DVD Player Plugin for Apple TV

[Andrew Wilkinson]

Hi there,

 

I don't know why someone hasn't made a DVD player plugin for Apple TV like Front Row. I'm running Apple TV on my Mac mini and it's a total pain to have to quit it and start DVD player every time I want to. Can somebody PLEASE makea plugin.

 

-Andrew

[hazkid]

Its not that easy. DVDs use encrypted MPEG-2 video.

Quicktime does not play mpeg2 well. also, a dvd is a collection of .bub, .vob, and other various formats that link together. QT cannot support these links. THerefore, you would have to search for the largest .vob file, play it, and search for the second largest and play it. All of these assume you have DVDs that aren't copy protected. Commercial DVDs use copy protection systems: CSS and Macrovision. QT cannot decode protected DVDs. At all.

 

The only way a plugin would work is if it would execute a command to:

1-Close BackRow

2-execute this command

/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC dvdnav///dev/rdisk3 -f

 

This would potentially close appletv, open VLC, play a dvd, and make it fullscreen. I've attached an icon if anyone wants to make the VLC plugin.

[PascalW]

Its not that easy. DVDs use encrypted MPEG-2 video.

Quicktime does not play mpeg2 well. also, a dvd is a collection of .bub, .vob, and other various formats that link together. QT cannot support these links. THerefore, you would have to search for the largest .vob file, play it, and search for the second largest and play it. All of these assume you have DVDs that aren't copy protected. Commercial DVDs use copy protection systems: CSS and Macrovision. QT cannot decode protected DVDs. At all.

 

The only way a plugin would work is if it would execute a command to:

1-Close BackRow

2-execute this command

/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC dvdnav///dev/rdisk3 -f

 

This would potentially close appletv, open VLC, play a dvd, and make it fullscreen. I've attached an icon if anyone wants to make the VLC plugin.

 

 

This can be done pretty easily with this plugin: http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/04...t_an_app_1.html. It's a plugin to exectue perl scripts from within AppleTV. You could use a script like this:

 

 

#! /usr/bin/perl

system ("'/Applications/VLC player/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC' -f dvdnav:///dev/rdisk3  | kill `ps uxc | grep -i 'Apple TV' | awk '{print $2}'`")

 

 

just change 'Apple TV' with how you named the appleTV binary, and change the '/Applications/VLC player/VLC.app' with the path to where you located VLC player. and /dev/rdisk2 with your dvd player. (keep the single quotes btw).

 

 

I don't think actually this is a nice way of playing dvd's, it would be more handy if it just could play dvd's in Apple TV. But this could be a temporary solution untill that is possible.

[hazkid]

I don't think actually this is a nice way of playing dvd's, it would be more handy if it just could play dvd's in Apple TV. But this could be a temporary solution untill that is possible.

 

But AppleTV uses QT! Even Front Row has to launch DVD Player.app to play DVDs.

[PascalW]

I don't think actually this is a nice way of playing dvd's, it would be more handy if it just could play dvd's in Apple TV. But this could be a temporary solution untill that is possible.

 

But AppleTV uses QT! Even Front Row has to launch DVD Player.app to play DVDs.

 

Well then if you like it feel free to use it

[Urbz]

I don't think actually this is a nice way of playing dvd's, it would be more handy if it just could play dvd's in Apple TV. But this could be a temporary solution untill that is possible.

 

But AppleTV uses QT! Even Front Row has to launch DVD Player.app to play DVDs.

I don't think he gets it lol!

 

Well then if you like it feel free to use it

You sound very arrogant. Not the best way to get people to develop something for you!

 

-Urby

[hazkid]

I wasn't attacking your plugin idea-- it's great! All I was saying was that QT cannot and will never (unless Apple decrees it so) be able to play DVDs, and we will have to use an external solution such as VLC or DVD Player.app.

 

Edit: I wonder if it is possible to analyse an actual, standard Front Row 1.3 (prov. w/ all intel macs) and figure out how it plays DVDs. Then, apply those concepts and/or Frameworksand/or DVD Player.app to create a plugin very similar to the one that FR actually uses. of course, this would still open dvd player, but potententially it could run in the background, nulling the need to quit backrow.

[PascalW]

I don't think he gets it lol!

You sound very arrogant. Not the best way to get people to develop something for you!

 

-Urby

 

First of all I could have misunderstood, my english is not that good. Second of all it wasn't meant arrogant, and third I'm not requesting a dvd player plugin for appletv, I just saw this thread an thought up this solution.What's wrong with that?

[maccabbi]

What about just hiding appletv long enough to watch the dvd from dvd player? This is what app launcher does, and when you close the app it goes back to Apple TV. You could just install thaty plugin and add DVD player to it. If you want the extra plugin I made it for you so check it out, called DVD and uses the icon from this thread.

dvd.zip

[martinr]

maccabbi I have tried your new DVD plugin, but I am having a few problems. I unzip it and load it into the plugins folder. But then Front Row/ATV won't start up. Take it out, and Front Row/ATV starts... No matter how many times I repeat, I get the same result.

 

From what I have read, I think you are on the right lines, we need to use DVD player.app to play DVDs, and to do this we need to close Front Row/ATV and start up DVD player.app.

 

I am keen to help with this process anyway I can - test etc.

 

Martin

[maccabbi]

yeah, I didn't write the script just changed it to launch DVD Player. It loads fine for me but only works about half the time. I'll run through the script and see if I can improve it but probably not for a couple of weeks, school is busy right now.