Comments on: Why Media Center does not stream DVDs

By: Matt W

Matt W — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:49:34 +0000

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.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:14:27 +0000

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…

By: BostonBullit

BostonBullit — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:42:20 +0000

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

By: Ernest

Ernest — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:14:21 +0000

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.

By: philadakilla

philadakilla — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:49:37 +0000

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

By: Ben Hobbs

Ben Hobbs — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:58:11 +0000

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.

By: Pankul

Pankul — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:50:51 +0000

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”

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:31:32 +0000

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.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 15:39:00 +0000

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″

By: Dissapointed!

Dissapointed! — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:56:51 +0000

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.