Single Most Critical Feature Needed - DVD and HD-DVD/BLU-RAY from Hard Drive

[homerpez]

IMO, this is the one most important thing lacking from Mediaportal, that's keeping me from using it instead of Media Center or PowerDVD for movie playing...

The ability to natively read DVD, HD-DVD and BLU-RAY folders from a hard drive directly.

My setup is Vista Ultimate w/Media Center, Nvidia 8800 GTS going DVI -> HDMI to my Samsung 32" widescreen TV.

I also purchased the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive, as a lot of people are doing (since it's only $200, vs. $500+ for any standalone player). I plan on using this only to make "managed copies" to a hard drive, so I don't have to worry about disc scratches or those kind of issues during play.

So far, there's no support in Mediaportal for HD-DVD at all, I can browse to the the folder, but nothing is shown. I did see the DVD workaround (making an ISO file)... but this is an inconvenient pain (IMO).

To do that the Mediaportal way, I have to take my existing DVD folder, somehow encode it again to an .iso file, then fumble with loading the .iso into Daemon Tools, THEN load Mediaportal.

The way it should work, IMO, is like Media Center does it... select a folder (or folders) to have as your DVD collection, put your DVD folders in there, and each movie can be read directly off the hard drive with just one click. Simple, effective.

I overall think Mediaportal is on the right track, but these two things (HD support and direct DVD folder support) are the two things still keeping me from using it full-time....

[AaronG85]

same here. i love the add-on for WMC called 'My Movies' what is does and what it is capable of is amazing, i just wish that MP had something similar cause im a guy with his whole dvd collection backed up (i have 2 children a 1 year old and a 4 year old and they have already destroyed 3 dvds) so if MP could natively do what My Movies does this would be great

[Ynot]

can you not just add .ifo to the movie extensions?

[homerpez]

Originally Posted by Ynot

can you not just add .ifo to the movie extensions?

No, Mediaportal so far only supports use of .iso disc images... that is, it makes one big file which emulates a whole DVD disc. The only way to use these is to load these files one-by-one into Daemon Tools (a disc emulator program) and then your machine will see the "disc" on a phony DVD drive on your system.

You can see why this is painfully annoying in Mediaportal, since every time you want to watch a DVD from your hard drive, you'd have to load the phony disc image FIRST, then open up Mediaportal where you can see it as a disc.

Media Center (once you hack a simple registry setting) will just look for DVD movies backed up within a directory on your hard drive, and let you simply click and watch. This is a must for people who want to deal with as few discs around as possible (I have kids too, I laughed when I read that, AaronG85)

If/when Mediaportal enables this, AND HD movie support, I will be very, very excited.

[Forgotten Illustrator]

Originally Posted by homerpez

To do that the Mediaportal way, I have to take my existing DVD folder, somehow encode it again to an .iso file, then fumble with loading the .iso into Daemon Tools, THEN load Mediaportal.

The way it should work, IMO, is like Media Center does it... select a folder (or folders) to have as your DVD collection, put your DVD folders in there, and each movie can be read directly off the hard drive with just one click. Simple, effective.

BINGO!
1...If you open MP setting and go to the first tab “general” on that tree, next go to“Daemon tool” setting and add the data needed.

2...Now go to “Movie” Tab and go “movie Extensions”, Add (.iso)

when you click the file MP will automount the image and start playing it with ONE click.

[mrkaras]

if you just copy the contents of a standard DVD to a folder and browse to the folder using my videos media portal will play the folder like it was a DVD. I don't know if HD DVDs are different (do they have a different file layout?).

I know that that much works on my home-made DVD structures, I haven't tried coping a commercial DVD but I can't imagine it whole be any different.

[NickName]

Sorry guys, but I am lost with this topic?
I rip most of my DVDs to sub-folders in a folder called (surprising) "DVDs" on a raid array. I add a folder.jpg and when I open this "DVDs" folder, I see all the sub-folders with images (folder.jpgs) displayed for each.
When I click on the folder/image, the DVD plays and I don't use the Daemon tool.
I do this as my 4 little kids lose, break, scratch or make filthy DVDs and it is such a pain to find, let alone to get a disk to play.

Some of my DVDs (animated kids movies mostly) are in MP4 format and when I click on these folders, they open and display the MP4 name. I click on that and it plays. Obviously the DVDs are less clicks to play but much bigger in size.
I have not added IFO or VOB to the supported file list in MP, though I have installed Nero (for the MP4 conversion functionality).
This method works with MPs builtin DVD player.

Perhaps you guys should install Nero?

Good Luck,

Nick Name

[James]

Playing a DVD on the HD from a folder with VIDEO_TS etc (not iso) works here too. Not sure about HD-DVD though.

[mrkaras]

I don't think I have Nero installed but I do have one of those hardware bundled DVD players installed (power DVD I think) if that makes a difference.

--edit--
actualy I do have nero installed

[NickName]

Power DVD should be fine. You just have to have XP enabled to play DVDs as it isn't enabled 'out of the box'. M$ want you to pay for DVD playing functionality :-(