I'm new and Very Confused (1 Viewer)

[giblet]

I consider myself fairly PC savvy. After trying to figure out how to run a DVD, rip one or set up a CD library in MediaPortal I take it all back.
I don't care about any fancy skins. I might at some point by a TV tuner for my old PC but to be honest it's an old XP so the performance probably wouldn't be worth it but hey you never know. All I was trying to accomplish with the PC was to:

1) Setup my CD library and use MediaPortal to catalogue them. This PC was ok in it's day so why not put it to use.
2) Rip DVD's and use MediaPortal to do that and catalogue them.
3) Maybe watch some online videos but that wasn't the initial intent. After seeing MediaPortal could do that I was excited.
4) Like I said if everything else worked maybe buy a TV tuner. Without figuring all the above out I wasn't even going to try to fathom if it would work with my Direct TV.

I guess my priorities were in the # order as above but once I thought I might be able to rip some movies I thought that need might be higher. However, I can't get anything to work and have tried all of the online guides, installing plug-ins yada yada yada to come to the conclusion that I have no idea what a codec is and as for plug-ins I might want to stick to the glade variety.

Why wouldn't there be an out of the box solution for the above instead of all these plug ins? Can anybody help? I still haven't given up but after 3 days of trying I have caved and asked for help. If the solution is I'm never gonna get it so be it and I will just get a big magnet to the old PC.

 

[funkstar]

Why wouldn't there be an out of the box solution for the above instead of all these plug ins?

The reason for the plugins is so other users and developers can write their own pieces of functionality and integrate it with MediaPortal without having to wait for the mail application to be updated. If everything MP can do was integrated into the main installer (and all the plugins wrapped into the main app) it wouldn't be nearly as advanced as it is today. The core of MP is for TV viewing and recording, as well as music and video playback. Ripping certainally isn't a core fuction as the vast majority of users will either not need that or will use other applications for ripping their DVDs (I use DVDFab personally).

MediaSlayer (Media Slayer - MediaPortal - The Open Source Media Center) is the plugin you will need for ripping DVDs inside MediaPortal. The support forum for it is here

 

[pilehave]

MediaSlayer (Media Slayer - MediaPortal - The Open Source Media Center) is the plugin you will need for ripping DVDs inside MediaPortal. The support forum for it is here

MediaSlayer will also rip your CD's to MP3 or FLAC if you want to do it from mediaPortal. Personally, I find it faster to just use a simple Windows-program like the good old AudioGrabber.

When I rip DVD's, I rip them to ISO-files, as this preserves menus and the DVD-quality. Storage capacity is not really an issue anymore, I just bought a 2 TB USB-drive (which will hold at least 400 DVD-rips) for less than $150.

When you rip to ISO, and name the files after the movie, you can easily use the build-in Videos plugin of MediaPortal to catalogue them, or the more advanced plugin called "Moving Pictures".

MediaPortal is flexible. This also means that you need to put a little effort in to get it just right.

 

[BADBUG101]

yes but mediaportal will not play the iso. file that dvdfab makes, so how do you you play it?

 

[mm1352000]

As far as I know you need to use something like Daemon tools or Virtual Clone Drive to mount the ISO in a virtual drive. Set up a virtual drive under "General"->"Virtual Drive" in MediaPortal configuration...

 

[Jay_UK]

Hi there,

You need to install a third party piece of software (not a plugin this time) to "mount" the iso as a virtual drive (or potentially 2 pieces of software if there are copy protection issues - but I won't cover that in this forum)

To mount the ISO I use Slysoft's CloneDrive:

SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive

Install this, make sure you have configured it ok.

Then in Mepiaportal config, in the General section, there is an option for "Virtual Drive".

Enable "automount image"
Point the "drive tool" to the "daemon.exe" file in the slysoft clonedrive directory

And that should be it.

Any issues please post back...

J.

 

[thezfunk]

I don't know if this ever worked for the OP but it sure didn't work for me. Mounting the image fails on both XP and 7.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi there

What virtual drive software are you using?
What error are you seeing?
Where are your logs?

Please check here for fuller setup instructions and report back if you still have problems...