VDR

Asus O!Play Release

I upgraded my Asus O!Play media box to the latest release 1.30P on Sunday and CIFS support really improved.

Before that upgrade I had to open the Network folder twice to get my local Samba server into the list, now it will detect that immediately.

Merge/Join MP4 Videos

Using cat on the Linux command line for a radically simple merge of multiple MPEG4 files, will not work. You can check VLC on the result, which will stop after the first part.

Fix VDR Recordings (MPEG-PS)

I am using the following script to copy a VDR recording into a MPEG-PS container using a robust input decoder, so there is a good chance, that any errors in the recording are fixed:

Streaming MPEG-TS

Up to release 1.6 VDR is recording into MPEG-PS files named *.vdr. In later releases this switched to MPEG-TS (with some impact on moving markers).

The Asus O!Play is fine with the TS (Transport Stream) format, but lacks support of the *.vdr files.

Streaming VDR

Since my VGA to PAL adapter attached to the VDR host is not really working well for video, I am now owner of a media player that covers the following options:

  • low-cost
  • wired networking capabilities
  • support of many media formats
  • small, moderate power consumption