How can I watch DVD VIDEO_TS folder structures on a Windows Media Center extender?
Question:
How can I watch DVD movies in VIDEO_TS folder structure format on my Windows Media Center Extender, such as the Xbox 360 or Linksys DMA model?
Answer:
Windows Media Center Extenders does not support VIDEO_TS folder structures, or DVD's generally.
To allow you to watch your VIDEO_TS folders or DVD image (ISO) files on your extenders, My Movies offers a transcoding solution, which reads the DVD structure directly, and converts it on-the-fly to a format recognized by the extender session. This approch allows you to watch your titles on the extender, but you must notice that there at the same time is some limitations with the approch:
a) The software detects the main movie of your title, and converts that to an MPEG-2 format. This MPEG-2 file is then played directly, which means that you can only watch the main movie - you do not get access to extra material, intros, trailers and similar.
b) As the software detects the main movie, it functions only with movie titles, which has a main movie, while DVD's with TV Series typically will play the longest of the episodes available on the disc, or even in some situations one of the extra materials available, if it extends the play length of the episodes. Exceptions to this is TV Series on DVD which have been mapped correct and displayed in My Movies as actual TV Series - for these, My Movies knows which title set or chapter that contains your episode, and can play this accordingly.
c) You do not get access to the DVD menu. As the transcoding solution is a conversion of the main movie to another format, this approch must not be mistaken with full playback of a DVD structure, which it is not - access to the DVD menu would require full native support for VIDEO_TS folder structures on the extender.
d) Using the transcoding solution, some processing power is required by your host PC, as the video conversion process requires it. If you in the configuration choose to display subtitles, these must be embedded into the video stream, which requires re-encoding and processing - this will dramatically increse the processing power of the host PC, and it is unlikely you will be unable to transcode movies with subtitles using lower powered PC's such as Atom based machines.
Notes:
You can enable the transcoding solution directly on your Windows Media Center Extender session, by opening My Movies for Windows Media Center, click on "Settings" in the navigation menu, and choose "Transcode Playback". Check the box to enable transcoding and select your settings for the transcoding.
Notice! Using the Collection Management, you will be able to set some advanced options for transcoding that is not available within the Windows Media Center interface, by opening "Tools", "Options", selecting your Windows Media Center Extender from the drop-down list in the top of this dialog, and then click on "Extender Options" in the menu on the left.
Add Your Comments