Greyhole and DVD Iso / Video_TS storage

[bertie40]

Hi.
Bear with me.

Quick Question : Is it better to store movies as single ISO files, or as VIDEO_TS folders (containing the VOBS etc) to avoid stuttering.

Discussion : I use Amahi to stream movies to my VU+ Uno satellite Receiver.
These Movie's exist as VIDEO_TS folders or Single ISO images.

The Uno (bless it) can read and play both, along with just about everything else .

However, on occasion the stream can stutter.

Amahi is configured to power down unused drives, but there is a bit of a lag when a drive needs to be woken up / accessed.

NOW ........If the Vob files are duplicated across two drives, is it possible that once one of the VOBs has been viewed, the next successive VOB is accessed from the second (backup) drive which needs to wake up, thus causing the stutter ?

OR

Does Greyhole read from the next successive VOB file on the same drive ?

Is Greyhole intelligent enough to recognise that VOB collections (Full VIDEO_TS contents) should be stored on the same drive ?

Are the contents of VIDEO_TS folders all copied on to a single drive, or are the contents / VOBS split across multiple drives ?

I hope I've made my Query clear

Regards

[spline]

Hi,

good questions. To be honest, i hadn't have a look on the greyhole source to see what it's doing, but i try to explain it from a logical pint of view.

NOW ........If the Vob files are duplicated across two drives, is it possible that once one of the VOBs has been viewed, the next successive VOB is accessed from the second (backup) drive which needs to wake up, thus causing the stutter ?

It depends: For greyhole a VOB is just like any other file. It doesn't know that this is a part of a movie. It's just a collection of bits and bytes. So it depends on the storage algorithm of greyhole on which drive the file will be stored. Normally it will be stored on the drive which has the most available space. So it could be, that one file goes to one dicsk and the next will go the another. But if both files are copied at the same time, it's most likely, that they will be on the same drive.
You can check this on your own. Use a terminal to access the file system, go to the directory with the landing zone (/var/hda/files in normal cases) change to the directory with the VOB file and do a ls -l. Now you can see to wich "real" file the link goes to.

Also it's not greyholes responsibility to "cache" files. It's your playback device wich asks greyhole to deliver the next VOB when the first one is finished.

So if your device recognizes that the VOB is near the end it asks greyhole to deliver the next one (and greyhole doesn't know that this is a part of a movie. For geyhole it's just another file).
Greyhole looks into the share, check where the link in the share is going to, reads the file and delivers it to your device.

Does Greyhole read from the next successive VOB file on the same drive ?

Is Greyhole intelligent enough to recognise that VOB collections (Full VIDEO_TS contents) should be stored on the same drive ?

Are the contents of VIDEO_TS folders all copied on to a single drive, or are the contents / VOBS split across multiple drives ?

I hope the answers to thes questions are a little bit clearer now.

1. It depends on where the link in the share points to
2. No (maybe this could be done using "sticky) but im not sure.
3. Depends on the algorithm of storing files.


In my point of view, having a movie in a singe ISO is the better way.


Hope this helps


Juergen