Blu-ray / DVD library in Media Center

[elootos]

This is a guide showing one of the available ways to implement a Blu-ray / DVD library in Media Center. (this is just for the purists with whole rips, no re-encoding or anything - all films will be as per the original disc for quality, size and content; all menus, languages, extras etc.) If you want to rip the main feature only off the disc, then you'll need something like DVDFab or MakeMKV.

You'll need the following software (as well as Media Center of course)

• TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum
• My Movies or, Yammm. My Movies is an extra section in Media Center, Yammm adds information to your film folders that the default Movies section of Media Center understands.
• Slysoft Virtual Clonedrive
• Slysoft AnyDVDHD
  

Then once all installed, it's a case of the following to setup your system:

• First off, install all the software above.
• Then, to rip any Blu-ray or DVD, right click on the Slysoft fox in the system tray and select 'rip Video DVD to hard disk' for DVD, and for Blu-ray select 'rip to image'
  
     
  
  It's also advisable for Blu-ray to tick the box 'keep protection'; this ensures that any (unknown) failures in your then version of AnyDVDHD won't be written to the ripped file, but rather it will rely on whatever current version of AnyDVDHD you have installed at the time of playing it in the future.
  
     
• Each resultant file or folder (ISO for Blu-ray, VIDEO_TS for DVD) should be within a folder named after the film. These folders can be how My Movies gets some film art/info so make sure it's spelt accurately and remove any underscores!
  
  If you wanted to skip the rest of the instructions, you can now just double-click any ISO file and Virtual Clonedrive will mount it as a disc in a virtual drive and you can play it in TMT3 directly. For VIDEO_TS folders, select the Video_TS.IFO file within the folder.
  
  For all films (including DVDs), the folder structure can be whatever you like, but within My Movies settings you will need to set it allow to delve deeper within your folders to look for filmsess.
• TMT3 will need setting up from its own setup menu for things like speakers (stereo, 5.1, 7.1 etc), but the video section should pretty much stay as standard.
• Finally within Media Center, both TMT3 and My Movies will have inserted themselves into the main Media Center menu.
  

For those with a Windows Home Server, I haven't installed anything on my server itself; I use the Blu-ray drive in my kitchen PC and AnyDVDHD installed on that to rip the ISO / Video_TS across the network to the folders on the server.

And I think that's it. I'll update this with some screen grabs of certain things just to make it crystal how to do it but this is just the core instructions. Have a look around the settings of both My Movies and TMT3 and should anything need clarifying just ask here.

I just hope I haven't omitted anything or it'll just make it more confusing in the long-run!

[elootos]

ADDED:

(01-20-2010 11:55 AM)elootos Wrote:  

• It should be noted that DVDs selected from Media Browser will play almost instantly in Media Center, however Blu-ray ISOs will take a few seconds to be mounted, then recognised in Windows, and finally played in PowerDVD. The whole selection/play process is about 10 seconds.
  

For those with a Windows Home Server, I haven't installed anything on my server itself; I use the Blu-ray drive in my kitchen PC and AnyDVDHD installed on that to rip the ISO / Video_TS across the network to the folders on the server.

And PowerDVD is not the only software to watch Blu-rays with, the alternative would be Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theatre. Whichever one you use is all down to personal preference, but both offer a 30 day trial for you to choose over.

[tonyc]

This sounds great. I've not really done anything with Blu Ray's I've made a copy of on the HDD's. They just sit in a folder and use Power DVD, Any DVD and Clonedrive, but never used through WMC. I don't use Media Browser, so may give this a go.

However AnyDVD and myself are not getting along at the moment, and the trial version has run out and cannot get back up and running as I've done before on my main media pc downstairs. However I can happy reset this upstairs on the other pc so bugging the hell out of me.

May have to purchase it when I have some more funds. I don't use it that much so struggling to justify the expense.

[elootos]

Added some screengrabs and:

(01-20-2010 11:55 AM)elootos Wrote:  (...all films will be as per the original disc for quality, size and content; all menus, languages, extras etc.)

NOTE: placing any files elsewhere within these folders will stop Media Browser searching deeper, so don't use them to store any other files or films without master folders.

[toontastic]

I'm having a problem with this so I hope you can help. I have put the ripped DVDs in my My Videos Folder in the structure you suggested. So the path is for example C:\Users\Phil\Videos\DVD\The Last House on the Left however when I rip the DVD it puts another path in so the full path is C:\Users\Phil\Videos\DVD\The Last House on the Left\THE_LAST_HOUSE_ON_THE_LEFT\VIDEO_TS.

I have set up MediaBrowser so that it looks for movies at C:\Users\Phil\Videos\DVD and it manages to find the last house on the left no problem and it plays fine but I don't seem to be getting any content downloaded through the Meta Data. What am I doing wrong ??

[northan]

LOL I had the same problem yesterday.
Are you using DVDfab?

The problem it looks like is that you have those underscores in place, automatically generated within dvdfab i presume.

Take all those files you have in THE_LAST_HOUSE_ON_THE_LEFT and paste them into the file C:\Users\Phil\Videos\DVD\The Last House on the Left.
Then obviously delete that empty folder just for house keeping.
Leave it at that.
You could make it simpler by going C:DVD\The Last House on the Left.

Also when you rip using dvdfab make sure that the title has no underscores within the title before ripping it.

I'm very crap at explaining things, so someone else might have a better way of saying it.

[toontastic]

That was the only way I didn't try it. I'm actually using anyDVD as suggested in here, I'm a wimp I just tried what other people suggested to start with

And after a quick test this worked perfect thanks

[elootos]

Added:

(01-20-2010 11:55 AM)elootos Wrote:  These folders are how Media Browser gets film art/info so make sure it's spelt accurately and remove any underscores!

[huxley]

For those who dont use MB this handy app works for me http://mikinho.com/wmc/mount-image/
Just need to follow the ops instructions.

[elootos]

(02-15-2010 02:31 AM)huxley Wrote:  For those who dont use MB this handy app works for me http://mikinho.com/wmc/mount-image/
Just need to follow the ops instructions.

Looks like a good, lightweight alternative. The site also looks promising for a few more Media Center apps.