Home movies put on DVD, incl. menu, now on NAS. How to display menu on TV?

[zigjam1]

I apologize in advance for asking a question that must have been asked before. Despite spending many hours over the last years to find or come up with a solution I was unsuccessful. I politely ask you for advice.

I have seen posts on this turn into a copyright discussion, so let me say right off the bat: these are movies that I made myself of my family and children. There are no copyright issues.

Over the years I have been converting my home movie tapes to DVDs and created menus - entries like: "Christmas 2001", or "4th birthday". The DVDs were created with Pinnacle software. I now have some 30 of these DVDs and would like to copy them onto my NAS for display on TV, including the ability to use the DVD menus for selecting scenes.

I have tried several avenues of approach:
- Installed a plex server
- Converted the DVDs to MP4 and several other formats.
- Made ISO images
- etc.

With none of these have I been able to display the menu on TV and watch the home movie as I would watch it from the DVD. Is what I want possible at all? I would be happiest if I could do it on TV (or on a device connected to it, maybe WMTV?) If not possible I would settle for a stream through computer option using the mouse as remote control (Note that I cannot do it with PowerDVD16 either I think - it does not cast ISO images to my TV).

Many thanks for any thoughts!

[_Al_]

I ran into this 5-6 years ago. Because of home videos as well. Then, there was WDTV Live media player and many others that could play VIDEO_TS structure (not the first generation, but those after 2010 or 2011 started to do it properly), even ISO's I think, with menu so I have been using that player especially knowing to play a DVD structure. It can play those DVD's locally or puling it from NAS or whatever is shared over network. De-interlacing was done well.

So if you get one of those old school media players based on a firmware, this is the feature that those players usually fulfill, to play DVD with navigation.

There are HTPC's out there using Windows or Linux. And other kind of devices or other media boxes out there now ,based on Android, basically they should be called HTPC's as well, but they are not. They are not using "motherboard and processor" so to speak, but more compact solutions with SoCs , things are more integrated. So there is a shift , those custom firmware devices are abandoned (and known operating system is used instead. There are exeptions like Dune players and many others, they still perhaps use their firmwares. If running Windows or Linux it is obviously covered with software players (MPC-HC, VLC and others), KOdi as well. This application named KODI or formerly known as XBMC, is popular under Android OS, It can play VIDEO_TS structure with menu. Video/File etc. Not sure about ISO, you'd need to google that.

Kodi is a very good application but it does not uses perfect deinterlacing methods, not the best. Perhaps those like you and me with home videos (DVD's saved as VIDEO_TS or ISO) are not really a common thing , I mention this because you you have home videos, I assume those are interlaced. So this is where it is heading to, my opinion, abandoning taking care of interlace footage. I have most DVD's transfered to double frame rate progressive MP4's (from original avi's) so I do not have to deal with it anymore.

[johnmeyer]

I play DVDs off hard drive all the time. I just copy the entire VIDEO_TS folder and then play from that WinDVD, PowerDVD, VLC, etc. all play just as if they were playing from a DVD. No difference.

So, all you have to do is copy that folder; no conversion to MP4 or anything else is required.

[zigjam1]

Thanks so much Johnmeyer and _AI_.

I believe both of you are suggesting to hook up a cable between my laptop and the tv. As an alternative, _AI_ suggests to find an older firmware based media player such as WDTV. The difference seems to be what software to use - Johnmeyer suggests PowerDVD or winDVD, whereas _AI_ is looking at more enhanced solutions such as MPC-HC or KODI. Cool, while analysing your answers and doing some further research I have learned a lot.


Four follow up questions if I may:

1. Is my interpretation of your answers correct? Should I forget about casting to a chromecast or the tv directly, just hook up a cable and have a dedicated laptop or pc with the right software installed?

2. I tried johnmeyers suggestion and it works as long as I start off from file explorer and have PowerDVD linked to the .ifo and .vob extensions. More difficult to get the menu working by selecting the .vob or .ifo from within PowerDVD, although I am sure that can be blamed to my inexperience with the PowerDVD16 software. Any tips on how to do this from within PowerDVD16?

3. In the forum many people suggest to just give up on the VIDEO_TS or ISO structure and just make a big library with .mp4 (or whatever format) video files. I imagine the challenge would be to rip the DVD into the separate bits according to the menu and name the resulting files accordingly. Is that a correct interpretation? Any tools you would recommend?

4. Subsequently any home theatre application (or indeed PowerDVD) will be able to present the different video files on screen and allow me to use my mobile as the remote control? Is that correct?

Thanks again

[_Al_]

1. I do not lean to any suggestion, it is up to you. I do not use chromcast at all, I do not use wi-fi, it is mostly turned off anyway , only LAN.

3. to transfer interlaced titles in VIDEO_TS to mp4, you need best double frame rate deinterlacer, and that is QTGMC, or just use Handbrake or Vidcoder(Handbrake +batch) , load your DVD in there ,it perhaps would do a decent job as well

4. I pass on this logic to handle content with phone, two things, it is similar like using DNLA services for streaming, you basically keep two devices busy for one purpose, also , again, wi-fi must be on. Something that other person might laugh at , , I understand.

about those remotes,
those android boxes have remotes included (but they mostly suck) you better get extra remote for about $20( usb wireless mini keybord with touchpad), those more expensive android models should have good remotes included , for HTPC's you might get some remotes as well like harmony and using it with KOdi, I'm sure there is more than one solution, I do not have HTPC though

[zigjam1]

Great - I think my problem has been resolved. I have handbraked one DVD and it seems to work, so I will do one every day for a month or so and all should be fine (and free).

Many thanks for your swift answers - it helped me big time to move forward on this.

[lingyi]

Rather than re-encoding to .mp4 (and losing quality), I recommend using MakeMKV (free) to put your files into an .mkv container. Follow the instructions in this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/381873-Want-to-covert-a-single-MKV-into-smaller-MKV...oss-in-quality to set chapters and cut the MKV into individually named files.

Serve via Plex (I prefer Mezzmo) to and set to Transcode if needed for those few devices that won't recognize .mkv.

[_Al_]

Yes, I forgot about that, re-wrapping it to mp4 losslessly is better idea then re-encoding DVD again, if not having original footage. There is one flaw about this, footage is still interlaced but it's anyone's choice.