Evening gents. I have a few questions about ripping/playback of standard def DVD files through a network capable Samsung BluRay player. The model is BD-C5500. I have Samsung PC Share app installed on the pc and it works as a bit of a DNLA server. It actually works rather well. Supported file types include Divx, MP4 and MKV. So I decided to try a simple rip of Surviving The Game using DVD Decrypter. I used file mode but I cannot remember whether I selected "all" under the edit menu or not. I ripped it to root of C: drive and it left a folder labeled Surviving the Game with a sub-folder labeled of course, Video_TS. This contained three files. A text notepad file concerning the rip, and IFO file, and a large video file of about 3.8Gb. I "shared" this sub-folder with PC Share and danged if it did not show up in the dashboard of the Samsung player and played just fine. Cool. I was certain it would not play if the files were not in one of the listed container formats.

Just for clarity lets condense this a bit. Ripped in File mode to Video_TS, NO compression or tanscoding, and no further file naming or "tagging" of any sort.

A few things came to mind. First of all I was not able to FF or RW through the BluRay. I could with Mplayer on the PC but not the Samsung. Is this normal behaviour? Is it a function the way I ripped it or a firmware limitation of the Samsung?

Second, meta data. I am going to try to loading the main folder of Surviving the Game into PCShare and see if the Samsung will parse it down to the subfolder where the video file is. I seriously doubt it but trying will not hurt. So suppose I need to share the sub-folder to do this. Can I simply rename the folder or do I need some sort of tagging application for the video file itself? The Samsung supports meta data tagging for audio files. If you do it correctly it will show album name, artist, and track name/number. Does such a thing exist for video or am I on the wrong track? I am really trying to avoid transcoding(is that the right term?) the files into another container like MKV even though I am sure it allows tagging of some kind.

I am really jazzed that the Samsung reads the Video_TS files as is. Or maybe I shouldn't be? Is it normal? Anyway, I like it because the rip took probably less than ten minutes and I did not have to waste HOURS transcoding(I think that is the right term) to another format or another container like MKV. It is my experience with my old XP SP3 pc that it would be a long time indeed before even one movie was finalised. I just need to be sure that if the Samsung takes a nap some day that I can play the files on another machine.

I eventually want to digitise all my standard def DVDs and this could make it really easy. So, assuming I can continue using DVD Decrypter for older DVDs should I continue ripping in file mode or try the IFO? I really do not understand what the differences are but for me, I am only interested in making a great, uncompressed digital backup. Menus, special features, heck even the warnings are fine as long as I can skip through them to the menu or movie. If I need something newer I suppose AnyDVD is the place to look. I am also a bit confused about what it does and does not do. I know it decrypts on the fly but does it rip or will I need a stand alone app behind it for that function? If so, will it need to be newer than DVD Decrypter? If so, which one? And if something new than Decrypter, will I need to try to learn some new commands for what type of files it rips to? Sorry for the long post but I think I am on the cusp of making a digital library/video store a reality for my home. Thanks for any help.