Streaming RAR files (2 Viewers)

[SEALen]

There is a stop gap measure available called WinMount. It will mount a .rar archive as a virtual drive. It will also take command line commands so it could probably be made to work with mediaportal. You would still need to browse for the rar file, run the script to mount it and then browse to that virtual drive to play the video.

And we all know that the reason to have videos in split up .rar archives is to make downloading them faster as you can download from several sources at once. A bit like a manual bittorent you could say.

 

[FreQi]

anyone may enlighten me and tell me whats the pro of playing a compressed archive file (zip, rar, ace ect.)?

Streaming out of compressed rar's is not really the goal... Streaming out of rar files that have been created in "store" mode is what we're looking for. It is the job of the a/v codec to compress the data. RAR is basically just being used as a fancy file splitter that breaks the files into chunks and wraps them up into the rar "container".

Personally, I am dying for MP to be able to do this as it would greatly ease my transition from XBMC by not forcing me to rework my video archive.

And on a side note, the source code for reading from or decompressing rar's is available from RAR's creator as freeware (here, download). There is even a pre-compiled .dll if that makes things easier...

 

[diablo266]

As i hope most of you are well aware of, XBMC is being ported to linux and this ability will become a mute point sense a much better alternative will be available very soon

 

[infinite.loop]

As i hope most of you are well aware of, XBMC is being ported to linux and this ability will become a mute point sense a much better alternative will be available very soon

yup, noticed that.
i am curious how it will turn out.

now they "only" need a tv-engine to be a complete HTPC solution

anyone may enlighten me and tell me whats the pro of playing a compressed archive file (zip, rar, ace ect.)?

Streaming out of compressed rar's is not really the goal... Streaming out of rar files that have been created in "store" mode is what we're looking for.

now i realy do not understand why it should be unseful in any way......

only because you dont have to "spend time with unpacking" ?

who creates rar files in store mode?
because the compression rate is the whole point of using compressors

 

[jburnette]

now i realy do not understand why it should be unseful in any way......

only because you dont have to "spend time with unpacking" ?

who creates rar files in store mode?
because the compression rate is the whole point of using compressors

First, let me stress that I'm talking about legal content. When you download a movie it is generally in a set of rars. That is how movies get released. It's not necessarily something we do for fun or for storage reasons, it's how the movie is released. I would imagine that initially it was done this way so that if you did have a transfer error (we're talking FTP servers) you would simply have to start back on the rar you left off on. Also, when couriers are racing the releases from site to site, multiple couriers can be transferring the same release to the same site (hence racing). For that to work the release HAS to be split up into a set of files. I would get credit for each rar I transfer and you would get credit for the ones you transferred. So, by the time the release hits sources that the general users have access to it is still in the rar set. This is how things have been done for a long time now. The benefit of streaming out of the rars is that once I have RAR 1 I can begin watching the movie. That, to me, outweighs the fact that I don't have to unrar (although that is nice too). I understand that supporting this is not like waving a magic wand and seeing it appear in the code, I'm just trying to help you understand. I hope that clears it up.

 

[infinite.loop]

[First, let me stress that I'm talking about legal content..

i know many sites where you can download movies legaly. and none uses rar.
i also know others which do use it

but lets forget that, because i am not interesed where you get yours and it doesnt matter.

The benefit of streaming out of the rars is that once I have RAR 1 I can begin watching the movie.

so it is like i thought. its only about to save the time uncompressing requires.

to cut it short.
it seems that currently no developer of the team mediaportal is interested in implementing/developing such a feature.
but if someone of the community comes up with a nice and clean solution, it can be added to svn after a review by our developers.

 

[Inker]

First, let me stress that I'm talking about legal content. When you download a movie it is generally in a set of rars. That is how movies get released. It's not necessarily something we do for fun or for storage reasons, it's how the movie is released. I would imagine that initially it was done this way so that if you did have a transfer error (we're talking FTP servers) you would simply have to start back on the rar you left off on. Also, when couriers are racing the releases from site to site, multiple couriers can be transferring the same release to the same site (hence racing). For that to work the release HAS to be split up into a set of files. I would get credit for each rar I transfer and you would get credit for the ones you transferred. So, by the time the release hits sources that the general users have access to it is still in the rar set. This is how things have been done for a long time now. The benefit of streaming out of the rars is that once I have RAR 1 I can begin watching the movie. That, to me, outweighs the fact that I don't have to unrar (although that is nice too). I understand that supporting this is not like waving a magic wand and seeing it appear in the code, I'm just trying to help you understand. I hope that clears it up.

First let me say that I agree it would be useful and I too would like to have it, but come on....what you describe is "picture book" (Bilderbuch) "scene". By describing in such details you made your first sentence almost laugable.

Let's just go back to pretending you rar up your holiday movies and thats why you want this functionality.

 

[jburnette]

Guys, I was simply trying to help explain the benefit while trying to stay as legal as possible. I'm not screaming "ADD IT, ADD IT!". I was just trying to help.

 

[infinite.loop]

I'm not screaming "ADD IT, ADD IT!". I was just trying to help.

i know. thats the reason why i replied.
"gimme, gimme, gimme- threads" are on my ignore list

again. team mediaportal devs are busy with "other things" you will soon know more about.
so if any community member is able to add that support -> go, go ,go!

it can be added to svn when its done and has been reviewed by our team developers.

 

[jburnette]

I'm not screaming "ADD IT, ADD IT!". I was just trying to help.

i know. thats the reason why i replied.
"gimme, gimme, gimme- threads" are on my ignore list

again. team mediaportal devs are busy with "other things" you will soon know more about.
so if any community member is able to add that support -> go, go ,go!

it can be added to svn when its done and has been reviewed by our team developers.

In that case thanks for the reply.