How to get locally copied DVDs to show up in My DVDs
How to get locally copied DVDs to show up in My DVDs
Disclaimer: Everything posted below is unsupported. We built and tested My DVDs to work for DVD changers, not local content. That it does, is a nice bonus :).
Assuming you have several locally copied DVDs on your hard drive you can get them to show up in My DVDs and play in Media Center. Here’s the basic method of getting this to work:
- Enable My DVDs. Load up regedit.exe and find this key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings]. Double click on it and change “ShowGallery”=”Play” to “ShowGallery”=”Gallery”. Alternatively, here’s a little file to do this for you courtsey of Sean, ShowMCEGallery.zip.
- Copy your DVD to your hard drive. I recommend that when you copy DVDs locally that you select the option to have them chunked at 1 gig and the output should by something of the form c:\my dvds\mattsdvd. Underneath c:\my dvds\mattsdvd you’ll find c:\my dvds\mattsdvd\video_ts and in video_ts you’ll find a video.ifo file in addition to several other files.
- Get cover art. There are a number of places to find cover art. Once you’ve find the correct cover art drop the cover art in c:\my dvds\mattsdvd\folder.jpg
- Add folder to My Videos. The My DVDs gallery searches the same path as My Videos so if your DVD is not showing up go to My Videos, press CTRL-D, and go through the Videos Media Discovery wizard and add c:\my dvds.
But wait, what about rich metadata?
If you want rich metadata you need to:
- Create a mattsdvd.dvdid.xml file. In c:\my dvds\mattsdvd create a file called mattsdvd.dvdid.xml. It’s of the form:
<Disc>
<Name>Matt’s DVD</Name>
<ID>00000000|00000000/<ID>
</Disc>Where the 0..0|0..0 is the CRC64 id of the DVD. I’ll dig up more on the CRC64 hash function shortly. But in the meantime, it’s an ID calculated based off the original DVD. If you drop it in the dvdid file we’ll query our metadata provider and pull down the rest of the metadata for you and store it in our DvdInfoCache. If you don’t have it, continue to step 2 where you can create your own rich metadata file in DvdInfoCache.
- If you don’t have the CRC64, make one up, put it in your dvdid file
- Create a [CRC64].xml file. In c:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\DvdInfoCache create an xml file named 00000000-00000000.xml (or whatever your made up CRC64 is. Instead of posting a sample because it’s rather long, you can download one here for Stephen King’s IT: 7e96a250-1c80bfc9.xml.
As you can see, this is not super straightforward, because to re-iterate, My DVDs is for folks with DVD changers. However, I totally expect a savy community member to take the above info and build a plugin which will automate the process of creating these XML files.
- Is there an easy way to get CRC64 numbers? Like a searchable database?
I am not aware of a searchable database of CRC64 numbers. Someone should build one!
bummer! :-)
and it is the CRC64 number that is needed for the MCE to lookup up the meta data? where is it on the actual DVD?
Yes, we use the CRC64 to look up the metadata. The CRC64 is a hash taken from various parts of the DVD so you can’t simply pull it off the DVD. You have to know the algorithm of which data to pull and then which hash function to apply.
Matt,
I’m currently using my dvd’s for movies that are ripped to my hard drive. 2 things, 1, when I enter “My DVD’s” it takes it abotu 30 seconds everytime before it shows the movies, in which I only have 8 movies on it at the momet. 2) I can show the coverart and when the movie was made, but the synopsis only shows up when the pc is connected to the internet, but I ahve dial up so I cannont leave it connected all of the time. It recognizes the movies correctly, but when I am not connected, I donot get to see the overview of the moive, is this normal?
Other than this, I absolutely love my MCE, more importantly so does my wife and daughter.
Hi,
I don’t know why it’s taking so long to load.. Though it doesn’t display the synopsis because we are not allowed to cache it so it has to be pulled down every time from the Internet.
That answers my question, thanks for your help. I may be rebuilding it soon to make sure I have all of the latest drivers, again thanks for the great work
From before, I had upgraded my external harddrive and use diskeeper to defrag it, now all of my movies show up instantly. I’m not knocking Microsoft, but I have never understood how a fresh harddrive is so fragmented when I have only copied large files to it such as movies.
Can I use some software to rip compatable dvd’s onto the HD without losing the resolution available throuhg MCE. I’d like to archive my dvd library
Matt,
I have enabled the “My DVDs” registry setting and it was working fine. However, now whenever I go to My DVDs, MCE crashes. Are you aware of this problem?? Any ideas how to resolve??
GSell, there were some bugs in our handling of the XML files. Try stripping the CR/LFs out of your XML files. These bugs have been fixed in Vista. Alternatively, copy an XML file created by MCE and use that as a template.
I followed your post to change Play DVD to My DVD but it didn’t change. I used the zip file to add the ShowGallery key to the registry for some reason I didn’t have settings under media center. It’s there now but still says Play DVD. I can go into My Videos and see the MYDVD folder I created to put my DVDs in and select it and select the DVD and it will play but do you have any idea why the Play DVD didn’t change. also can’t get the xml stuff working but I really didn’t spend much time on that so I will work on that later, just would like to figure the My DVD thing out first.
FYI, I found a typo. 00000000|00000000/ should be 00000000|00000000 .
Also in case you have not figured it out, when you insert the DVD in the DVD ROM drive, the [CRC64].xml file is created in the c:\Documents and Settings\(user)\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\DvdInfoCache folder. You can get the CRC64 number from here to make the name.dvdid.xml file.
I lost the tages in my previous post. The / after the 0’s needs to be moved inside the second ID bracket.
I’m having an issue with my Sony DVD changer downloading titles and covers for some of my DVDs. I put in Batman Begins this weekend and it didn’t pull any metadata, put in The Butterfly Effect right after it and it pulled it fine. Any ideas?
mabrown, for some discs we are unable to retrieve the metadata even though you would expect that we would have the metadata. It’s because each pressing of a disc has a unique identifier and the studios don’t always send us the list of all the discs ids for a movie.
Matt how do I get the plot synopsis to show up like in your screen shots for wayne’s world? I tried the tag but it doesn’t work.
Also is it possible to provide all the supported tags so I can pick and choose what info I want to include for my locally copied DVD’s?
puckalicious, the sample file I link to above will give you all the tags. And we currently don’t read the plot out of the xml file. This is being fixed in Vista.
Matt - on vista 5472 with the ShowGallery registry setting set to “Gallery”, the DVD Library pick is unable to see any locally stored DVD’s even though the folder they are located in is specified in the Videos search path.
Is there something other than the registry setting and search path that needs to happen?
Hello,
I am having a problem similar to scarr105. I change the registry and add the folder to my videos and when I go to access the DVD file I get an empty file message. Which version of MCE does this work on I have machines using both but the one I am attempting to play these videos is running the 2005 build. This set up would save me a lot of time if I could get this to work. I really am stuck here.
Matt - on vista 5743 with the ShowGallery registry setting set to “Gallery”, the DVD Library pick is unable to see any locally stored DVD’s even though the folder they are located in is specified in the Videos search path. Do you now any work around?
Wow…thank you. Too bad microsoft didn’t do that built in already! Thanks now MCE actually serves a big purpose.
Is there anything I can do to get my DVD movies to stream on my XBOX 360 MC? I did the registry change and it works great on the computer but when I try on the 360 it says that it can’t steam the video. Any ideas?
I have two questions.
What is rich metadata?
What is the use of the file [CRC64].xml file? I can use and view my dvd info without this file.
Hi matt
Please can you help - I have a media centre 2005 rollup 2 sony xl00 - with dvds copied on the hardrive (some are off my sony camcorder) when i play them trough the media centre it soetimes crashes with “application failure a critical media centre process has failed restart computer etc” (this has happened when playing a dvd disk in the past too)
i have to close media centre then try again then it works - also i have tried installing the microsoft update for mce which makes the whole thing crash evertime you open it
I am have gotten my hd movies playing on Vista RC1 using the registry tweak and rolling back my system date pre-Oct. Now when my movies are playing, I press stop. attempt to change movies it only resumes the same movie originally started. Any fixes for this?
Matt - on vista Uitimate with the ShowGallery registry setting set to “Gallery”, the DVD Library pick is unable to see any locally stored DVD’s even though the folder they are located in is specified in the Videos search path. Do you now any work around
I did this, MCE recognizes my DVD’s on the hardrive, but when I try to play them, I get the message, Media Center cannot play DVD, try restarting…
When I try to play DVD’s from my HD in Media Player, it tells me I have the wrong regional DVD, I need one for this region.
This is true for every DVD I try from HD, even ones I made myself with no regional copy, ones made specifically for my region.
Any clue what is going on?
Nevermind, the latest vista patch fixed it.
Nevermind again, had the DVD in the player and it was playing from that!! haha.
I can play the copied DVD’s on XP, just not on vista.
well looks like it’s a bug in Vista, it can’t read DVD’s off of USB Hard Drives… If you mount the drive into a folder, it overlooks this and you no longer get the error.
Hi, Me too I have vista Ultimate. After changing the registry setting every time I go to My DVD’s the media center crashes and restarts. Anyone have a workaround or fix?
Hi Guy’s,
Just to help on the dvdxml file if you go to http://www.dvdxml.com regester and then download the info file for the film you require, then drop it in the folder containing the film and there you have it all the info and the cover art.
Hi guys i’m in the same boat as Patrick (Vista Ultimate). Sice changing the registry, every time I go into the DVD Library, MCE just crashes and restarts.
Also, I can’t get rid of the local drive(C:) from my video library…. any ideas??
Thanks guys
jmtasu: I have mine on a USB drive… I was having your problem until I moved my individual dvd folders to the root of the external drive. I found that if the path was more than two folders deeper than the root of a drive MCE couldn’t find it.
Vista Ultimate.
I was able to get my dvd’s to show up in Vista’s Media Center when the dvd’s were on my C: drive. Now I have an external 500gig My Book. All of my ripped dvd’s are stored on it and I configured Media Center to look at that drive. Now I can’t see those movies any longer. Right now all of the movies are stored in folders directly on the large drive. Do they need to be in a parent folder or something?
Running Vista Home Premium. Wanted to use this hack as it looks cleaner than mymovies. I have about 500 DVD’s online each within thier own folder structure like this.. d:\Aliens\Video_ts
I edited the registry and myDVD’s shows up now but none on my collection does. Told video to monitor the folders.
Cannot find the :\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\DvdInfoCache folder within Vista
When I this, I end up with the DVD showing up in “My DVDs”, but just with the DVD labled whatever the name of the folder is (in this case, Star Trek 2). When I click on that movie, it just says “Star Trek 2″ next to the cover image and “C:\My DVDs\Star Trek 2″ beneath it.
Very informative WebSite - Thank you!
Question: Is there a quality difference archiving DVDS into your Hard Drive using NERO versus ANYDVD. I noticed a substantial difference in time using ANYDVD - Much Faster, but I’m afraid that the quality is less. Please advice.
Thank you very much again.
Follow Up Question: How do you categorize your archive, say from Thrillers, Action, Drama, etc…
Right now, they are all just being organized via title or date added or Type. Thank you.
Like George and Patrick, I edited the registry to show my DVD gallery. It has worked fine for quite some time but now every time I try to enter the gallery MCE crashes, without an obvious error. Any ideas?????
I cannot restore as I do not have any restore points. Any other solution except complete reinstall and loss of all.