Playing back HD-DVD files from network share in PDVD

[tfboy]

From what I can tell, it's not possible to play back an HD-DVD rip off a network drive.

Whilst you can do it fine if you've ripped a movie onto your local hard drive using anydvdhd, if you save it on a remote PC / server, when you go to PowerDVD Ultra and select play back movie files from hard drive, it will allow you to select the movie (the root directory before the HVDVD one) but when you click on OK, there's an error message which pops up:

FSE_FAILED: Failed to Open
the File. Using file ""

I've contacted Cyberlink about this and the answer was unfortunately not very promising:

Originally Posted by Cyberlink

Thank you for contacting Cyberlink Online Customer Support.

We understand that you are getting error when try to play the HD-DVD files from harddrive.

In regards to your issue, we regret to inform you that PowerDVD Ultra can support playback of HD-DVD's from DVD drive directly, not form harddrive.

It could be the reason for your issue.

Well, sounds like they won't even support having an HD-DVD image on your local hard drive, let alone a remote one.

So in my aim to have a "back room server" with all my HD-DVDs on it, I'm now stifled

Anyone else played around with network-shared HD-DVD images and found a workaround?

A bit annoyed now. The cost of the software (PDVD) isn't exactly cheap and I can't even use it for what I bought it for

[dharris]

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

[bingobill]

Originally Posted by dharris

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

Same here, on my networked Maxtor 500GB shared storage device I created a folder within my existing 'Video' folder and named it 'HDDVD' and then mapped the folder as a drive and put the ripped 'BATMAN_BEGINS_HDDVD' folder inside that, it plays just fine.

[Peer]

Originally Posted by tfboy

I've contacted Cyberlink about this and the answer was unfortunately not very promising:

Well, that answer is nonsense, their software has the explicit option to play back files from harddisk and it also works fine. Support people sometimes don't know their product to well...

I suppose, PowerDVD simply has a problem when using a network name like

\\server\share\folder\....

and requires a drive letter instead.
Didn't try that myself yet, though.

[tfboy]

Originally Posted by dharris

I had this problem too at first. However I was able to "fix it" as follows. When I opened power dvd and tried to select the movie stored on my network media server by going through windows network, selecting the computer, etc it did not work. However, if i mapped the drive on my local machine, say to drive letter "M", and then selected the movie by browsing for the mapped drive, it plays back perfectly. Havent had a problem since.

Sorry for the non-technical description. If it is not clear, let me know and i can try and explain better.

Ahh. Just tried that and it works. Cheers

[SamuriHL]

Couldn't you make an ISO of the disc and mount the ISO file from the remote share?

[GreenJelly]

I have a network drive, that is shared as above. Its on a Gigabyte network that easily gets 32Mbps, yet the movie skips like it cant keep up with the bit rate. The movie plays fine locally.

Edit: When you add a network drive in Vista, it sets up Indexing, and since I had a large number of files in the directory that I maoed, it may have used up the network or drive capabilities. Runs fine now

[roog]

In my experience, you need a gigabit network, with no other substantial traffic, in order to play a HD DVD or Blu-ray titlle remotely.

[roog]

Originally Posted by peer

Well, that answer is nonsense, their software has the explicit option to play back files from harddisk and it also works fine. Support people sometimes don't know their product to well...

I suppose, PowerDVD simply has a problem when using a network name like

\\server\share\folder\....

and requires a drive letter instead.
Didn't try that myself yet, though.

Watch how quickly they change their tune when something else becomes available.

[willywonton]

Umm...

A network share (Microsoft mapped drive) works fine on my system and has done always. Plays back HD-DVD content quite happily. Network connection is 1000Base-t so bandwidth is not realistically limited. But 100Base-t should be fine, unless other traffic is dominating on the link.