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Hello,
I got my new Dune 4k set up with My Movies and when I browse My Movies through the Dune I see all my entries for discs that are in my Disc Changer, but when I try to click play, it just says it's "empty."
I'm trying to find a way, no matter which device I end up having to buy or which software I end up having to buy, to integrate the 800 discs I have between two disc changers and all the movies/tv shows I have ripped to hard drives and be able to access and play them all via one piece of software or on one device.
Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
I have an Oppo 103, Oppo 205, Zidoo Z9S, Zappiti box, and the new Dune along with Jriver MC for software.
Can ANY combination of my hardware/software work to do what I want?
I was thinking maybe the "play-to" would work on the Dune, but I don't see how to set that up.
I'm simply wanting to be able to play a movie/tv show on the same device/software whether it's on a disc changer or on a hard drive.
Thanks,
--J
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As I understand it the Dune can only play media it has access to on hard drive, it has no capacity for controlling an external device like the Sony Mega-changers which I assume you are referring to.
My Movies will load the disc in the Mega-changer when selected from the My Movies WMCE interface because My Movies will command the changer to do so via RS232. You would essentially need to use the actual PC running My Movies as the media player device to come close to what you want and you would need Windows Media Center which means using Windows 7 or a hack to get WMCE on Windows 10. Media Center would not necessarily be used for the actual playback depending on the setup of external players for the media on hard drives, but it would be needed for the actual media selection. You would probably need to jump right up to something like a proper home automation system for a true one stop solution that would do everything you want and with the price to go with it.
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Out of curiosity, approximately how many DVDs are in those two changers, or are they all Blu-rays?
If they were mostly DVDs, I would say your best bet would be to rip all of them to ISOs on an inexpensive NAS, probably no more than 8TB in size. You could retire the changers, and save wear & tear on your original discs. (If cost is a concern, then a cheaper alternative is to buy an Enterprise class 8TB internal drive, stick it in a computer that's going to be on all the time, and share that drive to your network.) Then your entire collection is accessible to any device on your network that plays ISO files.
There are quite a few of those, including any desktop computer, your Dune player, and a few of the Oppo players as well. (But I don't know how to integrate the Oppo players so that you can navigate to a movie and choose it to play.)
I live by the motto "Storage is cheap" and my entire collection is backed up to Enterprise-class Raid6 NAS. I can then pick and choose my playback devices based on what is supported by MyMovies. (I use Enterprise class drives to increase the MTTF: it takes a long time to re-rip that many discs! I figure the 20% price premium for the Enterprise class of storage is a worth-while up-front cost compared to the value of my time to rip again in case of HDD failures.)
The Dune integration is pretty bare-bones since it's based entirely on a rudimentary text file mechanism that uses basic folder organization and simply displays icons and JPG images. There's no search ability in that setup, though it does give you an Alphabetical organization as well as Genres.
You could use the My Movies app on an iDevice or Android device to get a richer collection environment with searching. The app permits you to initiate playback on a Dune player using the Dune player's network control commands over your local network & wifi. I've never tried using that app to drive more than one Dune player, so I don't know how that works or if it is even supported.
If you have any further questions about the Dune and My Movies integration, feel free to ask me. I've been using this combo of software and hardware players since the days of the Dune HD Max in 2010.
--michael
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mbarnstijn wrote:Out of curiosity, approximately how many DVDs are in those two changers, or are they all Blu-rays?
If they were mostly DVDs, I would say your best bet would be to rip all of them to ISOs on an inexpensive NAS, probably no more than 8TB in size. You could retire the changers, and save wear & tear on your original discs. (If cost is a concern, then a cheaper alternative is to buy an Enterprise class 8TB internal drive, stick it in a computer that's going to be on all the time, and share that drive to your network.) Then your entire collection is accessible to any device on your network that plays ISO files.
There are quite a few of those, including any desktop computer, your Dune player, and a few of the Oppo players as well. (But I don't know how to integrate the Oppo players so that you can navigate to a movie and choose it to play.)
I live by the motto "Storage is cheap" and my entire collection is backed up to Enterprise-class Raid6 NAS. I can then pick and choose my playback devices based on what is supported by MyMovies. (I use Enterprise class drives to increase the MTTF: it takes a long time to re-rip that many discs! I figure the 20% price premium for the Enterprise class of storage is a worth-while up-front cost compared to the value of my time to rip again in case of HDD failures.)
The Dune integration is pretty bare-bones since it's based entirely on a rudimentary text file mechanism that uses basic folder organization and simply displays icons and JPG images. There's no search ability in that setup, though it does give you an Alphabetical organization as well as Genres.
You could use the My Movies app on an iDevice or Android device to get a richer collection environment with searching. The app permits you to initiate playback on a Dune player using the Dune player's network control commands over your local network & wifi. I've never tried using that app to drive more than one Dune player, so I don't know how that works or if it is even supported.
If you have any further questions about the Dune and My Movies integration, feel free to ask me. I've been using this combo of software and hardware players since the days of the Dune HD Max in 2010.
--michael If your concerned about cost and you're ripping your own movie disks, it would by more inexpensive to use CMC rather than buying a dune player. https://chamconsoft.com/cmc/index.html
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mbarnstijn mentioned that instead of using disk players it would be less expensive to rip the disks and use the rips on a dune. My statement was to do away with the dune completely and use CMC on a PC instead. It's easy to set up and inexpensive. It would be great if CMC could get the functionality to operate with disk players though.
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Thanks for the input everyone.
I didn't really make it clear what I want to do, so I'll try to explain better.
I actually WANT to use Windows Media Center/My Movies to control ALL of my movies, whether they are on discs inside of changers or whether I want to play to on the Dune.
Can I do this?
So always using Windows Media Center, if I pick a title that happens to be located in a disc changer, it will select the disc changer and play. I already have this set up and working fine.
For titles that are stored on SMB via my NAS, I'd like to ALSO be able to select them in Windows Media Center / My Movies and have them play on the Dune, or an Oppo, Jriver, or any other device that will work. I'd be happy to buy another device, so long as it works like I want it to.
I want to browse and select what I want to play on my PC with Windows Media Center.
I hope this makes more sense and hope there is a way to accomplish this.
Thanks,
--J
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Does anyone have any ideas?
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Thanks for the response.
That's a bummer.
I read somewhere that MyMovies has a DLNA server built in. Does it not offer the "Play To" feature? If it did, I could use that to play to my Oppo or Dune and then still use WMC for both the Oppo/Dune and my Disc Changers.
I'm looking for an integrated solution so I don't have to teach people to select different inputs for different devices.
I want them to be able to select "Watch Movie" and have all the movies/TV Shows available in one location.
Thanks,
--J
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jevansoh, I'm curious how you use WMC to play discs in your changer, I don't know how this works. Does WMC control the changer, and the changer outputs directly to the TV? Or does WMC control the changer, and the changer outputs to WMC and WMC to the TV? Thanks. Paul
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The changers simply play direct to your TV/display or whatever their video out is connected to just like any other DVD/Blu-ray player. What My Movies does in regards to the Sony Mega-changers is it will turn the player on, and tell it to play the relevant disc in the slot set in the title location via an RS232 connection. The principle purpose of the changer control is it provides an interface to select the disc for playback via the My Movies WMCE title selection. This requires having the changer connected to the PC via an RS232 connection and the changer configured and the slot locations set in the title data and the necessary contribution points to unlock the feature. Essentially it replaces the very limited menu selection of the player itself with the My Movies interface which gives you all the My Movies title data, description, covers etc. and all the titles are in the one interface even if you have multiple changers. So you select the title from the WMCE My Movies interface just as you would any other and click play and the relevant changer will be turned on and load the disc in the set slot.
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Very cool, thanks for sharing. So essentially you either need 2 screens, or to switch inputs on your A/V receiver between WMC and the changer after starting playback.
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binnerup wrote:Yea, back when this functionality was used, we had input switchers for receivers, where it could be done though these. This sounds like a lot of work to play a movie and also expensive given the price of the disc changers. Would it be a lot easier and less expensive to rip the discs to a NAS drive and play the movie directly from WMC, or CMC?
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jkwaterman wrote:binnerup wrote:Yea, back when this functionality was used, we had input switchers for receivers, where it could be done though these. This sounds like a lot of work to play a movie and also expensive given the price of the disc changers. Would it be a lot easier and less expensive to rip the discs to a NAS drive and play the movie directly from WMC, or CMC? That's what a good activity based universal remote is for. It does all the work for you. You'd have one activity for WMC and other activities for each Blu-ray changer. Within the My Movies for WMC7 interface the "Location" details call out the changer and slot number of each disc. For titles that include more than one disc you could even include the slot number in parentheses when naming each disc. (You can see an example of this here.) When finding something to watch and pressing play My Movies for WMC7 powers on the particular changer, then loading the selected disc. With your universal remote you're just changing to the activity for the particular Blu-ray changer at that point. Done deal. It's a couple button presses.
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It was not that complicated, and the process was better in usage than a universal remote. It would let users browse on WMC as normal, and when locating a title, and clicking play, it would initiate the changer to start playing that disc, and after it requested that, it would communicate with the receiver and switch it to the hdmi port the changer was on - it was relatively simple, but gave a reasonably good user experience. But yes, copying to NAS was a better alternative. At the time, storage of 400 Blu-rays was extremely expensive storage wise, and users in some countries did not want to use AnyDVD* and decryption software in general because of legal issues. I actually still have one of those 400 disc Blu-ray Sony changers in the basement which was used for development - but it is likely to be "archived" somewhere where it will end its days in near future, because I have made use of it for more than five years. If there was 400 disc changers for UDH titles, and the picture quality would meet the Oppo and other players, I still think that it would make sense to use these changers, but today I see it just as legacy for some specific users - I do not know how many that still uses the functionality.
Having trouble installing or upgrading to My Movies 5? Click here for troubleshooting.Having a problem? Searching our Knowledge Base is always the first step.How can I produce a log file in My Movies for Windows?How can I fully uninstall My Movies for Windows* Installing and/or using AnyDVD is illegal in some countries. Users are themselves responsible for complying with local law when installing and using AnyDVD.
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To each his own, but personally I see little value in My Movies also being able to switch one's receiver to the correct input in this usage scenario. At most it caters to the user that controls all of their equipment with individual OEM remotes. Aside from that I don't see how it's of benefit. We're also assuming there's no other equipment involved that may need to be sent commands. Setting that aside for a moment. How does one power on their system and bring WMC up on their display to begin with? How does one control playback of the particular changer once My Movies powers it on and loads the selected disc? How does one go back to My Movies for WMC once they're done watching a disc? How does one power on their system and changer to resume playing the last disc they didn't finish watching without involving My Movies? What about other activities the particular system is used for? And this doesn't apply to just users with Sony changers. The same can be said for anyone who uses My Movies to browse "Offline" content, i.e. finding a disc to watch via My Movies for WMC, then grabbing the particular DVD or Blu-ray off the shelf placing it in their single disc player. There's just no escaping the need for even the most basic of activity based universal remotes. You have one activity in your universal remote for WMC and another activity for your changer(s) or single disc player. Your then changing from one activity to another as needed. It's not the least bit complicated. My Movies being able to select a HDMI input on your receiver doesn't make it somehow less complicated and certainly doesn't make it a better usage scenario to that of a universal remote. And furthermore, an activity based universal remote is far better equipped to ensure your entire system is in the proper state it needs to be in and irrespective of how your system may change over time.
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fdavis71 wrote:The same can be said for anyone who uses My Movies to browse "Offline" content, i.e. finding a disc to watch via My Movies for WMC, then grabbing the particular DVD or Blu-ray off the shelf placing it in their single disc player. I feel a little bit qualified to comment on this, at least with regards to Chameleon MediaCenter, my replacement for WMC. In CMC, you can browse your online and offline collection together, seamlessly. When you go to play an offline title, it will give you a little reminder that this is an offline title. And here's the critical part: When you insert a physical disc into your PC, CMC determines what type of disc was inserted, and automatically begins playback using your configured player for that disc type (you can configure different players for DVD vs Blu-ray vs UHD 4K). So there wouldn't be a need for a standalone player, or changing of inputs, or activity based remote to change modes. I also recently learned that MMCM has a place where you can record the location of a disc in the Personal Info, which is handy for users who have stored their discs away in dozens of boxes under the house (you may laugh, but I'm serious). I hope to add this info to CMC in the future, so that when you go to play an offline disc, if you've recorded where that disc is located then CMC would show you in the offline disc reminder prompt. Personally, I'm intrigued by the idea of controlling a changer with the PC. While you're right, it doesn't make it uncomplicated, it does remove what is likely the most difficult step - figuring out in which slot and in which changer that movie resides and then manually queueing it up. But if I was going to add this capability to CMC, I think I would also want to implement a tablet app that would communicate back to the PC that is controlling the changers. That way, you could be on the comfort of your couch/chair, swiping away through your movie collection on your tablet or phone, and when you find the one you're looking for, pressing a button essentially "casts" it to the screen, and you could leave your media center in the "play from changer" mode all the time. I know Binnerup has invested a lot of time and effort into their apps in recent years, and I'm ashamed to say I haven't played with them, so I don't know what they can do. Perhaps they can already do as I describe? Paul
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