After playing around with MyMovies I stumbled across the fact that I could rip a DVD, merge the vob files and play on an extender without transcoding.  I have the ability to fast forward with the 30s skip button too. 

I used DVD shrink and VOBMerge and of course MyMovies.

1. Rip the movie with DVD Shrink and place it on a local HD like this - M:/Transformers

2. Have DVD Shrink create the Video and Audio TS folders in that folder.  Takes about 15 minutes to copy.  I have also been able to copy just the main movie and not all the extras and still got it to work (saves a little space).

3. After DVD shrink is done open VMC and allow MyMovies to find and download the covers and such for the new movie.  Close VMC when it is complete.

4. Use VOBMerge to merge just the main movie .vob files.  Instead of placing the single merged .vob in the video_ts folder place it in the main movie folder (m:/Transformers). When VOBMerge is complete delete the main movie .vob's and leave all other files and folders intact.

5. Hop on your extender and you will see the movie listed in MyMovies, select the movie and choose "Watch".

I have tested this on a Linksys DMA2100 and an Xbox 360 and have yet to come across a problem watching the movies.  I am not sure how this is working and I came across it by accident when I was playing around with trying to play DVD's on an extender.  It's a farely quick process and it seems to retain the 5.1 audio but I am not an expert with that so I could be wrong, but I did notice the surrond sound is the same on the extender as it is playing from a DVD player.

I added this to another post but I guess no one saw it.  Let me know if I am special or if it works for everyone else too.

You don't need VOBMerge as DVDShrink can do the same thing.

Just take the check mark off of the - Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks.

That's geat, one less step.  I never played around with the settings in DVD Shrink other than compression settings.  Does MyMovies still recognize it as a dvd and download the correct info?

That's awesome!  I'm going to try it right now!

Ben

I have been using DVDShrink this way for a while now works great.  what is the benefit of putting the file in the main folder and not into the Video_TS folder?  im assuming only the xbox360's need the dvr-ms files??? 

not quite sure why it needs to be that way, but if left in the video ts folder an extender will not play the file.  Also after the movie is ripped to one .vob file there is no need to convert to any other format to play the file.  All I have seen is people saying that you need video redo to convert the ripped dvd .vob files to dvr-ms or mpg to be able to play on an extender.  I have been using my steps above for over 2 weeks now ripping all my dvd's to a local hard drive and watching the .vob files using MyMovies on my xbox360.

does it also do chapter skips?  I think that MyMovies has built in transcoding, so it would be interesting to verify that there is no avi file on your computer anywhere.

no it doesn't do chapter skips and the fast forward or rewind button does not work, only the 30s skip forward and backward works. 

Have tried transcode360 after ripping the movie and having the video_TS folder holding the .vob's but it never worked very well and was not able to fast forward or rewind with any button.  

Which avi file should i be looking for to confirm what you said?

If you want a fully-functional file that will REW/FF, run your single VOB file through a quickstream fix in VideoReDo to convert it to DVR-MS.

You will lose chapter markings from the original, but you will have REW/FF abilities.  In other words, it will function just like watching live/recorded TV.

Michael

that would be great, but I am cheap :) and this is working on extenders without having to convert any files to another format.

Hello @ all

following the steps decribed above, my DMA2200 still prevent me to play ripped vob files. Neither starting the video in dvd library nor starting in the film in my movies will work.

I did the follwing steps:

- ripping the dvd using mymovies and anydvd in my local folder \dvd\film

- merging the main vob-files into the video folder \dvd\film

- deliting the video-vob file from ts-folder \dvd\film\video_ts

- starting vmc on the extender and try to play the movie

I also tried this with moving the merged vob-file to the main-folder \dvd\

Ideas whats went wrong would be appreciated.

Greetings

Dominik

 

So, you didn't change any of the settings like described in the following thread to get the DVD Library to show up in an extender?

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/264607.aspx

What version of My Movies are you using?

I have this working on my 2100, but I had to make the changes following the instructions in the thread above.  I am not using My Movies, though.  Maybe there has been some changes in My Movies to support this functionality.

Thanks for answering my question.

Now I can play my movies in DVD-Library following the instructions regarding mpeg-hardlinks.

However - I want to play my movies with My Movies which is Version 2.49.

DMA2200 telling me that the video format is not spportet :-(

Any further ideas?

 

I am using version 2.47 of MyMovies.  I do have the DVD Library hack enabled but do not use it. 

I know there has been issues with media center reading dvd files buried deep in subfolders.  Rip the DVD into one folder below the root of the drive.  So M:/Transformers/Video_TS and the ripped files would be in the video_TS folder until you use vobmerge, then the merged files go into m:/Transformers folder.  When the merged files are left in the video_ts folder the extender gives me the same message. 

Also to rule anything else out use DVDShrink to rip the movies.  Also make sure to open MyMovies after the ripping so it can locate the correct info off the web, then merge and delete the orignal .vob's

Many thanks. now I am able to play my dvd with my dma2200. dvd library works as well as my movies.

However - now i have the next problem. I use anydvd which works fine with my copy protected dvds. unfortune the language in many dvds is english and with dma2200 i cannot switch to another language. Is there a possibility to change the default language to german?

maybe there is a tool allowing ripping of dvds with eliminating audio tracks not wanted. DVDShrink give up while reading the dvd. The copy protection maye to strong for this tool