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Streaming Video Question

Submitted by Midnight on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 11:17am.

The demise of HD-DVD has me wondering about viable alternatives for my 9 HD-DVDs. My ultimate desire would be to have them on my HTPC and stream them to my Xbox 360 either as a media center extender, or just in dashboard. After some preliminary research it appears this is possible, but with some investment in commercial software (which would probably be about as expensive as re-purchasing the must-have titles on BD when the time finally comes). This is a possible plan. Please point out any holes in it or easier methods to accomplish it.

1. Use my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive with one of my PCs to rip the HD-DVDs. I would like to use it with my HTPC, which runs Vista Home Premium. I know it works with XP, so if all else fails I'll use it with my XP desktop. Anyone know whether it works with Vista? [update: Found info on AVS forum that says the drive works with Vista with no hacks, just plug and play]

2. Use AnyDVD HD to rip the HD-DVDs to hard disk and strip the encryption off. It's my understanding this results in several .vob files

3. Use AVS Video converter to convert the .vob files into something the PC and Xbox 360 can handle. I'm guessing .h264 or .mpeg would be best?

I still don't know how I'd combine multiple .vob files after conversion, if needed. Is there an easier way to do this? I would prefer to stream them while in the media center extender interface vice the dashboard. Do I have to make any decisions differently to enable this?

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trigger119's picture

I'm not sure about the other

Submitted by trigger119 on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 11:23am.

I'm not sure about the other things, but h.264 = win. Go with that one.

I've never ripped HD-DVD's so my knowledge here= crap, but it's much easier to do it on a mac, I have this sick program called HandBrake that rips em straight off the DVD into whatever format I want. Great for taking my movies to my iPod.

rapture's picture

HD-DVD movies are about to

Submitted by rapture on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 12:16pm.

HD-DVD movies are about to get really cheap as stores close them out. Wal-mart said they want to get rid of their inventory by Summer '08.

If you are OK with video rips stored on your HDD, then you could buy the expensive ripping software and buy the cheap HD-DVDs and come out ahead versus buying those same movies in the Blu-Ray format while preserving your current investment.

Of course, you could sell your HD-DVD equipment and software on eBay, save the money of the converting software, and put that money toward a PS3.

If I were in your shoes, I'd look for some ripping software to save my HD-DVD videos, though. I haven't ripped a DVD in years. But, I would be surprised if there isn't an open source solution out there.

JDOGG85's picture

Here is the software I

Submitted by JDOGG85 on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 8:22pm.

Here is the software I use:

http://www.dvdfab.com/

I believe they have a version to rip HD and remove protections. Not sure if this will help in your quest, but worth a shot to look into.

Looks like this might solve your ripping issue if you can get a converter.

rapture's picture

Some tech nuts at work

Submitted by rapture on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 9:30am.

Some tech nuts at work recommend this software: http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

Midnight's picture

AnyDVD appears to be the

Submitted by Midnight on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 9:59am.

AnyDVD appears to be the industry favorite. It's the software I reference in #1. Unfortunately, just like ripping a regular DVD, it outputs a Video-TS folder full of .vob files. Sometimes you can rename that to .mpg and it'll work great. Sometimes it doesn't work great.

Getting the .vob files to a single HD video file with an English 5.1 audio track is the hurdle..and it's a high hurdle.

D15AV0W3D's picture

After looking at the

Submitted by D15AV0W3D on Mon, 02/25/2008 - 4:00pm.

After looking at the slysoft.com website, it looks like CloneDVDMobile may be your answer (paired w/ AnyDVD). What I gathered is that it combines the .vob files into one file of your choice. It uses an open-source engine called MEncoder to do this. You can read more about it on the website. Perhaps this will lower the hurdle...

I'll do a bit more research

Submitted by dirtyJ on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 1:59pm.

I'll do a bit more research and come back to this, but if you're looking to stream to the 360, you have to go .wmv, as h.264 and mpeg won't stream to it without onsite transcoding that sucks up 10000000% of your computer's resources. Going .wmv is better than .avi as it gets you a smaller file size overall. I'll find you some links and whatnot that'll help you with the conversion process if you're interested.

DJ

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