DVD Movie ISO's creation/playback

authoranonymtime12 Mar 2010categoryportal.gzgq.com
  • I am fairly new to XBMC but so far, it has been great. With one exception ... the ability to play movie ISO's on it. I can currently play divx, mpg and vobs, but not ISO's. When I click on the ISO's, it does nothing. No circle indicator in the upper right, just nothing.


    I loaded up the latest XBMC (Rev 14095) and tried to play some ISO's but it did not work. I then found threads indicating that this is a known bug. So I then tried an alternate version of Rev 13851. Again, nothing. So I decided to try another version, Rev. 11601. And once again... nothing. :sad:


    I am running XBMC as an app. Each time I added a new folder, to keep it completely seperate from the other versions. So I currently now have 3 revisions on my Xbox in my E:apps folder.


    I also scanned IMDB for information. It actually picked up the title and information for one of the ISO's, but it will not play. Now I am not sure if the scraping is based on opening the file, or just the title?


    I have been creating the ISO's on my laptop, using CDBurnerXP Pro v3 and v4. These discs have already been prepared by Anydvd with their protection removed. I then FTP the ISO to a network share and try to play it via windows networking.


    So the only thing I can think of, is that the app that I am using is not making compliant ISO's? I really do not like Nero, but it seems to be one of the suggested ones to try. There is also UltraISO and MagicISO? Is there a faq on DVD ISO movies? I saw a reference somewhere that the DECSS and region encoding can be a factor? Is there a FAQ section on this?


    And another question about rar ISO files... I tried one and it told me that it had to uncompress it first, before playback. Where does it uncompress it to? And does the uncompressed file get deleted after your session is over?

    Any tips, suggestions or help would be appreciated. :)


  • It's not the share. That was an error on my part. If it was a permissions problem, you'd have an access denied error message in the log which you don't. Its your ISO file. Is it actually an imaged DVD? It has to contain a VIDEO_TS folder containing a VIDEO_TS.IFO file and all relevant VOB's etc. If you just ISO'ed a random file structure, it will not work.


  • andrpro, one more thing... are you running the latest t3ch build? There is a known problem with ISO's and that version. I am using the previous, June 30th, version.


  • Sorry, but I am not quite following you. I have a share and I have a mix of avi's/mpeg/m2v/vob/iso's. Everything opens, but ISO's.

    When you say re-share...you mean recreate the windows share?


  • as a test, from the context menu, force xbmc to use mplayer. choose "play with" and then choose "mplayer" not dvdplayer.


  • Just don't do that. First, you have a size limitation due to the cache partition. And second, it'll be obnoxiously slow because I believe the entire archive file needs to be transferred to one of the cache partitions before Xbmc even starts to decompress it.


  • Ok, will do later tonight when I get a moment.

    Going back to the idea of compressing ISO's... so what you are saying, is that if the ISO is less than 750mb, uncompressed, then you can use compressed ISO's? Obviously most movies will be well over this limit.


  • I am using the 06-30 version. And I ran a 6.5gb ISO from a network share last night.


  • So I re-read your message. I killed the share. Turned off the xbox. Recreated the share with the loosest possible permissions. Turned on the xbox. Went to the ISO and ... nothing. Then I tried an .avi in the same directory and all is good.

    I am going to copy an ISO directly to the xbox HD to see if it is a share issue or not.


  • No, it does not play with Mplayer. Same response. Should I post a log file of an Mplayer attempt?


  • thats what i was hoping to hear. my gut feeling is that you have a permissions problem on your share. the isos just cant be opened. please re-share. it forces all files to get the correct permissions.

    and sure, post a link to that debug log as well.


  • @andpro
    ISO files must be under 4GB if you plan on keeping them on the xbox hard drive as that's the file size limit of the FATX filesystem.


  • Where are you playing them from? The xbox filesystem has a filesize limit of 4GB so if you're copying them up to your xbox, they are getting truncated. This could be why they don't play. If you rar them, you have to use "store". The xbox unrar's to one of the cache partitions (X,Y,or Z) which are only 750MB. Another reason why they may not play.


  • You cannot increase the size of the cache partitions. I don't believe they are wiped on reset, but any application (including games) can wipe them.

    Post a link to a debug log.


  • Here is a log from boot up, to trying to play 2 ISO's and then shutting down.

    http://www.pastebin.ca/1081274

    The interesting part (to me) is...

    18:36:00 M: 42426368 DEBUG: CFileSMB::Open - opened Movies/Music/Led_Zeppelin_Reflections.iso, fd=10000
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: libdvdcss debug:
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: using CSS key cache dir: T:cache/LED_ZEPPELIN/0000000000000000-0000000000/
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg:
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: libdvdnav: vm: DVD Title: LED_ZEPPELIN
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: libdvdnav: Unable to find map file 'Q:dvdplayer/.dvdnav/LED_ZEPPELIN.map'
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: libdvdnav:DVDOpenFileUDF:UDFFindFile /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO failed
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 INFO: msg: libdvdnav:DVDOpenFileUDF:UDFFindFile /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP failed
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 DEBUG: libdvdread: Can't open file VIDEO_TS.IFO.
    18:36:00 M: 42426368 DEBUG: libdvdnav: vm: failed to read VIDEO_TS.IFO


  • I think you found the problem.

    The ISO was the proper format. It was taken from a real DVD. I think the software I was using, lost something in the creation. I just tried another program and it is now working across the network! :grin:

    Thanks for all your help... now I think I am off to play around with ISO's some more to see if I can get more to work.


  • t3ch 07-15-FIXED can't play dvd's.


  • I could not read it with the build i had so upgraded to the latest build and still the same, my iso is 5.4gig but is ran of a network share.

    I have the Video_TS and Audio_TS folders in th ISO with the vob files etc inside the Video_TS folder.


  • Funny enough... MagicISO was the one that worked for me. Not sure of the version. I just right clicked on the D: (DVD) drive and said "create DVD image" (or something like that) and it worked. The ISO was 3gb. I have not tried a dual layer ISO.

    Previously I used CD Burner Xp Pro v4 (a nice piece of software). I manually created the ISO using the correct structure but something didn't work.

    There is always UltraISO and Nero, if you are looking for something different.

    Are you running from a network share, or from the HDD? Can you run other video formats?


  • I'm having problems with ISO at the min as well, i use Magic ISO to create them, what program have you used to get it working.

    Also do the ISO files have to be under 4 gig?


  • The ISO's are being read off a windows network share. The directory contains ISO's, Divx, Mpeg etc... They are not residing at all on the Xbox. I don't think its a directory issue since the other files play from the same location. The ISO's that I am testing are both around 3gb each.

    Is there a way to increase the cache partitions? And do they automatically get wiped on a reset?

    Should I start investigating how to log? Maybe that might help.







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