DVD Library and XBox Media Center Extender

[Beradon]

I'm going to have to apologize in advance for this one, but I'm unsure what to look for in terms of figuring this out. I did some searching but my results were inconclusive.

So recently I began ripping my DVD collection (~220 DVDs) to a large hard drive only to discover (of course) that I cant play the DVDs to the XBox extender. Fortunately I had only ripped about 20 of them before figuring this out.

Can someone give me a suggestion as to the best way to do this so that I can see the box art like on my HTPC (when using the DVD files) and have everything display in the movie location on the menu?

I'll be storing the files in whatever format they end up on my WHS2011 box on a hard drive I recently added and will likely only hold these files.

I could use suggestions for ripping software, format, bit rate, etc. I'd prefer to avoid installing a bunch of extra codecs if at all possible.

Any other useful tidbits would be appreciated.

Thanks again, and I apologize as I'm sure this has been covered somewhere before, but I'm just not sure what to look for.

[aeblank]

Handbrake to rip and mymovies for coverart.

[Tracer]

Try AutoRip n Compress, works great!

http://autorip.blogspot.com/

[Beradon]

How is the quality when it is finished? I tried DVDShrink and it looked awful which is why I was just going to do full rips.

[cw-kid]

You could use VideoRedo and quick stream the main VOBs in to .DVR-MS files its fast and they will play on extenders with full fast forward working. No loss of Video quality as you are not reencoding but just changing the container from VOB to DVR-MS, Mpeg2 is the actual video format.

Or if you are a My Movies user they have a built in DVD transcoder for extenders.

[Beradon]

I've gone the auto rip n compress method, although there's a couple of DVDs I have that MakeMKV cant handle, and auto rip n compress hasnt been updated to work properly with the current DVDFab. I installed the old DVDfab and while it would rip it, for some reason it would delete the file before converting it.

I'd like to do mymovies, but it costs too much.

[Beradon]

Anyone know where the 'resume wtv' addin can be obtained from now? Both links I've found that require it to be purchased (one for $1.99 and one for $4.99) are dead.

I dont mind paying the author but I dont know where to find it.

[Beradon]

I've obtained the WTV resume add in, but I'm experiencing another couple issues.

When playing the videos back on the actual HTPC, not on the XBox, I'm getting a pretty hardcore stuttering/choppy issue.

It'll play silky smooth for sometimes minutes at a time, then be very choppy for 3-5 seconds while the audio stays smooth, then it will catch up and re-sync.

The files are located on my WHS 2011 server which is the same place my recordings from TV end up and the recordings play perfectly.

Network settings are mostly default except I've turned on flow control on the HTPC and the WHS machines to help with microstuttering on the XBox extender. I've also disabled 'green ethernet' settings on the HTPC (didnt make a difference), setting doesnt exist on the WHS.

I swapped switches and put a Netgear GS105 in place of where the TrendNET Greennet TEG-S80G was, but it made no difference. Both switches have a megabit of buffer which is what I've read in more than one place is the recommended amount of buffer memory.

Any suggestion as to how to correct it? I've done a lot of searching on the issue and there are a lot of suggestions on how to correct it from video and network drivers to network settings and replacing video cards. I've tried a few and others arent an option (no room in the case to add a GT 430 graphics card).

Second, when loading up the video library on the XBox at first all the movie images load and such, then the screen refreshes and they are all gone with just the colored blocks. None of the metadata shows off the bat, although if I play the movie then hit stop it'll show but the video image disappears (this occurs on both the HTPC and the XBox).

[richard1980]

Copy the file to the HTPC and try to play. If it continues to stutter, the problem is with the file (the first thing that comes to mind is the 29/59 issue). If it doesn't stutter when playing from the HTPC, the problem is with your network.

[Beradon]

Copy the file to the HTPC and try to play. If it continues to stutter, the problem is with the file (the first thing that comes to mind is the 29/59 issue). If it doesn't stutter when playing from the HTPC, the problem is with your network.

I'll give it a shot, but it would be rather odd for it to be the network when the larger and higher-res HDTV recordings play without an issue.

I wasnt aware DVDs suffered from the 29/59 bug.

[Beradon]

I've verified that it definitely appears to be the 29/59 bug. I ran it straight off the HTPC rather than the server and the stuttering still existed in precisely the same spots every time. However when run through the XBox extender, the stuttery spots were not apparent.

[richard1980]

There's no technical reason why a DVD couldn't have the 29/59 issue, since the issue is with MPEG header data and DVDs are MPEG-2. But the issue could also be with the software you are using to rip. The next step would be to determine if the issue exists only in your ripped version, or if it is apparent on the disc itself. Try playing the disc on the HTPC and see what happens.

[samm]

Below is my process for archiving my movies. Before you drop everything and follow my process, please realize the following:
-The resulting video files are compressed - they are NOT a 1:1 archive. See compression below.
-They are .MP4 files, with AVC video and AAC audio. This will play natively on virtually ANY device out there today - including your XBox 360 extenders (WITHOUT transcoding), iPads, etc.
-My SD archives are 2ch AAC, probably since that was I used to do and haven't changed that yet - you can play with the handbrake audio settings if you like to try to get 5.1 in your SD archives.

Compression:
Resulting SD archives range from 750MB - 1.5GB in size.
Resulting HD archives range from 3.5GB - 14GB in size.
The reason I compress is to save HDD space, mainly for transfer and use on mobile devices (the .mp4's play on virtually anything)
780 archived movies (roughly 80 of them are BluRay/HDDVD archives) consume only 1.70TB.
A lot of people don't like compressed archives, b/c it doesn't have perfect vid quality. This is a very valid argument, but in the same breath one has to point out just how advanced Handbrake's compression algorithms are - to compress areas of the frames where you wouldn't notice it most of the time. I consider myself a videophile, and I'm happy with the compromise I've made between vid quality and archive compatibility/mobility.

Software I use:

DVD movies:
DVDShrink
Handbrake

BD movies:
bdinfo
AnyDVD-HD (not free)
TSMuxer
eac3to
vlc media player (just to preview different vid/aud/sub streams)
handbrake

I use YAMMM for metadata collection, because its simple. It likes to grab non-English covers every now and then, so its not perfect.
If you're brave enough, try for Media Browser - that should take care of metadata and a pretty, albeit non-native, interface in MC.

Follow this process if you like, to each their own...

*******************
DVD:
*******************
DVDShrink Settings:
Preferences:
Under "Preferences" tab, select DVD-9.
Under "OUtput Files" tab, de-select "Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks(recommended).
Under "Stream Selections" tab, under Audio language, select "English", and "AC3 or LPCM";
under subpicture language, choose "English"

DVDShrink How To:
Select Open Disc; allow disc to be analyzed. When finished analyzing, Select "Re-author".
Choose only the "Title <#>" under "Main Movie", and drag & drop it over to "Re-authored DVD" side.
Click "Compression Settings", select "No Compression". Under "Audio", select only English, AC3 5.1 if possible.
Under "Subpicture", unselect all, do not select Direcor's Comments for either audio
or subpicture.

Handbrake Settings:
Preset:
Regular - High Profile

Make no changes to Picture/Video Filters/Video/Chapters/Advanced
Change Audio to AAC track only
Be sure to rename output to .mp4


*******************
Blu Ray:
*******************
Use AnyDVD to Rip Video DVD to Harddisk.

Use bdinfo to analyze BD folders, to find out which playlist file is needed to represent the entire movie (this helps with discs that use several large .m2ts files as feature film)

Use tsMuxer(input tab) to select that playlist file, found under "<movie name>/BDMV/PLAYLIST/". This will show you all vid/aud/sub streams for your feature film.

If an audio stream exists that is already ac3 5.1 in English, verify it's not vision impaired or directors comments. I use VLC media player to test each of these aud streams.
If that stream will work, skip the next step.

If main English audio is not ac3 (such as DTS-HD or True-HD):
Use tsMuxer to extract only audio file from .M2TS file; save audio as <aud>.ts file.
use eac3to (command line) to convert to .ac3 file with syntax:
eac3to <source>.ts <destination>.ac3

Use tsMuxer to mux main video stream(1920x1080p) with either the "stock" .ac3 audio stream, or the .ac3 converted file. Mux as .M2TS.

Resulting video should be AVC 1080p video with AC-3 5.1 English audio inside a .M2TS container (check with MediaInfo).

Handbrake Settings:
Preset:
Regular - High Profile
Picture - set anamorphic to strict
Video filters - all off
Video - Video Codec: H.264 (x264); framrate: same as source; quality: constant, RF:20
Audio - Audio codec: AAC(faac); Mixdown: 6 channel Discrete; Samplerate: Auto; Bitrate: 640

Ensure container is .mp4 and ENSURE LARGE FILE SIZE IS CHECKED!!

Make sure output filename is .mp4 and not .m4v

[Silversee]

I rip both Blu-Rays and DVD using just two software products: AnyDVD and Handbrake.

The simplest workflow I have found for WMC and Xbox is to use the AnyDVD Ripper to copy the disc contents to a hard disk, then use Handbrake to encode the main movie title to H.264 MP4. In Handbrake, just set the source to Open Folder and point it at your rip folder; Handbrake will automatically find the right file to encode.

Understanding how to use Handbrake is beyond the scope of this thread, but the settings suggested by Samm above would be a good start.

My one added point would be that if you intend to use VideoRedo to remux the resulting files to WTV or M2TS containers (useful because these containers support discreet surround audio streams, whereas MP4 does not, at least not in a standards-compliant way), you must set Handbrake to encode to a constant, rather than variable, frame rate. The resulting encodes are not appreciably larger in my experience, so I just make this my default.

[nuclearxp]

Ditto Silversee. Try starting with one of the HD presets and go from there.