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

[homerpez]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Illustrator

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.

I guess my whole point is, even this isn't intuitive...

It basically makes it so no other program can EASILY play the DVD folder off the hard drive again, since I'd now have a bunch of .iso files instead, just to make Mediaportal happy.

PowerDVD 7.3 seems to play any and all HD-DVD and DVD folders, just as they are ripped, right from the hard drive. I just wish that Mediaportal could do the same, only graphically "nicer" than PowerDVD does it.

Of course Media Center can also do this graphically already, but only with "regular" DVD folders, and every day I'm more interested in making HD work than "low-def" DVD's.

Back story: (part of why I'm so interested is, Nvidia still hasn't fixed overscan issues with HDMI, so menus on PowerDVD are cropped off... in Media portal and Media Center, they aren't).

Just seems simple enough to allow you to rip DVD's, HD-DVD's etc to the hard drive in a standard way, and then open them with a click. No screwy conversions, just having Mediaportal be another program choice to use (and hopefully a better one than the rest.

[NickName]

homerpez,

Have you read all the posts in this topic you started? Many of us are already playing DVD's "just as they are ripped, right from the hard drive", just like PowerDVD can, only it's simpler in Mediaportal.

[homerpez]

Originally Posted by 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.

What I am saying is exactly that... I have my movies in a directory we'll call "DVD". Each movie is inside its own folder "DVD/MOVIE 1" let's say. Then inside "MOVIE 1" is the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS directories.

What I am telling you is, they do NOT play with a click like Media Center does, not at all, no way, no how. I've tried directly linking to it on the "My Videos" setup (having that be my default video directory) and also browsing to it. Neither way works as it should.

As near as I can tell, this is the way it should work, but Mediaportal isn't doing what it should... unless there's something I'm missing here. Notice that I'm not the only one saying this...

And no matter how you look at it, HD directories are simply ignored and I don't even think support is there in Mediaportal to play the directories (it chokes on the HD-DVDs when I try to play them directly from a disc)... this would be nice to have in any case... separate and apart from the lo-def DVD folder issues, I wanna play HD!

[NickName]

Do you have any DVD playing software installed?
I guess you can but I'll ask anyway, can you play DVDs in XP?
If yes to both of these, I be would checking your options in the setup program because it is working for the rest of us.
Have you checked the box "Use external player"? (There is no need to do this with DVD's on your hard disk).

NOTE: I do not have, so can't comment on, HD DVD playback... I 'guess' that would work too. If you care to share a HD DVD with me, I'll try it hehe ;-)

Good luck.

[homerpez]

Dvd's do play fine on other programs, like PowerDVD, Media Center, and Media portal too... just not the "folder" method of doing it... I'm still trying even now to make that work (I'm a sucker for punishment)

As for HD-DVD... I'm just kinda HOPING that Mediaportal would support this eventually. It looks like just like Media Center, it supports HD files (like avi's and wmv's that are encoded in HD resolutions and codecs) but it doesn't support HD-DVD or BLU-RAY yet.

Just... I'm hoping.

[homerpez]

NickName... I think I maybe stand corrected...

Somehow, playing DVD folders DOES now work with a click... I don't know what was happening (or worse, how it started working...) but it definitely IS playing DVD folders from the hard drive. However, Media Center STILL plays them slightly more efficiently (controls are more responsive with chapter up/down)...

Alas, HD folders do not play in Mediaportal... hopefully this is forthcoming, since that would be absolutely amazing.

But you were right ultimately, dvd folders DO work. My apologies...

[NickName]

Apologies accepted :-) We all make mistakes (especially me! Hehe.)
I was about to ask if the folders were in DVD format i.e. with subfolders named VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS and vobs, ifos, etc. in that, but as you have it sorted I won't ask.

Enjoy :-)

[RoyH]

Playing DVD's from HD through MP works fine for me to. But playing HDDVD/Bluray doesnt. The internal player cannot handle this, even if you ad the .evo fileformat in the setup.

I dont like the option of using an external player in MP, ie Powerdvd, because than the feel of one GUI is totally gone, because the GUI of Powerdvd can be seen on top of MP.
Also the .iso mounting method for playing hddvd/bluray through deamon tools is not very elegant either.

So in my opinion we need something the guys using MCE2K5 can find in using MyMovies plugin, which can use an external player (powerdvd in mymovies 2.3) BUT keeps the looks of MCE itself, to keep the feel of one GUI.

So my vote is for porting (if this is the right term) MyMovies to Mediaportal (which then can use Powerdvd 7.3)

But unfortunately i know absolutely nothing about programming so...

[mrkaras]

Although I don't have any HDDVD/Bluray I would agree totally that Mediaportal should be able to play them exactly like it does standard DVDs (even though HDDVD/Bluray are all about DRM and probably won't work on your hardware in a few years anyway).

[Marcusb]

I also don't have an HD or BR dvds but since MP uses WMP as it's internal player, surely the first thing to test is if WMP can play these files on the Hard drive?
If so, then MP should too, as long as you have the extensions added in config.