Stream Movies to Windows Media Center PC
I have all my DVD images on the server video share. But I don't like having to run my DVD emulation software every time I want to watch one. I'd like to be able to just open Media Center, and scroll through my movies, pick the one I want, and start watching. I'm not concerned that the files be highly compressed, I'm more concerned with quality (I can do conversions at night or while I'm at work on multiple PCs). Please advise the absolute best quality format that Media Center will easily recognize. Thanks!
My Media Center PC is connected directly to my TV and Klipsch surround sound system. Connection is via wireless G (has always worked flawlessly for streaming DVDs).
Jerryrigged
Answers
I am doing just that on my set up but I rip the DVD's to a folder (not an image) on the share (into a sub folder). I point media center to the main folder and it is good to go. You must modify the registry in you media center (see below) to allow media center read a folder rather than a disk, and you will have a list of your titles and just click on it. It works great and I have been doing it for almost a year now and have 185 movies on my server.
Registry key -
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media
Center\Settings\DvdSettings
Registry value - ShowGallery
Registry value data type - REG_SZ
Registry value data - (Change from Play to Gallery)- Marked As Answer byLara JonesModeratorWednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 PM
Jerryrigged wrote: Please advise the absolute best quality format that Media Center will easily recognize. Thanks!
My Media Center PC is connected directly to my TV and Klipsch surround sound system. Connection is via wireless G (has always worked flawlessly for streaming DVDs).
Jerryrigged
Keep the DVDs in a "VIDEO_TS" folder for the best quauity, enable the "DVD Library" with regedit.
In Media Center right click in the DVD Library and add the DVDs from WHS shared folder.- Marked As Answer byLara JonesModeratorWednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 PM
All Replies
I am doing just that on my set up but I rip the DVD's to a folder (not an image) on the share (into a sub folder). I point media center to the main folder and it is good to go. You must modify the registry in you media center (see below) to allow media center read a folder rather than a disk, and you will have a list of your titles and just click on it. It works great and I have been doing it for almost a year now and have 185 movies on my server.
Registry key -
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media
Center\Settings\DvdSettings
Registry value - ShowGallery
Registry value data type - REG_SZ
Registry value data - (Change from Play to Gallery)- Marked As Answer byLara JonesModeratorWednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 PM
Jerryrigged wrote: Please advise the absolute best quality format that Media Center will easily recognize. Thanks!
My Media Center PC is connected directly to my TV and Klipsch surround sound system. Connection is via wireless G (has always worked flawlessly for streaming DVDs).
Jerryrigged
Keep the DVDs in a "VIDEO_TS" folder for the best quauity, enable the "DVD Library" with regedit.
In Media Center right click in the DVD Library and add the DVDs from WHS shared folder.- Marked As Answer byLara JonesModeratorWednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 PM
I just did this yesterday and it works a treat. Media Center only looks for DVD audio/video_ts folders 3 directories down though. So if you tell it to look in \\server\d$\my videos, it'll only come up with results one or two folders beyond that.
I had DVD rips scattered pretty deep in the directory structure and it didn't find them. I moved them up closer to the top and they showed up in the library (e.g. my videos\music videos\Audioslave - Live in Cuba).
I created a specific share for my DVD's, so the path is \\server\DVD\DVDName, and also \\server\DVD\DVDName\Disc1 etc for multi-disc DVD's, and Vista media centre finds them all quite happily.
pcdoc1958 wrote: I am doing just that on my set up but I rip the DVD's to a folder (not an image) on the share (into a sub folder). I point media center to the main folder and it is good to go. You must modify the registry in you media center (see below) to allow media center read a folder rather than a disk, and you will have a list of your titles and just click on it. It works great and I have been doing it for almost a year now and have 185 movies on my server.
Registry key -
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media
Center\Settings\DvdSettings
Registry value - ShowGallery
Registry value data type - REG_SZ
Registry value data - (Change from Play to Gallery)This is exactly what I was looking for. If I make this registry change, can I still play regular DVDs, or only ones with a VIDEO_TS folder? Can I also play these movies (the ones saved in VIDEO_TS folders) using a computer that is not a Media Center edition... for example on my main PC which is Vista Business, using Windows Media Player?
Jerryrigged
Jerryrigged wrote: pcdoc1958 wrote: I am doing just that on my set up but I rip the DVD's to a folder (not an image) on the share (into a sub folder). I point media center to the main folder and it is good to go. You must modify the registry in you media center (see below) to allow media center read a folder rather than a disk, and you will have a list of your titles and just click on it. It works great and I have been doing it for almost a year now and have 185 movies on my server.
Registry key -
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media
Center\Settings\DvdSettings
Registry value - ShowGallery
Registry value data type - REG_SZ
Registry value data - (Change from Play to Gallery)This is exactly what I was looking for. If I make this registry change, can I still play regular DVDs, or only ones with a VIDEO_TS folder? Can I also play these movies (the ones saved in VIDEO_TS folders) using a computer that is not a Media Center edition... for example on my main PC which is Vista Business, using Windows Media Player?
Jerryrigged
Can I still play regular DVDs? Yes you can..
Can I also play these movies (the ones saved in VIDEO_TS folders) using a computer that is not a Media Center edition... for example on my main PC which is Vista Business, using Windows Media Player? Yes VIDEO_TS will play in Windows Media Player
This worked great! Instead of doing some kind of conversion, I just loaded my existing images back into my DVD Emulator program, then used DVD-Decrypter to rip the movies into the VIDEO_TS format. Then, I didn't need to make ANY changes to my Media Center PC registry... Media Center recognized the VIDEO_TS folders and played the movie just as if it were a DVD. The great thing about this is that the conversion (re-ripping actually) was very FAST! Thanks for the help on this one! Great quality and compatibility with all my PCs!
Jerryrigged
- The VIDEO_TS format does not work on extenders or XBox'es, however. I'm not sure what to use with those. Any ideas?
- The MyMovies program works with Windows Media Center and will save you the step of ripping your images into folders, if you wish to stick with just the .ISO images. You have to also install Daemon Tools, but once you do, the MyMovies program will automatically mount the images for you. It also gives you a lot of database options to help you keep your collection organized.
- For streaming to an extender, you can use DVD Shrink to encode a single .VOB file and then delete everything else from the folder except the .VOB. Change the file extension from .vob to .mpg. Your extender will be able to play the movie, but you will lose all menus and additional material.
- Edited byselzlee Wednesday, October 15, 2008 5:06 PM
- On wegotserved, there is a version of mymovies for WHS, just released.
Ben
Ben Ogilvie Jerryrigged
I followed this steps and my dvd library nothing show up in there.
Here is what I ahve so far:
I have PP2 install on my WHS. My guest account on the WHS is set to full access. The DVD movies are in video_ts form. i use dvddecrypter to rip them. My VMC see the folders but does not laod any of the movies into the VMC. I also even istall the xml file of the movie in the Video_ts folder. But have gotten zero results. But it does pic up the sample DVD files that come with it and add the boxart. But it will not add my files.
set up:
server/video/movie/DVDname/video_ts folder. Is my step up wrong. Is it buried to deep in the directory to find it? What can be the issue?Jerryrigged
I followed this steps and my dvd library nothing show up in there.
Here is what I ahve so far:
I have PP2 install on my WHS. My guest account on the WHS is set to full access. The DVD movies are in video_ts form. i use dvddecrypter to rip them. My VMC see the folders but does not laod any of the movies into the VMC. I also even istall the xml file of the movie in the Video_ts folder. But have gotten zero results. But it does pic up the sample DVD files that come with it and add the boxart. But it will not add my files.
set up:
server/video/movie/DVDname/video_ts folder. Is my step up wrong. Is it buried to deep in the directory to find it? What can be the issue?In Media Center did you right click (or press the info button) in the DVD Library and add your DVDs from “//server/video/movie”
Richard A Miller. Media Center MVPJerryrigged
Is it buried to deep in the directory to find it? What can be the issue?
By default Media Center has a DVD folder depth of 3
If your DVD folder is deeper, you can change that in Media Center registry
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings FolderSearchDepth and change the number higher than 3
Richard A Miller. Media Center MVP
