<html><head><base href="x-msg://254/"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Have you been able to play the same files from your local machine? If so, does the drive support a high-enough bit rate to move the file stream into VLC's buffer? What is the bit rate of the file? When you say "cannot play", does it open the files?</div><div><br></div><div>IMHO streaming an mkv from an external drive is not feasible. A few simple <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=usb+2.0+bit+rate">google search</a> clicks (within the first 6 results) turned up an interesting thread regarding the mkv container and a possible 24Mb/s limit.</div><div><br></div><div>Here is a link to a Video bit rate calculator (from the same search) that can help you determine if the files are playable from the device, the thing is you will need to find out what kind of bit rate you get from the device into VLC. How old is the drive? Is it thrashing, I/O waits, bad sectors, being used by other processes such as AV scanners that check all opened/accessed files (McAffee and others)?</div><div><br></div><div>Keep in mind, encoded video (and audio) is compressed. So, you are moving a very large file on a disk of unknown sparsity directly into active memory where it is then uncompressed and read by VLC. All these steps will impede that transfer and rob you of speed.</div><div><br></div><div>Please look at the bit rate of your files, then try lower bit rate files. I can believe a USB2.0 external drive may have issues with a HD DivX file, but I find it hard to believe DivX in a low bit rate format will not be streamable from an external drive.</div><br><div><div>On Jan 5, 2010, at 4:13 PM, Jason Chubet wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div class="hmmessage" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; ">Hi!<br> <br>I was wondering if it is possible to install VLC onto an external media hard drive in order to make the media drive itself compatible with everything that VLC itself currently is. Because right now my drive cannot play divx or mp4, and possibly mkv files. Im wondering if having vlc on my drive will change all that. If you need some questions answered before giving me a response, i will gladly help you with that. Thank you for any assistance you can provide!<br><br><hr>Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222986/direct/01/" target="_new">Get it now.</a>______________________________________________________<br>vlc mailing list<br>To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options:<br><a href="http://mailman.videolan.org/listinfo/vlc">http://mailman.videolan.org/listinfo/vlc</a><br></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>