Cant Get Vista Media Center to Work Even with My Movies Plugin

[jet757f]

I cant get DVDs that I have installed onto my hard drive using DVD Fab/Decrypter to showup in the Vista Media Center DVD library. I did the registry edit to change the value to gallery. I then installed My Movies hoping this would work. The movie shows up when I do the Collection Management but still does not show up in the DVD Library.

Right now the movie shows up in a folde under DVD as Video_TS and Audio_TS
If I open the Video_TS folder there is a mixture of IFO, BUP and VFO files.

Anyone know of a procedure guide for this?

[redwudz]

It's a bit convoluted, but MS apparently doesn't really want you to watch ripped DVDs in Media Center. But I found this method on the Web and it works fine for me:

First go to a 'Run....' window and type ' regedit '. This will open the registry editor. Back up your registry by using 'Export' next as any change here is instant and you can damage your OS.

Then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings

Change ShowGallery from Play to Gallery. Then close regedit.

Restart Media Center then you'll see DVD Library next to recorded tv.


Then you can add a DVDs folder to your boot drive for Media Center to watch.

Go to your boot drive, then under \Users\Public create a new folder named 'DVDs'. You then place your ripped VIDEO_TS folders in that location, within a folder with the name of the DVD. You can also set your ripper program to rip to the DVDs folder. I believe you can point it to other locations also.

Then in Media Center, open the new DVD Library and point it to \Users\Public\DVDs by R clicking and selecting 'Add Movies>Add folder to watch>Add folders on this computer>Public Documents>DVDs'. Put a checkmark by the new 'DVDs' folder.

Then when you open Media Center, go to 'dvd library', find your new DVD video and play.

You only have to do all this once, then you have your DVDs folder to use from that time on. Good luck.

[Rotramel]

That was totally awesome. I had no idea you could do that. I had tried numerous products trying to convert DVDs once I ripped them. That worked like a charm. They come up perfect every time.

Rot

[redwudz]

On my laptop, I was able to direct Media Center to a network drive, so it does work for ripped DVDs on other drives or computers.

[jet757f]

I did all of that. When I go to the library to play DVD it shows up but then tells me to insert disc.
WHy insert disc when it is already on hard drive?
Someone at My movies is telling me I need to use Any DVD.

Im confused..........is it easier to use the PS3 for this?

[redwudz]

Well, it's easier to use anything other the Vista Windows Media Center, IMO. WMC seems to make the simple operation of playing a DVD file a major project. You might try VLC or other players that can recognize a VIDEO_TS folder for what it is.

But, when you select the dvd library, if it says 'Insert disk' or similar, you may have not done the registry edit right. (Change ShowGallery from Play to Gallery.) And you do need to create the DVD folder and all the rest before adding files and accessing your ripped DVD files.

[Rotramel]

That is exactly what I did and it worked perfectly. I already had a folder named DVDs on a external hard drive. I only use DVD Decrypter and use the file option. This creates the VIDEO_TS folder and files. I have DVD Decrypter set to automaticly save to my external drive. I then rename the folder and move it to my DVDs folder. When I open Media Center and click on DVD Library, there are my DVD folders. I click on them and the Video loads and plays just like it would if I had the actual DVD in the Drive. This is a real big thing. Microsoft says you can't strean from the DVD drive on the computer to your TV with an extender. With this little trick, it should be no problem. I have a DVD library of about 200 DVDs that I am trying to get out of the hands of my kids. This is perfect for that. The down size is that it takes up about 3.5 8 GB. But hay, external drive are becoming a dime a dozen.

Rot

[Rotramel]

Well it looks like I was wrong. Althought the DVD folder does show up in Windows Medai Center on my PC, it does not show up through the extender on the the TV. I just purchased a Linksys DMA2100. Right now I have it hard wired in. It seems to be working great except for not being able to watch my movies that are stored on my PC. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Rot

[agrover]

I am having a similar problem. I loaded VISTA and got everything to work. Used My Movies to download the folder image and movie description. Except that I have a 1 TB western digital external hd which has a folder called M:\Movies under which I have all my movies listed. All the actual DVD's show up with the image and description, but when I try to play them, it tells me that no DVD found in the drive. If I copy the same DVD I have been trying to play from the external hard drive to another folder in the C:\ (root drive) in the "My Videos" folder that's another folder being scanned, the same movie will play without any change to any codecs. Has anybody experienced this issue at all? I want to save the main VIDEO_TS folders which are around 6-7 GB's each file. I will save the older DVD's in MPG4 format to save on size, but I want to copy my main ones without any quality loss at all. I need to keep all my DVD's in an external hard drive. Has somebody worked on a similar issue and how did you fix it?

[ibuyufo]

I have the same problem with my vista media center. I have 2 external hard drive attached to it and the movies won't play. Movies in the internal drives will play. Could it have something to do with the recent updates?

[ibuyufo]

I found a way to make vista play ripped dvds to an external drive through http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-de-windows-vista-multimedia/160736-d...usb-drive.html this link. Pretty much what you need to do is make a virtual folder by using the following command:

In the command prompt window go to C, D, or whatever drive you have and type
mklink /j movies x: where X is your drive containing your movies.
Then add the movies to the library again where you created your virtual folder.

That's it and it works.

[lykarok]

I cant get my stored dvds to play in wmc at all. I tried doing the registry edit like you talked about but "dvd library" never showed up. we are talking about "windows media center" for vista right.?

[redwudz]

Well, as I mentioned before, VMC is a real PITA to set up and use. If you are having problems, dump it and use something better. VMC with my laptop still finds all my videos on a remote computer over the LAN. It still shows any ripped DVDs I have on the same remote video server in my 'DVD Library'. It still shows my other misc videos in my 'Video Library', (To the right of 'Pictures + Videos') though that takes a few minutes to find each time. It also updates the selections when I access it each time. But MS has apparently made it very complicated to just do the simple task of viewing a video, especially if it's not on the 'C' drive. The mods I showed above are the only changes I have used, outside of adding ffdshow to play some formats.

That said, I don't use VMC much anymore. I just click on the network drive folder or PC folder that has my videos and play them with VLC or Zoom Pro.

Sometimes a pretty interface is not the simple or efficient way to do things.

BTW, my laptop uses Vista Home Premium and has SP1 and all updates installed and those haven't created any problems with VMC.

Sorry to be so negative about VMC, but I find it more bother than it's worth. JMO. But it does seem to work, at least for me, if set up properly.

[TooLFooL]

... MS apparently doesn't really want you to watch ripped DVDs in Media Center.

that's not entirely true, check this out!..
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930526

Thanks for the trick.. i was hoping this was the easy mod i have been looking for to stream dvds to the xbox but it STILL doesn't work! 'dvd library' doesn't show on the extender, only in VMC, just as Rotramel stated.. THIS SUCKS!!

[TorroX]

I also have the same problem, I cannot get My DVD collection to show up, only the DVD in the drive shows up in the collection.

I have done the gallery registry change, added the folder to the watch list and also I even tried MyMovies and still I cannot get my DVD library to show up. I even put it all on the C: drive under a folder called CLibrary and nothing.

At least you're not the only one with this problem. I doubt this has anything to do with it, but does anyone else have it working with all SATA drives? Even my DVD is a SATA drive. I wonder if this might have something to do with it.

[TooLFooL]

the solution is here...
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/258756/ShowThread.aspx

with these few tricks the xbox 360 becomes a kick-ass media extender with dvd's on-demand through VMC!

[seattlecard]

I also have the same problem, I cannot get My DVD collection to show up, only the DVD in the drive shows up in the collection.

I have done the gallery registry change, added the folder to the watch list and also I even tried MyMovies and still I cannot get my DVD library to show up. I even put it all on the C: drive under a folder called CLibrary and nothing.

At least you're not the only one with this problem. I doubt this has anything to do with it, but does anyone else have it working with all SATA drives? Even my DVD is a SATA drive. I wonder if this might have something to do with it.

I too am experiencing the EXACT same problem as the two of you.

Tried gallery registry change. Added folder to watch list. Tried MyMovies.

I see the "Dvd library" menu, but none of my dvd rips show up. I also have a SATA drive, not sure if that is affecting this? I am pulling my hair out over this. Any tips???

[TooLFooL]

hmm, well it's not the sata drive causing the problems, my system is sata...

[yoda313]

the solution is here...
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/258756/ShowThread.aspx

with these few tricks the xbox 360 becomes a kick-ass media extender with dvd's on-demand through VMC!

Thanks. I'm glad to see it being demonstrated with an xbox 360 as that is what I am using myself with windows vista. I look forward to testing this in the future.

Is there a way to get transport stream mpg files to work without reencoding for the media center?