I need to share a dvd drive...

[*SlyVenom*]

How can I share a dvd drive, so I can acess it properly from another computer on the network?

I enabled sharing, but it shows up as a folder...
even worse now when I try to acess it trough network neighborhood it opens and then freezes up.
I do not have a dvd drive on the computer I'm trying to acess it from, I'm sure this is causing the problem, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

Any help would be appreciated...

[DocPC]

Maybe you will need to install the DVD software on the other boxes???

I have never tried this..........

[*SlyVenom*]

[quote]Originally posted by DocPC:
<strong>Maybe you will need to install the DVD software on the other boxes???

I have never tried this..........</strong><hr></blockquote>

I might have to, but will it load a driver to run it?
From the little information I've found it's that it should work, but no-one seems to be able to get it to actually work for movies. I was just hoping someone might know...

[Chris_MacMahon]

you can share the dvd as a cd-rom drive, but you won't be able to see movies on the networked pc. i don't know why it is, but you can't.
what protocol are you running?
if tcp/ip, then map the ip of the host (one with the dvd-rom and what you have shared the dvd-rom as
example
\\192.168.1.1\dvd
ipx/spx
servername\sharename

[*SlyVenom*]

[quote]Originally posted by Chris MacMahon:
<strong>you can share the dvd as a cd-rom drive, but you won't be able to see movies on the networked pc. i don't know why it is, but you can't.
what protocol are you running?
if tcp/ip, then map the ip of the host (one with the dvd-rom and what you have shared the dvd-rom as
example
\\192.168.1.1\dvd
ipx/spx
servername\sharename</strong><hr></blockquote>

tcp/ip on a win2k machine...
I got it to read cd-roms, I can't get it to play dvd movies over the network.
No-one seems to know why this doesn't work, and until I find a logical answer I won't give up.

[Ya_know]

The reason why a shared CDR can't be used to burn over the network is because the CDR drive itself is abstract to the networked PC. Drivers for the burning software communicate directly with the CDR; this is required. Without that communication it is just another share providing access to files Read Only.

It has been a long time since I installed a DVD-ROM, but as I recall they used to require an additional decoder card to loop back to the video card. I believe this is still the case, although many advanced graphics cards have built-in hardware assistance for MPEG-2 decompression. Still, for the same reason you would be precluded from using a shared DVD-ROM, because of the abstract hardware relationship over the network.

That is the best I can do. If you keep researching it you will eventually find the technical explanation for it all. I would like to know the ins and outs as well.

P.S. Have you ever tried to share out a CD-ROM, and then play music over the network? It doesn’t work because the audio playback is looped right into the sound card on the host PC. The above is along the same premise.

[Kymera]

That won't work because you are treating the music cd like a music cd, and it won't work across the network, but if you explore the cd and drop the .cda(?) into Windows media player it will work. I have not actually tried to do what you are trying to do SV, but I imagine that if you attempted to play the .vob files from the DVD you might have some success. You probably won't because of the encryption, but at least the attempt would be made.

[SuBz]

I have no idea if it would work or not. I think the DVD drive actually gets the decryption keys and stores them somewhere. So on a networked drive I don't know if it would work or not.

You should map the drive, and use a software dvd player, like WinDVD or PowerDVD. If that doesn't work, then you can't watch movies most likely.

[*SlyVenom*]

Thank You for all your input.
I will try to load a software program like power dvd. and I might also try loading a regionless software hack if I can find one..
When I do have time to test this I will post my results.