Zappiti - Users thoughts and info please

sex

Standard Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2010
Messages
54
Reaction score
1
Points
13
I have an hdi max on order and have been looking through the interfaces.

My question is this

Does Zappati live on the dune box and if se how do you get it there?

If not how does the dune box know to display.

Just been to the site but I'm sure it is faster asking here as the site is french biased in the manual pdf etc.

I have looked around and the zappati interface looks great. So if I can get it working with the max then nice one.

Anyone using Zappati?
 
A warm welcome to another member (or soon to be member) of the Dune club :clap:
Does Zappati live on the dune box and if se how do you get it there?
No, you run it on the PC and store the Zappiti data files in the root of your shared drive (or folder) where the video files are stored.
If not how does the dune box know to display.
When you look through your shares from the Dune you just navigate to the _Zappiti folder and when you open it the Zappiti video wall is displayed on your TV - you can create a direct shortcut to the _Zappiti folder on the Home screen so you don't need to go looking for it.

You might find the following link to a setup guide (in English :D ) for Zappiti that was written by a member on MPC Club the main forum for the Dune media players:
Guide: Setting Up Zappiti For the Dune

Mark.
 
Sounds like a piece of cake :) (Famous last words)

Looking forward to seeing what the dune can do. If it can play bd iso's with full menus and support dts-ma etc then I will be very happy indeed. I can then back up all my bd's onto my openbsd samba server and hey presto no more getting up and down for films. I'm not a couch potato it's just very nice to see film graphics etc on the front end before a viewing.

I may even stick a 2tb drive in the unti itself. Don't suppose you know if the dune can directly create bd iso from a menu?. It would be great to load the disk into the max and rip it to iso without the need of using my mac or pc.

Thanks for the links MarkE....
 
Sounds like a piece of cake :) (Famous last words)
Well I managed to setup Zappiti without any instructions - I just used common sense, and when that failed I just used trial & error :rotfl:
Looking forward to seeing what the dune can do. If it can play bd iso's with full menus and support dts-ma etc then I will be very happy indeed.
Yep - it is a fully functioning BD player, so should do all that and more.
I can then back up all my bd's onto my openbsd samba server and hey presto no more getting up and down for films. I'm not a couch potato it's just very nice to see film graphics etc on the front end before a viewing.
I'm just ripping all my DVD/BD's to my PC (and want to get a NAS as I'm running out of space fast) as it is nice to open Zappiti and just see the films there ready & waiting.
I may even stick a 2tb drive in the unti itself. Don't suppose you know if the dune can directly create bd iso from a menu?. It would be great to load the disk into the max and rip it to iso without the need of using my mac or pc.
You can't rip any discs from the Dune's optical drive as there is no way they would be allowed to offer this and still get a DVD & BD license.

I haven't bothered with an internal HDD as the 100mbps network connection of all the Dune players would make transfers painfully slow. So all my media is on the PC (soon to be on a new NAS hopefully) and streamed over the network.

Mark.
 
Hi Mark,

Can you just tell me if this is right....If all films are kept on the internal hard drive of the Dune, is it just a matter of installing Zappiti on the PC, then scanning the Dune's hard drive for the movies and then exporting the Zappiti database to the Dune? Then nothing needs doing unless a new movie/tv show is either added (or deleted) from the Dune, so I don't need my PC running unless i'm updating my film list?

Roughly how long would it take to scan say 100 films?

Thanks! :)
 
Just out of interest what mbit network are people using with the dune. Will 100mb be ample for bd iso's?. I cound get a gig switch but that would be more expense. I'm not too experienced with 1080p transfers over a lan so any input would be appreciated although that would take this topic off...
 
Can you just tell me if this is right....If all films are kept on the internal hard drive of the Dune, is it just a matter of installing Zappiti on the PC, then scanning the Dune's hard drive for the movies and then exporting the Zappiti database to the Dune?
Correct
Then nothing needs doing unless a new movie/tv show is either added (or deleted) from the Dune, so I don't need my PC running unless i'm updating my film list?
And again
Roughly how long would it take to scan say 100 films?
I've never scanned a large block of films in one hit, but at a guess it takes 5 to 10 seconds per film to find it on IMDB and download the data. You will often get several options if there are similar named films so you would need to select the correct one from the list.
So based on the above it is 100 x 5 seconds = approx 8 minutes plus any delays in selecting the correct film from the list - so I would say you could get them all scraped in about 15 minutes, but that is just a best guess.

Mark.
 
Thanks Mark, that all sounds good, just need to get myself a player now! :)
 
Just out of interest what mbit network are people using with the dune.
100mb at the moment, but will likely get a gigabit switch when I get my NAS/server
Will 100mb be ample for bd iso's?.
They are working fine for me, so no requirement to upgrade.
I cound get a gig switch but that would be more expense. I'm not too experienced with 1080p transfers over a lan so any input would be appreciated although that would take this topic off...
The Dune only has a 100mb LAN port so gigabit will be wasted on it. Gigabit LAN would only be an advantage if transfering files from gigabit PC to another gigabit device - ie PC to NAS/server.

Mark.
 
Thanks Mark, that all sounds good, just need to get myself a player now! :)
Well that would help :D
Have you decided what you are going to get yet?

Mark.
 
Well that would help :D
Have you decided what you are going to get yet?

Mark.

I really like the idea of the HD Max, but since Dune seem to be getting a bit of a kicking at the moment on MPC Club, it's (just slightly) putting me off! I think I'll hang back until I've seen some proper reviews of the player, and ideally I'd like to know how much any upgrade is likely to cost as well. :)
 
But the complaints against Dune are not to do whith the build of their players, just the quick release of 3 models and no firmware updates for a while - oh and the OTT price of the Max.

If you want to use the media player as a TV receiver/recorder then the Max is likely to be worth waiting for (subject to price drops), but if not then the Prime 3.0 can do everything else other than have a swapable internal HDD. We really don't know what other add on cards are going to be made available for the Max/Smart.

Mark.
 
But the complaints against Dune are not to do whith the build of their players, just the quick release of 3 models and no firmware updates for a while - oh and the OTT price of the Max.

I know....hopefully once the new firmware comes out (next week?), everyone will be sounding a lot more positive! :)
 
Is it possible to set zappati to automatically scan and update the dune folder?. It would be great to add mkv or iso and have the software automate over night to update latest additions.

Regards

S
 
AFAIK you can't get Zappiti to auto update, but then again it only takes a little while to do a scan of a few new rips, so not a big deal IMO.

The new firmware is out now and has added a few nice new features such as NTFS read/write so lets see if that calms the doubters a little.

Mark.
 
I created the database and set to dune to look into the network share (windows workgroup) the file ran and the dune displays all the thumbnails. I then click on the movie and press play and it complains about not being able to find the file. I'm probably doing something silly here any ideas?

I have the zappiti folder for the exports on the same drive as the db iso's all in nicely labeled folders

Movies - BD Iso's
TV Shows
Zappiti - for the export configs.

As I say I can access the file but not play the actual film.
 
All my media is stored on my server that is named 'tower' on the network. I have a Video folder with all my ripped DVD/BD's in sub folders below that. The _Zappiti file that is access to open the Zappiti video wall on my Prime is in the top level of the video folder.

So it is set up as:
\\tower\video - the folder with all the files in
\\tower\video\_zappiti - the Zappiti folder
\\tower\video\DVD\ - all my DVD's

If the video files are in different directories or completely different HDD's then you need to modify the folder directory for those files with an absolute path - so for my DVD's the path would be:
//tower/video/dvd
note that the slash is now a forward slash where as before it was a back slash.

More help on setting this all up can be found in the Zappiti English manual that can be found Here

Mark.
 
Ok I now have the films playing ok.

My problem was I had not added smb: to the beginning of my absolute path.

Can someone please put me out of my misery and let me know how I put a link to the zappiti page on my main page. I have tried pressing the popup button on the file and clicking add the main page but it just says @cannot add to main page". Not very helpful and would be great to have access in one click even better get it to default straight to the zappiti page to cut out the very basic dune menu appearance?.

Cheers

S
 
I'm not sure how true it is, but some users over at MPC Club are saying you need to have 'system storage' installed on the Dune to be able to put _Zappiti on the Home page. I don't think this is true as I've had other shortcuts since getting the Dune and have only just added system storage - but I don't have the _Zappiti folder as a shortcut :confused:
What firmware are you running on the Dune? To add shortcuts I think you need to be running the last stable version or later.

Mark.
 
Mark

I tried downloading the firmware enabler for storage but when executing it it says it is not for my hardware so no dice.

The firmware is the latest beta I upgraded to fix the avatar playback problem. I suspect being on the latest beta will not cause problems with this shortcut thing.

There must be something stupid I'm doing here. I traverse the workgroup to my _Zappiti folder then press popup / add to main page then get the two finger solute. No dice it says someting like cannot add to this page. Maybe it is because I have new hardware and there are some issues?. In the mean time I will have to just navigate to the file. It's a damn shame you can't get the dune units to default to the zappiti file anyway. Then it would be a case of fire up the amp / dune / pj and hey presto a lovely front end to look at.

I'm stumped.
 
Hi all just ordered ahdi dune smart D1
ive read every post on zappiti (took me days)
heres what im after answering please and please dont get angry with me if its been posted already

i plan to have a internal hdd and a hdd via usb conected to the smart
no connection to the internet at all

heres my questions

1,when i set up zappiti on my pc i can first scan the hdds attched to the pc scan my movies but what paths do i use (lets call them hdd1 internal hdd2 external usb)

2,my Usb hdd is full of movies so i wont need to keep rescaning that one will i just scan first time and then leave plugged into hdi smart player.do i have to export to this drive or can zappiti play movies from just one location

3,i will be adding movies and tv shows to internal hdd( hdd1) the smart player near enough the pc to plug it into usb slave so i can rescan that hdd for new movies and tv shows

i just need answers to what paths to use and what share paths to use i havnt a clue on the dropdown menu
any guide on just having hdds and no network or smb would be great thanks

sorry if ive missed anything thats been answered already guides and posts ive seen seem to be for smb and networks......

ohh just remembered my movie on hdd1 (internal)are all mkv and my tv series
hdd2(external) has blueray,dvd,mkv,movies in there own folders in one movie folder ive played around with zappiti and it sees them all so i dont have to put them in one folder will i have to save the zappiti resouses and zappiti folder to this drive or can i have it saved just to hdd1(internal)

Do i need a usb memory stick been seeig this alot or can i make a short cut on the dune to go directly to zappiti havnt a clue yet

Many thanks for any help sorry once again if this has been asked before

Benitez1
 
Shaunyboy, have you considered Dune Explorer 2? its very easy to setup, its the only movie jukebox programme i've had no problem getting running and I run it off hard drives, i.e its not dependant on a network connection.
 
thanks skinnywhippet
im after using zappiti because otf the tv series scraping
any body else have any advice

many thanks
shaunyboy
 
Hi all just ordered ahdi dune smart D1
ive read every post on zappiti (took me days)
heres what im after answering please and please dont get angry with me if its been posted already

i plan to have a internal hdd and a hdd via usb conected to the smart
no connection to the internet at all

heres my questions

1,when i set up zappiti on my pc i can first scan the hdds attched to the pc scan my movies but what paths do i use (lets call them hdd1 internal hdd2 external usb)

2,my Usb hdd is full of movies so i wont need to keep rescaning that one will i just scan first time and then leave plugged into hdi smart player.do i have to export to this drive or can zappiti play movies from just one location

3,i will be adding movies and tv shows to internal hdd( hdd1) the smart player near enough the pc to plug it into usb slave so i can rescan that hdd for new movies and tv shows

i just need answers to what paths to use and what share paths to use i havnt a clue on the dropdown menu
any guide on just having hdds and no network or smb would be great thanks

sorry if ive missed anything thats been answered already guides and posts ive seen seem to be for smb and networks......

ohh just remembered my movie on hdd1 (internal)are all mkv and my tv series
hdd2(external) has blueray,dvd,mkv,movies in there own folders in one movie folder ive played around with zappiti and it sees them all so i dont have to put them in one folder will i have to save the zappiti resouses and zappiti folder to this drive or can i have it saved just to hdd1(internal)

Do i need a usb memory stick been seeig this alot or can i make a short cut on the dune to go directly to zappiti havnt a clue yet

Many thanks for any help sorry once again if this has been asked before

Benitez1

Any help on this please from anybody whos has this working without a network or smb or nfs
many thanks
benitez1
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom