Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

[tiagobt]

I'm using KDE 4.2 and I've been trying to play videos from a remote computer, which is part of a Samba network. Apparently, neither MPlayer nor VLC can handle the SMB protocol, meaning I can't even browse through network folders to look for the video. If I use Dolphin to look for the video, and then open the video with one of the players, KDE copies the entire video to a temporary folder, and only then plays it, which is not what I'm trying to do. The only way I could get network video to work properly was by using Dragon Player, either using Dolphin or the internal file manager to locate the files. Is this really not possible with VLC and MPlayer? Is this issue specific to KDE 4.X (I though I was able to do this before ). Any workarounds?

Thanks a lot,
Tiago

[sithlord48]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

if you use nfs for your shares you can mount the share, then all programs will see the share as if its in the fs.

its not a kde4 issue its a smb issue

[tiagobt]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

I see. But the remote computer uses Windows, so SMB is my only option right now.

I'm not sure I understand how this is an SMB issue. For example, how could I ever open a network video in VLC if the program doesn't let me access the SMB protocol?

Thanks again,
Tiago

[Urge]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

Think of it like this. Linux handles Samba connections similar to a FTP connection, therefore you can't access a FTP folder through an application. However, it is VERY EASY to mount a samba share and once you do that, all applications see the files as if they're local. I play 1080p videos from my NAS with VLC all the time and have no problems whatsoever.

[sithlord48]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

how does one mount a smb share?

[tiagobt]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

Thanks! Mounting the SMB share really works. I followed the instructions on Setting Up Samba (look for the "CIFS" part). The section "Allow non-root users to mount SMB shares" is useful if you want to mount the share manually using the command line and the section "Automagically mount SMB shares" is useful if you want to mount the share automatically on boot.

Tiago

[sithlord48]

Re: Network Video (VLC, MPlayer)

that is the coolest thing... just saved me lots of time and the need to use nfs completely thanks ! now that one less thing for my "server" to run