# Watch DVD on PC from Mac



## GeoMoon5 (Sep 5, 2008)

Hello,

I would like to watch a DVD on my PC. My PC has no optical drive. The Mac in the other room does. They are connected on the same network.

Is it possible to load the DVD into the Mac and connect to the Mac from my PC and watch the DVD on my PC? How would I go about doing that?

I've connected to the Mac before using the "My Network Places" method, and can see everything on the Mac desktop, except any DVD or CD that is mounted on the Mac. Why is that?

Not being able to find any optical storage devices when connected over the network is stopping my little project dead in it's tracks.

Any help is appreciated!
Thanks!


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## Stu_computer (Jul 7, 2005)

Apple > System Preferences > Sharing : |√| DVD or CD Sharing

note: can't network copy protected media


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## GeoMoon5 (Sep 5, 2008)

Hmmm, I tried that and still nothing. I put in the CD (came with my HD) then networked into the Mac and looked at the desktop. The CD image was not there. The CD shows up on the desktop when I'm at the computer, so I looked for it on the desktop when I networked in. Am I supposed to be looking for the optical storage in a different location? I couldn't find it anywhere.


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## Stu_computer (Jul 7, 2005)

uh huh. need the mac sharing software installed on the pc.

the how to

or download/run the file and then go from step 5 in the how to (linked above).


or could try this hint


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

That second link could do it perhaps. The first link is so that a disk put in your PC will show up on a Macbook Air. The best thing would to be to buy a USB DVD drive for the PC. Trying to stream a DVD stream over the network will not really work. The network is too slow for DVD playback.


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## GeoMoon5 (Sep 5, 2008)

I brushed up on my Unix CLI and accessed the back-end of the Apple operating system and used the symbolic link method mentioned in the second link posted by Stu_computer.

I can now access the CD/DVD drive over the network. I would much rather have been able to just right click on the optical drive and share it with the network and be done, but I guess Apple tries to be so simplistic that it comes full circle and becomes overly complicated again.

It saddens me to be a victim of such a time vampire, and I feel sorry for anyone who wants to do the same thing I was trying to do, and discovers that it can only be done if one knows how to surf the back-end of an operating system. 

Thank you all for your help, it is very much appreciated! One less optical drive I have to buy.

-Cheers!


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## Stu_computer (Jul 7, 2005)

the other alternative is also messy. using VLC player on the mac to stream the dvd movie over the network. on the plus side anyone on the network can watch the movie, on minus side it has to be setup properly to work (a bit of trial and error).


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

Like Stu_computer said, VLC can stream over a network. It's also a nice cross-platform program, so Mac, Linux and Windows all should work as servers or clients. This also should not require any sharing of optical drives. I'd have to know more about how DVD sharing works to compare the two methods, but this may be more efficient since it is a program designed with streaming media in mind.


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## GeoMoon5 (Sep 5, 2008)

Oh neat, I'll have to give that (stream a DVD over the network with VLC) method a try. The steps in the setup guide make the symbolic link method look easy. @_0 If I can get it to work, that would be pretty cool.

The (DVD streaming setup) section seems to only discuss using Unix/Linux commands for the setup, some of which I'm not familiar enough with to be comfortable using. :/

http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch08.html#id315299


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## Stu_computer (Jul 7, 2005)

this link is a bit better...VLC Streaming

don't know if the mac version has the Streaming/Transcoding Wizard, if it does then input: DVD; stream method: http, enter the mac's ip address; and the mac's good to go. on the pc's VLC player: open network, http, the mac's ip address and port 8080.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html


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## GeoMoon5 (Sep 5, 2008)

Wow thank you very much! I'll use that method from now on if I can't use the symbolic link method for what ever reason.


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