I tried some searches in this forum, but didn't see this topic. New to WMC, thx for the help.
I ripped a couple of my DVD movies using CloneDVD by SlySoft (removed protection), saved to filed on hard disk (PC is WMC). The video format is MPEG2 NTSC.
My WMC on the PC host can see and play the movies just fine from the library, but my extender xbox 360 does not see them even though I've directed the media library to the location. The Xbox 360 extender is able to see all other media libraries on the PC (photos, music, video clips) but doesn't see any of the DVD movies, just the sample animal HD clip.
Do I need to record DVDs in a different format for the WMC to stream? CloneDVD doesn't offer any other format options, are there other products out there? These are DVDs I own - not ripping anyone off, just thought the whole purpose behind WCE was to be able to do things like have a centralized library for media. But if I can't store and view DVD movies through the xbox 360 extender, I can't see any value to this technology. It's WAY too expensive to put WCM machines at every TV in my home.
Thanks for advice, sorry if repeat question.
http://www.htpcug.org/Default.aspx?tabid=168
Ok, cool, thx. It states Vista SP1, so I'll assume this works as well for Win7 - doesn't state explicitly in the how to link above, can anyone confirm they've done this with Win 7 and works fine?
thx
Sorry, I was answering from my Vista experience.
Actually, I believe that solution doesn't work for Win7 MCE. I think it only works up to Vista with SP2. I used that method for over a year and it worked great, but there are some caveats. First, if you rip a DVD to VOBs, you can combine them to 1 VOB, then create the NTFS hardlink to an mpeg, and MCE will play it, but without FF/RW and you spend about double the hard drive space per movie. You'll also want a transcoder. For Win7 I was using Mikinho's transcode (here: http://mikinho.com/wmc/transcode/), but the inability to FF/RW was starting to be too much, especially after getting about 1/2 way through a movie and have the transcoder error out and stop playback. I had to rewatch the whole movie...
What I have opted to do is rip a DVD's main movie, and convert it to DVR-MS. I get full 5.1 sound, and FF/RW. My 360 opens it just fine, full DVD quality and great sound with FF/RW. The only issue now is that I don't get a synopsis from the xml file in the folder and I have to find DVD covers, save them within each movie's folder as folder.jpg. I do regain 50% of the hard drive space back since I don't have the hard link. I don't care about ripping blue rays, just the 200+ DVDs I have collected in the last few years. This might be an option for you. I hope this helps and makes some sense...
Dealing with the same problem in this thread:
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/t/86669.aspx