How do you store (and play) all that from?

I have 20TB on my PC and it only has 4 Sata ports.

Cheers

Caesar

 

[Ronstang 293]

On 3/16/2025 at 10:27 AM, Caesarius said:

But 110TB? How do you store (and play) all that from?

It isn't hard these days with a modern setup.  I use an inexpensive OEM SAS controller in a PCIe slot that added 4 SATA connections for under $30 that connects to an inexpensive Rosewill external hotswap cage for 4 drives in my current cast that holds two 18 TB and two 16 TB Toshiba hard drives along with 2 4TB and 1 8 TB hard drives, 3 SSDs and two optical drives connected directly to the motherboard for a total of 89 TB in just this machine.

I don't waste space on ISOs though, especially since emby does not play them and my encoded and compressed content looks so good on a 65" Sony that it is hard to waste space for no reason.  Plus, I have over 10K movies and 45 recorded TV series and 74 TV series on DVD and Blu-Ray.  A lot of space it actually holding back ups and extra copies of some content that will be moved offline soon.

The advantage of a SAS controller is if you buy it right you can have extra drives that transfer faster than a SATA expansion card since those share ports and the more they share on the controller the more the speed is cut.  SAS connects directly and you get true SATA speeds on all ports.

[Luke 42077]