Use OS X DVD Player without a DVD drive installed?

[deadpoet]

I have one of the new iBook 800Mhz notebooks with CD-ROM drive only, no CDRW/DVD combo. I'd like to play DVDs off the hard drive.

How can I get DVD Player to stop giving me this fatal error upon startup: "DVD Player encountered a serious error: A valid DVD drive could not be found. [-70012]"

I simply can't get past this dialog, the app quits immediately when I hit the OK button. Argh!!

I have tried using VLC and MPlayer, but the DVD playback is rather jerky as it doesn't make use of the hardware acceleration that DVD Player does.

 

[ftaok]

Re: Use OS X DVD Player without a DVD drive installed?

Originally posted by deadpoet
I have one of the new iBook 800Mhz notebooks with CD-ROM drive only, no CDRW/DVD combo. I'd like to play DVDs off the hard drive.

How can I get DVD Player to stop giving me this fatal error upon startup: "DVD Player encountered a serious error: A valid DVD drive could not be found. [-70012]"

I simply can't get past this dialog, the app quits immediately when I hit the OK button. Argh!!

I have tried using VLC and MPlayer, but the DVD playback is rather jerky as it doesn't make use of the hardware acceleration that DVD Player does.

How exactly would you play a DVD off the hard drive if you don't have a DVD drive in the first place? I guess you could copy the DVD onto another Mac (one with a DVD drive) and then transfer it to your iBook.

Anyways, I really don't have an answer for you. Maybe you could do a search over at MacOSXHints or something.

BTW, I'm not aware that Apple's DVD Player uses hardware acceleration. As far as I know, Apple did away with hardware DVD acceleration about 3 years ago.

 

[deadpoet]

Re: Re: Use OS X DVD Player without a DVD drive installed?

Originally posted by ftaok
How exactly would you play a DVD off the hard drive if you don't have a DVD drive in the first place? I guess you could copy the DVD onto another Mac (one with a DVD drive) and then transfer it to your iBook.

I'm a recent switcher, I have a Windows PC with a DVD-ROM drive that I use to extract DVD video to hard drive. I then copy it over the network to my ibook.

Anyways, I really don't have an answer for you. Maybe you could do a search over at MacOSXHints or something.

BTW, I'm not aware that Apple's DVD Player uses hardware acceleration. As far as I know, Apple did away with hardware DVD acceleration about 3 years ago.

Already did a search at MacOSXHints and google, nothing turned up I'm surprised -- I would've thought there would be plenty of Mac users without DVD drives who would want to use DVD Player to play DVD video off their hard drive?

As for hardware acceleration, from my extensive search and reading, I found that many people can play DVD video smoothly using Apple's DVD Player, but not VLC or MPlayer. VLC's makers themselves acknowledge that they don't support the hardware acceleration that Apple's DVD Player does, hence it requires a much meatier processor to play DVD video smoothly.

 

[mkubal]

What format is the ripped video in? Divx?

Matt

 

[FatTony]

I'm not sure how you get the video off of the DVD. I'm not sure what else on the disc is goig to let apple's DVD Player app know its a DVD. However, try making a disk image with Disk Copy in /Applications/Utilities. Then put the contents of the DVD in the disk image. You will have a virtual DVD on the mac.

I used to do this with floppies even before the mac got rid of them. You could create virtual floopies from install disk and have safe backup of your install disks and reinstall apps much quicker than from floppies.

 

[deadpoet]

I use DVDx on my Windows PC to extract the DVD video off a DVD. It then generates a VIDEO_TS folder (or something along those lines) which I copy over the network to my iBook. I can play the DVD video with VLC and MPplayer, but like I said it's quite choppy and I heard that people experience much better results if they play it with Apple's DVD Player.

No I'm not trying to use DVD Player to play DivX files. I use VLC to play my DivX/AVI etc.

I can't make a disk image using Disk Copy since my iBook doesn't have a DVD drive. Is there a Windows program which can make Mac disk images?

 

[mkubal]

Originally posted by deadpoet
I use DVDx on my Windows PC to extract the DVD video off a DVD. It then generates a VIDEO_TS folder (or something along those lines) which I copy over the network to my iBook. I can play the DVD video with VLC and MPplayer, but like I said it's quite choppy and I heard that people experience much better results if they play it with Apple's DVD Player.

No I'm not trying to use DVD Player to play DivX files. I use VLC to play my DivX/AVI etc.

I can't make a disk image using Disk Copy since my iBook doesn't have a DVD drive. Is there a Windows program which can make Mac disk images?

But do you happen to know the specific file type or are there just a bunch of files in the VIDEO_TS folder? I was going to suggest that if it was Divx that you use quicktime. I'm pretty sure there are some plug-ins that allow you to play Divx files. Past that I have no clue. Sorry.

Matt

 

[iJon]

lol, i think i know what you need, a DVD ROM! no wonder you cant do it, you could do it on your pc because you had a dvd rom. youll have to extract it from a mac with a dvd rom or a pc

iJon

 

[deadpoet]

Originally posted by iJon
lol, i think i know what you need, a DVD ROM! no wonder you cant do it, you could do it on your pc because you had a dvd rom. youll have to extract it from a mac with a dvd rom or a pc

iJon

I'm afraid you're missing the point, my goal is basically just to get Apple's DVD Player to startup and work without a DVD drive installed.

I've already extracted the DVD video off an actual DVD, so that's not what's holding me up. I don't wanna buy a firewire/USB DVD-ROM drive just so I can start up DVD Player with no errors, and then open up the Video_TS folder and play it

 

[iJon]

Originally posted by deadpoet
I'm afraid you're missing the point, my goal is basically just to get Apple's DVD Player to startup and work without a DVD drive installed.

I've already extracted the DVD video off an actual DVD, so that's not what's holding me up. I don't wanna buy a firewire/USB DVD-ROM drive just so I can start up DVD Player with no errors, and then open up the Video_TS folder and play it

i recommend mounting the dvd, then extract the movie using forty-two, it will take about all night to do but it will get the job done.

iJon

 

[FatTony]

You don't need a DVD drive to make a disk image with Disk Copy.

Open Disk Copy
Under the File menu choose New -> Blank Image
In the dialogue box, shoose either DVD-R/DVD-RAM or custom to create an empty virtual DVD.
Copy your files into the disk image and you will have a virtual copy of your original DVD*

* If you are able to extract everything correctly with your PC.

 

[saabmp3]

I would reccomend trying VLC. It's a video program on versiontracker that can play Video_TS JUST fine without a DVD drive installed. I know it's not what you want, but it's what's going to do the trick for you.

BEN

 

[ftaok]

I think many of us are missing deadpoet's point.

1. He's already tried VLC and mplayer. They both work, but not that well. (BTW, I don't fully believe what the VLC guys told you about Apple using hardware acceleration. I think DVD Player works better because it's coded better.)

2. Making a disk image of the DVD won't help him. He can't get the DVD Player app to stay open because it's not detecting a DVD drive. Apparently, DVD Player looks for a DVD drive and if it doesn't find one, it shuts down.

3. The DVD files that he's using aren't divx encoded ones. He's basically extracted the VIDEO_TS folder off of the disc and is trying to play it. Normally, DVD Player can play VIDEO_TS folders (I've done it. It works)

4. He can't extract the DVD using forty-two because his iBook doesn't have a DVD drive. However, he could extract the DVD on his PC.

Here's my suggestion. Don't bother trying to watch the VIDEO_TS folder with DVD Player. Unless someone writes a hack to trick it into thinking a DVD drive is installed, you're out of luck. You're better off suffering with VLC or mplayer.

Option 2. Rip the DVD on your PC and encode it with divx or mpg or something. Then play it with Quicktime Player (note - QT Player doesn't do full-screen playback unless you upgrade to QT Pro). VLC or mplayer will be able to play back these files (in full-screen too) and the video may be less choppy because you're playing an avi (or mpg) rather than a DVD. NOTE - I don't know if it would be any less choppy.

 

[deadpoet]

Originally posted by ftaok

Option 2. Rip the DVD on your PC and encode it with divx or mpg or something. Then play it with Quicktime Player (note - QT Player doesn't do full-screen playback unless you upgrade to QT Pro). VLC or mplayer will be able to play back these files (in full-screen too) and the video may be less choppy because you're playing an avi (or mpg) rather than a DVD. NOTE - I don't know if it would be any less choppy.

thanks ftaok, you're right on the money! Thanks to everyone else as well for the suggestions

VLC seems to play DivX just fine on my iBook, it's perfectly smooth, unlike the DVD playback. So I guess I'll just have to encode the DVD video using DivX and play it back that way...

 

[hvfsl]

I have a PB G4 550 and VLC plays DVDs just fine on my Mac, you might have some sort of de-interlacing enabled which slows things down a lot. By the way VLC/Mplayer has problems playing DIVXs encoded at more than 640x480.