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DVD Assist - VIDEO_TS playback for Front Row - Page 3

post #61 of 499
9/3/06 at 8:30pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Smart View Post

It's not clear whether you mean *budget* approval, or _budget_ approval, but if you are waiting on a work machine, then just based on what I've seen so far, I'd make a donation to get you a personal mini...

Dan "Lurker - oops" Smart

The office is finally getting a couple Intel Macs. Won't be able to hook one up to a TV at home, but at least I'll be able to test. Still, I'd love to have a Mini at home...
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post #62 of 499
9/3/06 at 9:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squished Squirre View Post

The office is finally getting a couple Intel Macs. Won't be able to hook one up to a TV at home, but at least I'll be able to test. Still, I'd love to have a Mini at home...

count me in for a donation - if you're so inclined..
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post #63 of 499
9/3/06 at 9:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mettmann View Post

count me in for a donation - if you're so inclined..

Me too...this is easily a piece of shareware as far as I'm concerned.
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post #64 of 499
9/3/06 at 9:51pm
I just got an error message from DVD Assist. I saw the same thing yesterday but forgot to write it down before clicking 'OK'.

The window is titled "DVD Assist" along with a pic of the icon and the error states:

NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 4

It has an 'Edit' and 'OK' button with the 'OK' button being the default.

Both times the error appeared, I was not using FR, it just appeared on the desktop.
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post #65 of 499
9/3/06 at 10:23pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by gilbreen View Post

I just got an error message from DVD Assist. I saw the same thing yesterday but forgot to write it down before clicking 'OK'.

The window is titled "DVD Assist" along with a pic of the icon and the error states:

NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 4

It has an 'Edit' and 'OK' button with the 'OK' button being the default.

Both times the error appeared, I was not using FR, it just appeared on the desktop.

Searching on random occurances of that error brought me to this:

http://bbs.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?pid=57731

Are you using Megazoomer? It is reported to cause these errors randomly with Applescript applets.

If that is not it, I'm not sure how to replicate. The next version gets rid of most of the Applescript idle loop... and will most likley get rid of the error.

If the next version works smoothly, I might set up a paypal donate account. If it helps get me a Mini at home... I'm all for it ;-)
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post #66 of 499
9/4/06 at 6:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoffo View Post

When I start to play a VIDEO_TS file via FrontRow and DVD Assist, I am unable to use the "menu" option on my apple remote to bring up the DVD menu. Instead, this returns me to FrontRow. Is there any way around this?

Hold down the Menu button instead of just clicking it (which leads to Front Row)...that should take you back to the DVD menu.

Just figured this out myself!
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post #67 of 499
9/4/06 at 7:31am
Hi SS,

No, I don't run Megazoomer (never heard of it before). I'll let you know if it happens again and if I notice if anything is the trigger. Both times, I came back to my computer and the error message was there (I don't put the computer to sleep if that makes a difference).

I think a PayPal donate button would be well deserved and received for your efforts!
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post #68 of 499
9/4/06 at 9:00am
My next challenge is trying to get the script to work with 10.5 developer...As I mentioned before it has dvd player 5, which saves zoom presets per movie. The script only works when you drag a video_ts folder and not via Front Row. It looks like 10.5 has a new version of applescript, maybe that is the problem.
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post #69 of 499
9/4/06 at 10:00am
Quote:


Hold down the Menu button instead of just clicking it (which leads to Front Row)...that should take you back to the DVD menu.

Perfect! Thanks.

I also think this is supportable shareware. PayPal away!
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post #70 of 499
9/4/06 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vertigo View Post

I setup a black background of about 320x240 and pasted the cover art on top in the middle of it. I then pasted it to new Quicktime window and saved it as .mov file. What you get is a very nice cover art at the correct scale.

Are you using consistantly-sized cover art? I'm not and cannot for the life of me get the cover art to scale down to the 320x240 black background I created. Assuming the sizing isn't a problem, please point out my mistake (if it's visible)

1. Create 320x240 black background, copy it to clipboard, open "Blank Movie", choose "Add to selection & scale" from the Edit menu.

2. Now I have a ten second movie of black screen that will play without problems.

3. Open cover art in Preview, Copy from the Edit menu, then choose "Add to selectoin & scale in QT" in the black bg movie.

4. The resulting movie contains the cover art, but doesn't show the black background.

5. Hence, the preview is stretched in FR.

So many people are doing this successfully that I know I'm making an easy mistake...thanks if anyone can help.
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post #71 of 499
9/4/06 at 12:48pm
jwcrash, here is the best way to do this:

Open up Start the Movie.mov file supplied in DVDAssist with Quicktime. Scan until you get to a black background, which is about just before hitting the 1 second mark and pause it.

Open up cover art you want to use, using Preview application. Go to Preview Preferences and change window background color to Black.

Put cover art preview window on top of quicktime window (Start the Movie.mov one).

Expand the window so it matches the size of the Start the Movie.mov movie (the black part only, and not the whole Quicktime Window).

Open up Grab under Applications/Utilities.

Go to Capture and then Selection from the menu.

Form a square around the Start the Movie.mov window where the cover art is.

This will bring up a new Grab window with the cover art and black background.

Do a Copy from menu.

Open up Quicktime Pro and open new window.

Do a paste from menu. This will paste Preview cover art window with the black background.

Save as whatever name you want to give it. In my case, Toy Story.mov.

(I had to remove .mov from the actual file name after saving it. For some reason Quicktime still puts extension there even if you tell it not to.)

I must admit that this is probably not the best way to do this, but it worked for me. I only had about 25 movies to do this for. Mostly kid's movies that they watch over and over. It did not take me that long. For someone that has a lot more movies with cover art, it will take a while.

Let me know if that works for you.
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post #72 of 499
9/4/06 at 1:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vertigo View Post

My next challenge is trying to get the script to work with 10.5 developer...As I mentioned before it has dvd player 5, which saves zoom presets per movie. The script only works when you drag a video_ts folder and not via Front Row. It looks like 10.5 has a new version of applescript, maybe that is the problem.

No errors? It just doesn't activate? Odd... how in 'ell could they be hiding what files Front Row has open... then again, they may have changed the name of Front Row, or integrated it into another process.

If you just Fire up Front Row on 10.5, and then exit with the escape key, do you see a Front Row process in the Activity Monitor?
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post #73 of 499
9/4/06 at 1:45pm
No errors at all. It just does not activate at all. I know the script works because I can drag folder and it will work. I looked at the process name in Activity Monitor and it is called Front Row and has not changed. Very strange.

Since I could not get it to work, I tried installing DVD Player 5.0 on 10.4.7, but no luck at all. I even tried copying all files using Pacifist and it will not work. I also tried changing Systemversion files in CoreServices to trick it, but no luck at all. I would love this feature. Unfortunetly VLC does not allow you to zoom while in fullscreen. Oh well!

Forgot to mention that version 5 also remembers last played setting for video_ts folders too. Man, I wish I could get this to work!
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post #74 of 499
9/4/06 at 1:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vertigo View Post

jwcrash, here is the best way to do this...

Thanks, Vertigo...that's an amazingly comprehensive set of instructions. I very much appreciate your time. While I'm surprised there isn't an easier middle ground between the ReadMe file and your method, I'll take whatever works!

As an aside, while searching for cool cover art I found IMDB has amazing links to foreign and rare verisons of movie posters. On the left side of the screen, "Posters" is available under almost any movie title. Taking the time to check out the resulting links can be very rewarding!
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post #75 of 499
9/4/06 at 4:29pm
I don't have the Apple MPEG2 codec for Quicktime. For the purposes of DVD Assist am I better off having it or not having it? I understand having it would save me the trouble of copying the dummy .mov file to my numerous video_ts folders. Is there a downside?
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post #76 of 499
9/4/06 at 7:36pm
It does not really matter if you have it or not. The dummy file will start the movie as long as it is in the same folder. You can then just create an alias to it and put it in your movies folder.
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post #77 of 499
9/4/06 at 8:21pm
I'm with Squished Squire,

getting .iso images working is VERY important. The problem seems to be that you can't make an alias of the ts folder that resides inside the .iso image. And I can't find an equivalent mounting utility like Daemon Tools. Reason this is so important is because I've got a network inwhich I use both pcs and macs. Thus I ripped all my iso files before I got into the mac world.

While the vlc program is the only thing that I've found to play my vob files (once I open the directory directly from vlc) I also need Front Row as the front end.
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post #78 of 499
9/4/06 at 8:23pm
Part 2...
To be more clear to Vertigo, you can't copy startthemovie.mov to the ts directory that's inside the iso image
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post #79 of 499
9/4/06 at 8:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by htpc'd View Post

Part 2...
To be more clear to Vertigo, you can't copy startthemovie.mov to the ts directory that's inside the iso image

Have you tried making iso image read and write, instead of read only? I would think you could copy the start the movie.mov afterwards?
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post #80 of 499
9/4/06 at 9:22pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vertigo View Post

Have you tried making iso image read and write, instead of read only? I would think you could copy the start the movie.mov afterwards?

OSX refuses to let you write to a UDF formatted volume or disk image without additional software like "Write UDF."

The solution is to re-write DVD Assist to support ISO images. If it doesn't chew up too much CPU time adding in the check, I could take care of it in a future version. Basically I'd search for files open in /VIDEO_TS/ folders, or files that end in .iso.mov.

If they end in .iso.mov, the matching .iso in the same folder will get handed off to the toast mounter, and then to DVD Player. Figuring out what other ISO's might already be mounted and dismounting them before starting DVD Player might be the toughest part. (DVD Player appears to play whatever DVD/Toast mounted ISO it wants.)
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post #81 of 499
9/5/06 at 8:09pm
First off I want to say HOW unbelievablly valuable this discussion is. So thanks so much Squished. Just a bit OT I'm coming from the PC side where it was either rip files to .ifo and have to fool with trying to string chapters together and the like. Thus .iso images and mounting them like a DVD and using a bat file to do the mounting and the (Zoomplayer) dvd software initiation. Now I'm converting over to mac and since I've got a pretty good sized network in my home and trying to mix harware platforms, my need, and I think many other new converts is to use the mac and all its strengths while keeping some of that key functionality that it took months of sleepless nights trying to figure out over in the PC world. ...Now that you know my life history.

I don't quite understand why .iso.mov files, did you mean .iso or .mov files? I'm interested because 1 I) believe you on the brink of solving a major problem of mine, and 2) I'd love to help in any way with the development. No credits or anything else needed, just to be able to work on this with someone else who gets it is compensation enough.

Keep it up. You're just about to give me all the pleasure without having to experience any of the pain!!!!!
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post #82 of 499
9/6/06 at 4:26pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by htpc'd View Post

I don't quite understand why .iso.mov files, did you mean .iso or .mov files? I'm interested because 1 I) believe you on the brink of solving a major problem of mine, and 2) I'd love to help in any way with the development. No credits or anything else needed, just to be able to work on this with someone else who gets it is compensation enough.

Keep it up. You're just about to give me all the pleasure without having to experience any of the pain!!!!!

All I can do is look at what files Front Row is playing, and if I see a certain pattern in the pathname, then I can take action on it. So, say I see a file open that is in a path that contains /VIDEO_TS/ well, then I know I should process that and have DVD Player play it.

In the case of ISO images, we need something that Front Row can play AND that I can key in on. So, say you have an ISO called "WONDERFULMOVIE.ISO" then you place a short quicktime movie in that same folder and call it "Wonderfulmovie.iso.mov". When fron't row goes to play that .mov file, I can make the assumption that since Front Row is playing a file that contains ".iso.mov" in the name, that I should look for an ISO image at the same path, mount it, and fire up Apple DVD Player.

There is a LOT of work that needs to be done to make that all work. I have to figure out what UDF volumes are currently mounted and dismount them (including real DVD's) Then I have to mount the correct ISO, and then start up DVD Player.... and if everything goes right, it will play from the ISO. (I can't tell Front Row to play it internally, I have to use DVD Player.)

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to sort through all the crap that the command line "mount" command spits out to parse out what volumes are UDF, and what aren't. I thought it was going to be easy with the "umount -t UDF" command, but the Finder gets a wee bit annoyed when you dismount volumes that way.
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post #83 of 499
9/8/06 at 5:03pm
Thread Starter 
Here is version 1.4. It is the first stab at DVD image support. I went with the image suffix of .iso, but if .toast is really the preferred suffix, it can be easily changed to that.

(Link removed, see first post for current version.)

From the release notes:
Rearranged the code yet again to try and get rid of pauses while non-DVD movies are playing in Front Row. A 640*480 H.264 trailer plays smoothly in Front Row while DVD Assist is in the background now.

Added support for HD movies created with DVDSP (HVDVD_TS).

VLC support is gone for now. Too much trouble to keep up the two versions, and VLC's AppleScript support sucked anyway.

Added support for DVD images. This is very experimental. As such, the notes for it will go down here until it has had a bit more testing. One thing of note: If any UDF volumes have to be dismounted before a new disc image is mounted, the whole process can take longer than the Start the Movie.mov movie. Front Row may fall back into the preview mode before playback begins. It can take 15-20 seconds to get everything sorted out if volumes have to be dismounted first. The new Start the Movie.mov file is 20 seconds long now, and the quality on it was bumped up.

Disc image support requires Toast Titanium. It has an image mounting component that fools the OS into thinking a real DVD is in the drive. This allows for DVD Player's zoom video function to work on disc images. Maybe in another version, I'll allow mounting disc images with the Apple image mounter (Without zoom video support, at least in Tiger.)

Here is an example with a mix of VIDEO_TS folders and disc images:

Code:
~/Movies/
        DVD Collection/
                Wonderful Movie 1.mov (an alias of the file below)
                Wonderful Movie 2.mov (an alias of the file below)
                Wonderful Movie 3.mov (an alias of the file below)

Elsewhere on your system you might have:

Big Fat Drive 1/
        DVD Images/ (The name MUST be "DVD Images")
                Wonderful Movie 1.mov (A playable .mov)
                Wonderful Movie 1.iso (MUST end in .iso)
                Wonderful Movie 2.mov (A playable .mov)
                Wonderful Movie 2.iso (MUST end in .iso)
                        ...
Big Fat Drive 2/
        WONDERFUL_MOVIE_3/
                VIDEO_TS/
                        Wonderful Movie 3.mov (A playable .mov)
                        VIDEO_TS.BUP
                        VIDEO_TS.IFO
                        VIDEO_TS.VOB
                        ...
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post #84 of 499
9/9/06 at 3:55am
I am running an intel mini 1.66 and having little to no luck running either 1.3.1 or 1.4. Basically it finds the movies and plays them for the 10 seconds and goes back to front row. However I downgraded to 1.3.1 and got it to work twice before it stopped working. Any suggestions? Thanks for the hard work!
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post #85 of 499
9/9/06 at 9:07am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychotwo View Post

I am running an intel mini 1.66 and having little to no luck running either 1.3.1 or 1.4. Basically it finds the movies and plays them for the 10 seconds and goes back to front row. However I downgraded to 1.3.1 and got it to work twice before it stopped working. Any suggestions? Thanks for the hard work!

DVD Assist must be running anytime you want to use Front Row to play VIDEO_TS folders. I assume it was?

Did you place a "Start the Movie.mov" file into a VIDEO_TS folder of a movie on your hard drive? It was a real file, not an alias, correct?

If you quit out of front row after trying to play the Start the Movie.mov file that was in the VIDEO_TS folder, were there any error messages? Was DVD Player open (but not playing the movie obviously)?
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post #86 of 499
9/9/06 at 9:23am
There are just three things that would make DVD assist perfect to me (it's already nearly there in my eyes - many thanks Squished Squirre):

1. The ability to go back to the last Front Row dvd menu when you press the menu button on your remote when you're playing a movie, instead of having to go back to the root Front Row menu.

2. Instead of having an icon in the dock, the ability to have an icon in the menu bar and no icon in the dock - I don't know but I just prefer an icon in the menu bar to an icon in the dock.

3. And this is not related to DVD Assist but I'd like zoom-presets in DVD Player. Hopefully this might be fixed in the forthcoming 10.4.8. update at the end of Sept/beginning of October.

I don't know how hard the first two things on this list would be to implement - my programming skills don't go beyond beginners Java - but these two things would make, an already great app, perfect in my eyes. And also stick me on the list willing to donate as I think you've done a great job already.
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post #87 of 499
9/9/06 at 10:45am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pbryanw View Post

There are just three things that would make DVD assist perfect to me (it's already nearly there in my eyes - many thanks Squished Squirre):

1. The ability to go back to the last Front Row dvd menu when you press the menu button on your remote when you're playing a movie, instead of having to go back to the root Front Row menu.

2. Instead of having an icon in the dock, the ability to have an icon in the menu bar and no icon in the dock - I don't know but I just prefer an icon in the menu bar to an icon in the dock.

3. And this is not related to DVD Assist but I'd like zoom-presets in DVD Player. Hopefully this might be fixed in the forthcoming 10.4.8. update at the end of Sept/beginning of October.

I don't know how hard the first two things on this list would be to implement - my programming skills don't go beyond beginners Java - but these two things would make, an already great app, perfect in my eyes. And also stick me on the list willing to donate as I think you've done a great job already.

I don't have any control over Front Row, all I can do is see what it has open. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to return to a specific place in Front Row.

DVD Assist is a dropplet... meaning you can also drop a folder on it to have it play a VIDEO_TS folder. To be able to do that, it needs to be a standard application that shows up in the dock.

DVD Player 5 apparently has zoom presets for VIDEO_TS folders as well as real DVD's. I don't know if we will see DVD Player 5 prior to Leopard or not.

I appreciate the suggestions. This is basically a work-around for VIDEO_TS support in Front Row, and as such it will never be as polished as a solution like MediaCentral or one of the other HTPC solutions.
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post #88 of 499
9/9/06 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squished Squirre View Post

DVD Assist must be running anytime you want to use Front Row to play VIDEO_TS folders. I assume it was?

Did you place a "Start the Movie.mov" file into a VIDEO_TS folder of a movie on your hard drive? It was a real file, not an alias, correct?

If you quit out of front row after trying to play the Start the Movie.mov file that was in the VIDEO_TS folder, were there any error messages? Was DVD Player open (but not playing the movie obviously)?

Yes, I have a movie placed in the folder and an alias in my movies folder. There is no error messages after quiting front row. The DVD player was not open after I quit out of front row...
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post #89 of 499
9/9/06 at 3:33pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychotwo View Post

Yes, I have a movie placed in the folder and an alias in my movies folder. There is no error messages after quiting front row. The DVD player was not open after I quit out of front row...

I'm at a bit of a loss and can only guess....

What is the full path to your VIDEO_TS folder?

If you are comfortable using the Terminal, I can suggest a few other tests.
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post #90 of 499
9/9/06 at 3:38pm
Never mind... late night last night Just realized I wasn't putting the movies in the Video_TS folder! Thanks for everything, works great...
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