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Playing videos directly from non-ext3 devices

dma

dma

Member
Hi,

I've just decrypted my archive and it would be more convenient to put the videos on exfat filesystem as it tends to be the most portable for me (without the size limitations of fat32).

Is it possible to plug in an exfat formatted USB drive and play the videos directly on the Humax, or can this only be done with ext3. I could reformat to ext3, but this isn't quite as convenient.

I know the copy/move function will work with non-ext3 but I want to play them directly, rather than copy.

Thanks!
 
Thanks for the reply. I have the exfat support package installed but it mounts the drive under /media/gpt-drive1 which is not part of "/mnt/hd2/My Video" where all the encrypted videos live. I was just wondering if an non-ext3 device could be mounted under here. It doesn't seem possible by manually mounting the device.
 
Hmm under Media -> Storage (blue button) I get 2 options - HDD and Network. The HDD seems to be the internal ext3 hard disk. Maybe exfat drives don't show up here. I could try with ntfs or fat32.

The drive is automatically mounted (/dev/sda1) as fuseblk which I guess is exfat.

humax# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type squashfs (ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /media type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/mtdblock1 on /var/lib/humaxtv type jffs2 (rw)
/dev/mtdblock2 on /var/lib/humaxtv_backup type jffs2 (rw)
/dev/mtdblock2 on /usr/browser/config-ocontroller-si-rootfs.txt type jffs2 (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/hd1 type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb2 on /mnt/hd2 type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb3 on /mnt/hd3 type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb2 on /opt/share/images/blue type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /media/gpt-drive1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other)
 
Aha! I think maybe you need another (FAT or NTFS) USB device plugged in as well so as to force the Humax code to pick up that there is a CF virtualised device available (or, on the other hand, I might be talking out of my arse and something else is going wrong). An alternative to another device is the virtual-disk2 package, which will achieve a similar thing.
 
Yes I think the problem is exfat. If I use a FAT32 usb stick, I can see the device under storage (blue).

The drive is also mounted as usb-drive1 under "My Videos" just like ext3...

humax# df -h | grep sda1
/dev/sda1 7.2G 5.2G 2.0G 72% /media/drive1
/dev/sda1 7.2G 5.2G 2.0G 72% /mnt/hd2/My\040Video/usb-drive1

Pity FAT32 has a file size limitation... :-(
 
You've fixed it! That package seemed to do the trick. Strangely usb-drive1 and usb-drive2 show no files, but now using blue button for storage, I can select the exfat drive - which is good enough for me.

Thanks for your help!
 
Thanks, this does seem to be the same problem.

Just 2 annoyances with this solution...

1. When booting the Humax, you are confronted with a menu option to select a device (just because the usb device was present at bootup). I can press "back" to get rid of it, but is there any way to turn it off?

2. Rather annoyingly the usb-drive2 mount does happen automatically...

humax# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 17.7M 17.7M 0 100% /
tmpfs 61.0M 88.0K 61.0M 0% /tmp
tmpfs 61.0M 0 61.0M 0% /media
/dev/mtdblock1 2.0M 560.0K 1.5M 27% /var/lib/humaxtv
/dev/mtdblock2 2.0M 860.0K 1.2M 42% /var/lib/humaxtv_backup
/dev/mtdblock2 2.0M 860.0K 1.2M 42% /usr/browser/config-ocontroller-si-rootfs.txt
/dev/sdb1 1011.4M 46.4M 913.6M 5% /mnt/hd1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /mnt/hd2
/dev/sdb3 9.8G 333.8M 9.0G 3% /mnt/hd3
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /opt/share/images/blue
/dev/sda1 1.8T 1.2T 607.1G 67% /media/gpt-drive1
/dev/sdc1 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /media/drive1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /media/drive1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /mnt/hd2/My\040Video/usb-drive1

You can manually mount it and it works fine...

humax# mount /dev/sda1 "/mnt/hd2/My Video/usb-drive1"

humax# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 17.7M 17.7M 0 100% /
tmpfs 61.0M 88.0K 61.0M 0% /tmp
tmpfs 61.0M 0 61.0M 0% /media
/dev/mtdblock1 2.0M 560.0K 1.5M 27% /var/lib/humaxtv
/dev/mtdblock2 2.0M 860.0K 1.2M 42% /var/lib/humaxtv_backup
/dev/mtdblock2 2.0M 860.0K 1.2M 42% /usr/browser/config-ocontroller-si-rootfs.txt
/dev/sdb1 1011.4M 46.4M 913.6M 5% /mnt/hd1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /mnt/hd2
/dev/sdb3 9.8G 333.8M 9.0G 3% /mnt/hd3
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /opt/share/images/blue
/dev/sda1 1.8T 1.2T 607.1G 67% /media/gpt-drive1
/dev/sdc1 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /media/drive1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.7T 0 100% /media/drive1
/dev/sdb2 1.8T 1.2T 607.1G 67% /mnt/hd2/My\040Video/usb-drive1
/dev/sda1 1.8T 1.2T 607.1G 67% /mnt/hd2/My\040Video/usb-drive1


...You can now see the drive as usb-drive1 folder under the main HDD without the need to select the drive via the blue storage button.

I'm guessing there's no solution for this, but an easy workaround would be to have a simple script in cron to check every minute whether the drive is mounted and if not, mount it.
 
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Have you tried the mvdisks package? I'm not in a position to test but it is supposed to move USB disks into the /media/My Video tree.
 
dma said:
When booting the Humax, you are confronted with a menu option to select a device (just because the usb device was present at bootup). I can press "back" to get rid of it, but is there any way to turn it off?
Click to expand...
Yes, I won't use virtual-disk2 for the same reason - just plug another drive/UPD (FAT, Ext2/3, or NTFS) into the other USB socket. Simples.
 
Strangely I already have mvdisks installed. I'll see if there are any other options...
 
The mvdisks package predates support for GPT partition tables. There are some issues with the way the CF and mvdisks, ntfs-3g, exFAT and virtual-disk2 packages interact with each other. The mvdisks package should setup its mounts after the other packages have setup theirs. I think this whole area needs looking into at some point.

With CF v3.10 there seems to be a problem with its detection of orphaned mount points when virtual-disk2 is loaded. It seems to think the bind mount is an orphan and can be reused by other mdev scripts.

I have had some success in stopping the USB connection icons from appearing when simulating a USB connection. The idea is to load the virtual-disk2 drivers before the humaxtv process is loaded.
 
Hi,

Thanks again for the explanation. Yesterday I noticed the rmvdisks scripts didn't work due to the gpt mount point:

It has this...
if echo $mp | grep -q "^/media/drive" ; then

When I probably need to do something like this...
if echo $mp | egrep -q "^/media/drive|^/media/gpt-drive" ; then

I was still reverse engineering what this script does and how it interacts with other things. I'll have a look this evening to see if I can work out how to get rmvdisks with a gpt drive. I guess one alternative is to partition the usb drive differently so that it doesn't get mounted as gpt.

I'm still transferring files from internal HDD to UDB so I can't interrupt that with testing and reboots, but I'll see if I can take a look tonight.

Just out of interest, how is rmvdisks called?

/mod/etc/mdev/rmvdisks
ACTION="$1"
device="$2"
mp="$3"

parameter1 is add or remove, parameter2 is the device name, maybe /dev/sda1? The mp variable seems to be mountpoint but is this always /mnt? FOr exmaple it's called:

# /mod/etc/mdev/rmvdisks sda1 /mnt
 
Any scripts in /mod/etc/mdev are called from the script /etc/mdev/run-and-gun. This is triggered by a USB hotplug event.

The mount point $mp can be /media/drive<n> or /media/gpt-drive<n>. However, if the ntfs-3g pcakge is installed the passed mount point $mp maybe /media/drive<n> when the actual mount point has been changed to usb-drive<n>.

PS. The log file 'rag.log' helps in debugging these scripts.
 
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