Why Media Center does not stream DVDs
Once and for all: The Media Center team, the TV team and the Extender team (yes, it would have been a co-ordinated dev effort from all three teams) did not implement streaming of DVDs from PCs or changers for one big reason: Getting core functionality working on Vista was hard enough. And if, like me, you’re running an early build of Vista on you will understand.
And without doubt had there been extra time in the schedule there were many features of higher importance ahead of DVD streaming (DVD streaming is actually quite close to the bottom).
I know all you with changers wanted it (though I’m puzzled why you bought the changer in the first place? just get a fat NAS) but there’s not enough of you (and don’t get all chicken and egg on me. you still wouldn’t have bought a changer if we had the feature, you’d get a fat NAS).
I’m not sure what to make of the “just get a fat NAS” suggestion. That is probably preferable and I’m sure what most people have done in combination with something like Transcode360. But presumably, the preferred method of getting similar results while respecting the DMCA would be to stream DVDs from a changer. I think most people who want changer support would prefer the capability to stream DVDs ripped to a HD, but recognize that MS would have a hard time implementing that giving DMCA constraints et. Implementing support for DVD changers in constrast is something MS could implement.
So, although a DVD changer is probably a second best solution, I would gladly buy a DVD changer if it meant I could really stream all my DVDs (extra content and all) to any of my Xbox 360s. To me, the price of a changer would be a small one to pay for a much less kludgy solution that enabled me to get all of the DVD extras as well. I suspect I am not alone, which is why relying on the sales numbers for changers alone seems insufficient.
Or maybe I’m missing something. Is there a better way to stream DVDs to Xbox 360’s from an NAS that I’m not aware of?
Can we then expect this feature to bo included in a future update?
It may not be a top feature for the development team, but it seems like many users want this.
Doesn’t a NAS solution require an illegal decryption of the DVDs? I guess this is not a problem for most users, but it could never be an official solution. Then there’s HD-DVD and Blueray that is supposed to support this, but the feature still neededd to be developed.
2.4 tera bytes of storage is allot more expensive than a changer. Takes forever to get 300 dvd’s onto a NAS. I lose all my extended featuress. Should I continue? I can stream from changer with other software. Works great to laptop and TV.
Wait maybe I should just drop Media center anyway.
Thanks for the post Matt!
So, if I’m reading it correctly Microsoft does indeed have the technical and legal ability to enable such a feature, but it was not acted upon because getting basic features to work correctly was a challege in itself.
At the time where the DVD Changers were first shipped, a NAS (or hard drive storage in general) was cheaper then the DVD Changer. However, now that you can get a 200-disc changer from Sony for $300, it’s an amazing deal! It takes 10 minutes to load all of the DVD’s, and that’s it.
I have to ask, since you were at Microsoft (and owned the feature at the time, IIRC) what was the concept behind the DVD Changers? Who was the target market? Was streaming brought up before the product was shipping?
Thanks as always for your input, we sure miss you in the MCE community!
Thanks!
Chris
Updated: Here It Is: My Thoughts on Vista Media Center…
Over the past week I have got a great amount of feedback (more feedback) from my question about switch…
David Fleischman and Matt Goyer Add Their Thoughts…
Still getting lots of great feedback from everyone, and even better thanks to everyone out there we have…
I don’t understand this decision. MS is so close to a killer app but until you accept that the public does NOT want a computer in their living room Media Center is not going to gain mainstream acceptance. Streaming DVDs is the last feature that makes you place a computer next to your TV. If you could stream your DVD collection then suddenly there is no reason why the computer in your office or in your basement can’t drive all the TVs in your house. Once you stream DVDs your biggest competitive advantage, the extender, becomes the default way that everyone consumes content. It’s not an amusing bonus it’s the core feature. Suddenly the world doesn’t need to buy Tivos, they don’t need to buy DVD players and if you do cable card they don’t even need a cable box. You just have your TV and your Xbox 360 or a stand alone extender.
I think the nice to have at that point then becomes other media center PCs in the home working as extenders. Since Media Center is now the default OS sold with new computers they could be used even though they don’t have TV tuners.
I truly believe that unless this happens with media center the Apple iTV will surpass Media Center since they already have a paradigm for streaming movies and TV.
Hard enough my butt! I mean really with all the people on the team? That is what they are paid to do. Don’t get me wrong, I understand how hard it can be to get applications to work right, but “It was hard enough….” is a lame excuse as to why dvd streaming was not implemented. Take a look at the forums, it is one of the biggest features asked for.
As for illegal or not, with the new HD dvd it is leagal to make a managed copy onto your computer. Therefore streaming it should not be a problem. What is the difference if I put the disc in the local machine or stream it from a different machine?
I do like Vista but really MS dropped so many things from MCE and gave us what? A new interface? I like it but the old one was great. About the only feature that I do like is the way it handles bigger library’s of music. But this is a function of Windows Media Player not MCE!
So in the end here is what we get..
1. We get to spend more money on a new machine as only OEM machines will have cable card support.
2. All the Extenders we paid $300 a piece for are junk.
3. The promise made in 2004 from MS about “Media Everywhere” only applies to music and home movies not Movies!
4. “Connected Home” … Yeah if MS feels like it.
5. Softsled? Why when they can convince use to buy a 360. Software for my pc or another $400 Xbox..gee let me think…sure I can only play one Xbox at a time so I’ll take a couple more.
Streaming of single DVDs is pointless as the 360 has a built in DVD player, so it’s only the 9 people in the world who own a DVD changer that the feature would be being built for. Many people want their whole DVD collection accessible in one place, but ripping to a hard drive seems a much better option than a changer - it’s scalable. What do you do if you have 200 disc change and 250 discs? I can see why this feature was way down the list.
maybe that’s a UK attitude; I’ve never even seen a DVD changer on sale here, I don’t think it’s occured to anyone on this side of the Atlantic that there’s any point to one.
Now, making Extenders recognise ripped VIDEO_TS folders and VOB files directly, THAT’S a useful feature…
He is exactly right about a NAS. A media center is pointless with a changer. The DVD streaming is a non-issue. What they need to do is provide tools for high quality conversion of files so a consumer does not hunt on the net for tools.
Also, a Tivo is a computer which is in the living room. The public sure likes that one.
Hi Stuart, just my opinion but…
Microsoft advertises Media Center as “media anywhere”. Walking into another room to find a DVD, then walking back is not a very good application of what computers can do for us now.
Yes, maybe streaming a “single” DVD is point but look at the bigger picture. How about caching that “single” stream to the hard drive in the Media Center PC? Thus enabling you to stream multiple DVD’s to different rooms. Very nice. I’m not sure how your house works, but for those will large families who have different tastes in movies this would be very useful. Of course, this would only be if you want to “…access all of this digital entertainment from a different room in your home, instead of just where your PC is located?” (Microsoft’s words, not mine).
Providing tools to “rip” DVD’s would kind of be–umm–illegal (at least here in the US, under the DMCA). What Microsoft needs to do is work with the DVD CCA (CSS people) and work out a perfect plan to use WMDRM to protect the content between rooms. They can already do DVD streaming with this technology (AFAIK), I don’t know if they would be allowed to rip/cache the data (eg. have the data touch a data drive)
Chris
Just a few points from a normal level techie – no special skills or strong view…
What I (I can only speak for myself after all) want for my DVD’s is to buy a DVD then place it in one device and play it from my living room or my bedroom straight away. Any messing about with software and tools and other multiple step solutions is NOT a solution to a normal person.
It’s not a question of cost so much these days it’s a problem of the supply chain. DVD’s come on disks! (yes they can be downloaded over the internet but this year and the next 5 year plus disks will be the biggest sellers by a long way for most of us). Every time I get another one I just want to load it once and play - NOT remember the tool I used last time and rip it – waiting by the computer while this happens. I’m a simple customer – when I buy a DVD I want to watch it not mess around with software? The battle will be won on “easy of use” for the end user that isn’t a wizard on the internet or software tools.
The user interface that MS offers in the Media Center provides some nice things like cover art (simply downloaded) - access to all the DVD elements straight away and I get a short write up on the DVD in the library too. For MS it also means that they are not seen to support user “ripping” media from devices! This seems like a simple business decision and one I have my fingers crossed that MS will come to. Support the streaming of DVD through changers to ‘allowed’ extenders in the home network. I’m sure there is work but the offering to customers is a killer!
Providing tools to rip DVDs is illegal in UK as well. Many of the provisions in the DMCA were implemented to harmonize our system with Europe. So you can blame the Europeans for DMCA.
WRK
[…] 0:40 Coming up this week 01:30 The Media Center Show Extra #2 02:00 Email - TV overruns 03:26 Email - Vista RC2 Media Center 05:40 Email - TV card recommendations 05:45 Items from Matt Goyers blog 06:50 Why Chris Lanier will not be rushing to upgrade 08:00 Why people aren’t talking about Media Center 08:34 Media Center sold 20 million 09:00 Media Center Show Awards 09:22 A Message from Onevoice 10:10 Welcome to Aaron Stebner 11:30 What is Media Center Markup Language 14:00 How it works 18:10 Getting started 20:00 Samples (see The Media Center Show Extra #2) 22:00 UI elements 26:22 Q application (see The Media Center Show Extra #2) 29:22 Controls Library 31:03 Locals 32:00 Laying out pages 38:00 Screen modes 42:28 Properties 46:30 Actions 53:49 Next week part 2 Music by Ian Dixon […]
the solution is to FIX THE DMCA!! Who is the only one big enough and politicaly connected to do this? MICROSOFT! when are they gonnna wake up and realize they are there own worst enemies at times.
Crazy decision not to support streaming.
I have 3 Xbox 360, 3 TV plus a full theater, currently to watch a DVD we need to sort through 650 DVD’s some of them zone 1 and some zone 4 since I bought a lot from Amazon years ago and we have multi zone DVD players… Am I going to use media center Xbox setup at the moment? NO, I can’t - Xbox in Australia are of course all zone 4, whereas if streaming was supported I could get 3 changers – two zone 1 and one zone 4…
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the average user wrt equipment or perhaps scale, BUT my friends are. Simple maths, you convince 500,000 early adopters and eventually their 100 Million friends follow suit. Everybody knows that.
Until MS allows streaming of DVD’s, part of my system is in the dark ages and the rest is in the Media Center world.
I demo media center to people all the time, and it goes like this: Look I have TV here and can pause it – cool eh, and the guide is great, look…. [3rd party guide here in oz] and look, here is where all my photos are, and music, and home movies – isn’t that cool… question from the floor “does it play DVD?” “well yeah sort of, I have to go find the DVD and then put it in this other dvd player over here…” Does it play Foxtel cable…? Um well no.
Escient had DVD streaming on Windows98 machines back in 2000 – I don’t suppose Microsoft could get with the program?
“so it’s only the 9 people in the world who own a DVD changer that the feature would be being built for”
No that isn’t true, just use the RegKey to enable My DVDs and then the ripped DVDs on your hard drive is the same thing as a DVD changer. As I said, they are so close to having a complete media center and this is the last hurdle left.
i’ve got a NAS, and see tons of ‘cannot play video’ messages from my own rips.
Also using a NAS here, with about 140 ripped DVD’s stored on it. Not a single one gives me a “cannot play video” error. It is so much more convenient to browse through my collection and play a video this way than using the individual discs. Especially with some of the five or six disc box-sets of TV shows, its no longer a hassle to cue up and watch a particularly funny or memorable episode, wheras in the past I would always think it just wasn’t worth the effort. Not to mention how much neater the living room looks without a shelf full or DVD boxes in it anymore.
[…] According to Matt Goyer (who was a former Program Manager for the Windows Media Center team), there’s a simple reason why Media Center under Windows Vista doesn’t support DVD streaming: Getting core functionality working on Vista was hard enough […]
Hey, i maybe a bit ahead of most, but i have a russound A/V system with 6 inputs for a/v distribution to any number of outputs. I have a media center as one input, and two extenders as 2 additional inputs. I have it all in a media room in my basement. I have my home movies, home pictures, all my music, on the media center, and i use it as tv of course. Having 3 media center selections for sources is great, only two can watch different TV at the moment, but the third can watch recorded tv or listen to music. One of the other inputs is a 300 disc dvd changer. Works fine, but it would be great to have it in the same metaphor as the rest of my media. I’ve seen the niveus options, and the sony option. I am close to buying. Is this stream of comment saying that with Vista this option goes away?
Streaming of single DVDs is NOT pointless. How great would it be to be able to rip your DVD collection to your heard drive and then browse and choose a movie to watch on your Xbox 360 extended TV?
C’mon. This is what it is all about! If MS wants mass adoption and control of the living room this has to happen.
Wow, bottom of the list to stream DVD. I would love to have all my movies on a hard drive and be able to sit at my big screen with my 360 and browse through my collection with album art and pick from 100 different dvds and click play and BAM there it is. I have spent hours trying to find a way to do that. I even bought a new laptop with MCE 2005 on it, thinking I could do that…I thought wrong. I feel robbed!!!!!!
What a joke! I hate my kids messing with DVD’s. They get scratched & they get put back in the wrong cases (if they ever get put back). How easy would it be for them to pick up the Xbox 360 remote and go ahead and play any movie. No messing around, easy to switch to any other if they get bored, etc…. blah blah blah.
Come on Microsoft, do it for the chidren!
I agree with Jon H. 100% MS is risking losing out to Apple and iTV if they don’t get DVD and HD-DVD/BluRay streaming support out NOW! This is the biggest feature I was looking forward to along with cable card support, which is being chopped up as well it seems. I’m not buying Vista until this is added. I’m also not buying a Zune until DVR-MS support, WMA lossless and syncing through WMP11 — not the god-damned Zune player 00 is added. MS could realize their dreams of Xbox 360/extender and in some cases MCEs in every living room, but they some how manage to fuck everything up. WAKE UP MS!!!! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THESE LAME EXCUSES FOR CUTTING FEATURES!!!!!!
I find it funny that an MS person is suggesting to break the law and make illegeal copies of something - that is rich.
I wonder if the real reason streaming is not supported is becasue of media company pressure / relationships…..
No, the real reason is schedule/resource constraints.
And, I don’t work at Microsoft any more :).
You can always convert the movies to MPEG-2 and place it in my videos, so you can play it from your MCE pc and watch it in your xbox
Also I agree with you all for microsoft to adopt the streaming of native DVD files from the media center or a regular XP pc. that will be a killer add on to the Xbox 360
“No, the real reason is schedule/resource constraints. ”
But you’ve mentioned in other posts of yours that large tech companies, such as Microsoft, often have many highly paid, intelligent people waiting around and doing nothing. Couldn’t these “resources” be put to use on issues such as DVD streaming?
It’s mainly program managers and designers who occasionally have nothing to do. Microsoft does not waste dev or test resources.
If you get a NAS, can you stream the DVD to an extender? Because when I enabled DVD Library with your instructions, I could play the dvd on the media center pc but I could still not stream it. If that is the case, then your suggestion doesn’t really address the original question. Although I do get the point that it works just as well if not better than a changer.
I know you can convert the dvd to WMV or MPEG and stream it, but then you lose the nice DVDID XML features from what I have seen.
I would just appreciate a clarification on what is possible.
Streaming DVDs to an Extender is not supported. But you can rename your VOB files to .MPG and it may work on the Extender, but again it’s unsupported and there are likely bugs with that scenario.
We would like dvd streaming so that we don’t have to have a dvd player (in addition to an mcx) at every tv to play rented dvd’s. What was the WMC team’s reasoning for this situation?
“Carbon” - TV on your Xbox360…
The Xbox360 just became a more integral part of your home media experience. Carbon adds IPTV support…
I have all Gustav Mahler symphonies in my posession, all DVD-s. If I’d like to rip only audio, what is the best method?
DVD has 2 soundtracks:
-> PCM 48 KHz, 16 bit
-> Dolby Digital 5.1
Quality is vital. I play music off mu server via UPnP media player D-Link DSM-320.
So, best technique? Please comment to http://jacksgadgets.blogspot.com/
So I was a little disappointed when I installed vista (ulti).
Before committing to buying Vista, I asked MANY microsoft employees at the CES show in vegas whether microsoft had implemented streaming dvd’s to extenders. without exception they ALL said yes, to clarify whether they knew what they were talking about i ensured they all knew this wasn’t implemented in MCE2005 - they knew.
Anyhow - $400 later and an epic install adventure ….. no streaming dvd.
M$ up another 400 bucks me still without the only feature i need to make this all work for me…
Im completely pissed on this issue. I bought Sony Digital Living System, with the changer. In all respect for only the reasons mentioned in the thread, watch movies from one location in any room, kids no longer touch and lose the DVDs, MCE menu and its wonderful information that it includes for each title, and the list goes on. NO DICE. If I wanted to RIP all my DVDs I would have just made a share on my PC. Im pissed.
You can Stream DVD’s in Vista Media Center. The capability exists. It is just not enabled. I found a registry change in the net that allows you to stream DVD discs. So you just need to make .iso’s and mount them in an emulated drive until someone makes a software DVD changer that will interface with MCE. Here is the registry change.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings]
“ShowGallery”=”Gallery”
“SkipButtons”=”Chapter”
“ChannelButtons”=”Angle”
“ShowDiscsInDrivesAtTop”=dword:00000001
“SearchNetworkFolders”=dword:00000001
“FolderSearchDepth”=dword:00000003
“ShowCacheLocation”=dword:00000000
“SuppressExtensibilityEjectPrompt”=dword:00000000
“ShowChapterLengthInOverlay”=dword:00000000
“DefaultLibraryPivot”=”Name”
“DefaultOnTVPivot”=”OnNow”
“DefaultGenrePivot”=”Title”
“TopRatedSort”=”SortByStarRating”
“GalleryView”=”Small”
“Version”=”65537″
If what Chris said is true, then it’s entirely possible. Someone could write an mce app that moves the disc from one of the slots to the drive, and then play.
ok I figured a COOOOOL workaround to stream your DVD on XBOX 360. If you are going to go thru all the pain to copy the dvd on the HDD, then just do one additional thing. Rename your .VOB files to .mpg and put it on a folder that is shared with XBOX 360… VOILA .. play all your dvds 5.1 surround sound! I have confirmed this with Vista ONLY …. dont know bout XP MCE.
Tell me how it works out for you !
“7462-mapsetah AT usa.net”
Ripping movies into WMV9 is the answer to the xbox360 extender question, leave the HTPC with all the movies in a cupboard somewhere and use the 360’s to stream the movies.
I agree with everyone here about how MCE Vista should allow you to view VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders “as MCE 2005 DID !!” i mean mce 2k5 does it fine even with a xbox 360 (not the new one that has that intervideo windvd bundled with it ) The way i see it is that 2k5 did it fine i would use dvd shrink to rip the owned dvds that i had … it would create a video ts and audio ts folder …. then i would scan from my server that was networked (server2k3 ) you could use another shared drive for all i care with alot of storage and viola … it worked fine ….. then i switched to ultimate and i was pissed … i figured out the mpg thing very fast .. switching the files that were large to .mpg instead and then u were stuck with 4 seperate files … that pissed me off even more … i think that MS is trying to push their new 360 elites to people so they have this functionality and that is BS … i dont know but for anyone who wants help check out this i found a progie surfing the web that will do something that may make some of u happy if u actually decide to use it ….. dvd shrink your BOUGHT dvd …. then find a progie called VOB2MPG … its very simple and works so far for me until i see a for sure fix … rip the dvd with dvd shrink then run the program VOB2MPG it will ask where is your dvd files located … point it to that directory …. then after that just put an output folder where you want the .mpgs to go .. click start or whatever the execute button is … then it will do its thing … after it is complete you will see about 10 -20 files … sort by size or search for the largest one (will prob be about 4 gigs tho) and instead of having 4 mpg files that are seperated u have 1 big mpg and put that in your my videos folder … if u want make a subdirectory and put the 1 4 gig mpg in that subfolder with the movies name and it comes out perfect .. clear and all … the other files are the menus and extras i dont know any workarounds for that for now but this way u can have 1 .mpg file with a picture perfect file that will let you watch the movie fine without having to stop 4 times to select the next file ….. just thought id throw this in for yall
Although, you will be lacking access to the DVD’s menu structure, it is possable to rip a DVD and ave it as a Windows Media Player Mpeg 4 file, and stream it to the 360 without Windows Media Center via the software for the Zune which you can download from Microsoft. You can also convert the video files you download off the web and convert them to the Windows Media Player Mpeg 4 file format using Total Video Converter, and stream them with the Zune software. Other programs that have said they can stream to the 360 have all failed me, I guess the all needed MCE.
I have been a MCE user for going on 4yrs now and I’m getting ready to move on to another platform. I had such high hopes for Vista MCE and then I find out I have to buy a $$$ name brand box if I want to record HD content…I get past that and decided to do without the HD for now and so I setup my “media server” in the basement with a dual tuner cap board and test out the 360 as an extender only to find that I can’t stream my ripped DVDs. I have a 2yo..have you ever tried to use a DVD player or keep your DVDs near your TV with a toddler around? Discs have a life expectancy of like 3mins. With my ripped DVDs I just goto My Movies or My DVDs and select the movie I want to watch (or one of my sons Baby Einsteins or whatever) and go. I can’t do that through the extender? I have to turn my DVDs into the equivalent of a VHS tape with better quality by making them mpg files with no chapters? pfffft to that. You KNOW this isn’t a technical issue, the extender is a glorified terminal services client, it’s just more BS MS worrying about ticking off Hollywood
I cannot believe what I am reading when people here are saying this would be of no use, come on. DVDs have been around so long now most people I know have a rather large collection now, I personally have well over 600 DVD’s and have been waiting for this. I have been using MCE since the start and have been waiting for streaming dvd’s. I just purchased 4 Sony 200 Disk Changers to help keep track and prevent the kids from lossing, scratching them etc. LinuxMCE supports a way for me to view my dvd’s via the changer to clients, why not Vista MCE? Freeware outdoing Costware, go figure second option to illegally Rip those to hard disk, you have got to be kidding me, I do not know of anyone who has 4 months of their lives to rip a large dvd collection, let alone the storage cost’s involved which would be far more than I paid for the changers, especially if you wanted to have the data protected. Personally I am dumping MCE for this reason alone and instead of purchasing vista and xbox’s or building xtra vista based pc’s in my home for media, I will go the Linux Route because no matter what I spend I cannot get what I want in the MS product and I am sick of this crap and drm crap all togehter, people I know who do not pay and just download this stuff pay nothing and can do everything, my sorry ass forks out the $$ and time and again I am screwed, limited, jumping through hoops etc just to enjoy what I work hard and pay for… no more. I might as well go through the hassle to get what I want since I cannot through MS. What a joke…
I just can’t believe that this was seen as a low totem pole feature when it is crucial. I guess Microsoft expects us to ditch out dvd libraries and buy all our movies online from them. That’s not happening, I invested a lot of money into movies a love and the media exntender system is designed to specically ignore that library. Not the first time that high minded tools-programmers forget the users they program for.
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