What is needed to make DVDs play from HD on Windows 7?

[gplracer]

I would like to put many of the DVDs that I own on my computer and play them through media center. What is the best way to do this? I ripped a few but they do not show up for some reason.

 

[RebateMonger]

Although Windows 7 Explorer doesn't recognize the .BUP, IFO, and .VOB files from a typical "ripped" DVD, if you run Windows Media Center and point it at the folder(s) containing ripped DVD files, it'll catalog the movies and play the DVDs fine.

 

[pcgeek11]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Although Windows 7 Explorer doesn't recognize the .BUP, IFO, and .VOB files from a typical "ripped" DVD, if you run Windows Media Center and point it at the folder(s) containing ripped DVD files, it'll catalog the movies and play the DVDs fine.

:thumbsup:

I do this all the time.

 

[bot2600]

Even better, if you start to run into space issues (I ripped about 400 of my DVDs to my media center), you can use MyMovies (http://www.mymovies.dk/) which is a free plugin that will treat other video formats as normal DVDs. I went h.264 in an mkv format, though I would probably go .mp4 in hindsight since Windows 7 shipped without integrated mkv support (doh) and each movie went from 5-8 gigs in size to 1.2 - 1.6 gigs in size with no loss of quality. I used DVD Fab Decryptor (http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm) for ripping and Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) for the conversions.

All 3 tools are free and I am very happy with the results. Converting will definitely add to the time it takes to get your media loaded though, with my Core 2 Quad, each movie took between and hour and 2 hours to convert (h.264 is pretty processor intensive), but I was able to batch the whole thing to do a directory of movies at a time, so it just ran while I slept.

Bob

 

[zerogear]

+1 for MyMovies. It directly rips and allow you to play through the VMC MyMovies menu

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: bot2600
Even better, if you start to run into space issues (I ripped about 400 of my DVDs to my media center), you can use MyMovies (http://www.mymovies.dk/) which is a free plugin that will treat other video formats as normal DVDs. I went h.264 in an mkv format, though I would probably go .mp4 in hindsight since Windows 7 shipped without integrated mkv support (doh) and each movie went from 5-8 gigs in size to 1.2 - 1.6 gigs in size with no loss of quality. I used DVD Fab Decryptor (http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm) for ripping and Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) for the conversions.

All 3 tools are free and I am very happy with the results. Converting will definitely add to the time it takes to get your media loaded though, with my Core 2 Quad, each movie took between and hour and 2 hours to convert (h.264 is pretty processor intensive), but I was able to batch the whole thing to do a directory of movies at a time, so it just ran while I slept.

Bob

Same idea with slightly different software. I use Fair Use Wizard 2.8 set to 1.4GB file size (largest available file size selection) with MP4 video and AAC or MP3 audio (depends on the source material). Fair Use Wizard's encoder is multithreaded very well and takes full advantage of my Core i7 920@3.2Ghz.

 

[Jabbernyx]

Too much work. I'm just keeping all the raw DVD ISOs. Drives are cheap enough nowadays - 15x 1.5TBs = ~$1800

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: Jabbernyx
Too much work. I'm just keeping all the raw DVD ISOs. Drives are cheap enough nowadays - 15x 1.5TBs = ~$1800

I do this but I rip out any extras, just the image uncompressed with the movie automatically starting. Same with BR's and HDDVDS.

Doing this saves about 2gig per dvd, and anywhere between 5-15 gigs with a BR.