NEW!! MPlay v3.6beta (Aug 2 2006) with DVD ISO support!

TheEndless · Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:38 pm

We are proud to announce the release of MPlay v3.6beta with DVD ISO support!

This new version adds support for DVDs saved as .ISO disc images. Also included in this version is a new extended info dialog accessible in the file browser by pressing the Info button. The .nfo file format has also been expanded to allow more details (rating, director, actors, etc.). To help facilitate the generation of these files, a new page has been added to the website that will automatically generate an .nfo file based on information retrieved from IMDb. The MPlay Movie Info File Builder can be found here: http://www.permanence.com/mplay/infobuilder.aspx

(Click for larger screenshot)

Other updates in this release include:

08/02/06
--------
- Added extended info dialog to file browser (supports SageTV .my files generated with GermSage)
- Added DVD ISO support
- Added -VTSThreshold command-line flag
- Added ability to fast-forward by 6 minutes by holding down the fast-forward button
- Added ability to rewind by 3 minutes by holding down the rewind button

The new -VTSThreshold command-line flag allows you to specify a minimum file size for title sets on a DVD. If more than one title set is larger than the specified threshold, you will be prompted with a dialog asking which VTS should be played. This is useful for episodic DVDs that store individual episodes as separate title sets. It also facilitates watching the special features that are usually stored as a separate title set on a DVD. If not threshold is specified, MPlay will behave as it has in the past.

Please visit the website for more details. And don't forget the MPlay forums available here: http://www.permanence.com/roku/forums

This new version is available at the following link: http://www.permanence.com/MPlay/files/M ... 060802.zip

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are always welcome.

TheEndless and marcelo3d

dj7675 · Wed Aug 02, 2006 7:53 am

Wow. Look forward to trying this out tonight.

Darin

Edit:
I really like the file generator. That will make it much easier for all of my recorded movies that have no info files. Very nice. Any chance of it grabbing the coverart too? :oops:

TheEndless · Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:23 pm

Just as an FYI, I have added cover art download to the MPlay Movie Info File Builder page. If available, the cover art will be presented along with the movie details, so you can just right-click it and save it as folder.jpg in the movie folder.

TheEndless

dj7675 · Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:31 pm

Wow. Very cool. The .my files from sage work perfectly. Now every time there is a recording, a .my file is created with program data and MPlay can read it. Also, the file builder for creating the movie data and now coverart is also a great idea. Everything is working perfectly ... And the solution for viewing more text is also great. Simply pressing the info button is very simple and straight forward. The layout of the coverart and text when using info also looks very nice as well. As you may be able to determine, I am extremely happy with all of the new features. Thanks again for your work on this. It is much appreciated.

Darin

scans · Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:42 am

Too cool for school. Endless, you rock.

dgburns · Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:07 am

Liking what I see so far!

Question about the .nfo capability:
What is the order of preference of file extensions? I have a .txt file of mpeg2repair output for each .ts, and I see that a .nfo of same name has precedence.

For those not aware, it doesn't appear you HAVE to name the file 'folder.nfo'. If you have for example '2001.ts' in a folder, MPlay properly handles '2001.nfo' and '2001.jpg' as if they were 'folder.nfo' and 'folder.jpg'. That's cool, cuz I have a big SAN, with LOT's of movies in one folder, and each has it's "proper" .nfo and .jpg operating within MPlay. Rock on!

DaMutha · Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:43 am

I apologize for this basic question, but could someone explain the benefit (if any) of using ISOs vs. VOBs for ripped DVDs? I'm wondering if there is any reason for me to go back through and convert my files. Thanks.

TheEndless · Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:04 am

dgburns wrote:
Question about the .nfo capability:
What is the order of preference of file extensions? I have a .txt file of mpeg2repair output for each .ts, and I see that a .nfo of same name has precedence.

The order of precedence for a folder is:

folder.nfo
info.txt
description.txt
folder.my

The order of precedence for a file:

<filename>.nfo
<filename>.txt
<filename>.my
<baseseqname>.nfo
<baseseqname>.txt
<baseseqname>.my
folder.nfo
info.txt
description.txt
folder.my

So, given a filename of MyHDMovie.1080i.001.ts, MPlay would search in the following order:

MyHDMovie.1080i.001.nfo
MyHDMovie.1080i.001.txt
MyHDMovie.1080i.001.my
MyHDMovie.1080i.nfo
MyHDMovie.1080i.txt
MyHDMovie.1080i.my
folder.nfo
info.txt
description.txt
folder.my

Hope that makes sense...

TheEndless

TheEndless · Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:20 am

DaMutha wrote:
I apologize for this basic question, but could someone explain the benefit (if any) of using ISOs vs. VOBs for ripped DVDs? I'm wondering if there is any reason for me to go back through and convert my files. Thanks.

The primary benefit is that an ISO is a single file that contains the entire folder structure of the DVD. So, in theory, using the jpg and nfo capabilities I described above, you could have all of your DVDs in a single folder, and not have to worry about clashing folder and VTS...VOB file names. If you're happy with how you have your library set up now, though, there's really no reason for you to convert to ISOs.

TheEndless

drew138 · Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:05 am

Thanks for continueing to make hugh improvements on MPLAY. Donation deposited.

What's left for you to accomplish other than DVD Menu navigation?

Drew

TheEndless · Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:35 am

drew138 wrote:
Thanks for continueing to make hugh improvements on MPLAY. Donation deposited.

Thank you very much!

drew138 wrote:
What's left for you to accomplish other than DVD Menu navigation?

Drew

You tell me...

TheEndless

scans · Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:48 am

What is your recommendation for an appropriate size for the VTSThreshold tag? Now that I can put my episodic DVD's on my media server, I'm wondering what to set it to. What's the average 30min/60min show size on DVD (minus commercials, of course!)?

Oh, and looking at your DVD collection in the sample pics:
1) Larry the cable guy?! Wha!? :shock:

2) Any T&A in the American Pie Band Camp unrated version? :oops:

TheEndless · Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:00 pm

scans wrote:
What is your recommendation for an appropriate size for the VTSThreshold tag? Now that I can put my episodic DVD's on my media server, I'm wondering what to set it to. What's the average 30min/60min show size on DVD (minus commercials, of course!)?

500000000 seems to be a good setting. You may need to tweak it a little, but that should be a good starting point...

scans wrote:
Oh, and looking at your DVD collection in the sample pics:
1) Larry the cable guy?! Wha!?

Hehe.. that one's actually for my wife. She's from England and seems to gets a kick out of redneck humor.

scans wrote:
2) Any T&A in the American Pie Band Camp unrated version?

I've not seen the rated version, but as far as I recall, there's nothing more than a few long shots of the laptop screen when they're watching the hidden shower cam in the unrated version...

TheEndless

dgburns · Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:34 pm

TheEndless wrote:
Hope that makes sense...

Perfectly, yes.

I have a 600GB SAN, full of HD movies. Flat directory structure, so they're all in one directory. What I'd been doing was running each through mpeg2repair, and trimming that output down to just the particulars of interest (running time, bitrate, resolution, audio format), and saving as a .txt of same base filename. With moviename.nfo having precedence over moviename.txt, and I'd like to still have that info visible, so I guess I need to figure how to merge my data into your web-generated nfo.

But thanks!

TheEndless · Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:46 pm

dgburns wrote:
TheEndless wrote:
Hope that makes sense...

Perfectly, yes.

I have a 600GB SAN, full of HD movies. Flat directory structure, so they're all in one directory. What I'd been doing was running each through mpeg2repair, and trimming that output down to just the particulars of interest (running time, bitrate, resolution, audio format), and saving as a .txt of same base filename. With moviename.nfo having precedence over moviename.txt, and I'd like to still have that info visible, so I guess I need to figure how to merge my data into your web-generated nfo.

But thanks!

The layout of the info window is as follows (the value in brackets is the name of the field in the .nfo file), so you could trick it into displaying the data you want by specifying the values appropriately:

--------------------------------------------
| [title] ([year])                         |
--------------------------------------------
| ---------- [summary]                     |
| |        |                               |
| |        | [actors]                      |
| | cover  |                               |
| |    art | [rating]                      |
| |        | Directed by: [director]       |
| |        | Written by: [writer]          |
| ---------- [genre]                       |
|           ---------- -------- ---------- |
|           | Delete | | Play | | Cancel | |
|           ---------- -------- ---------- |
--------------------------------------------

If you don't care about the actors, it might be worth putting the info there, but do note that the actors are actually appended to the end of the summary, so they could get pushed off the screen if the summary is long.

TheEndless

NEW!! MPlay v3.6beta (Aug 2 2006) with DVD ISO support!

NEW!! MPlay v3.6beta (Aug 2 2006) with DVD ISO support!

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