View Full Version : convert DVD's to play on XBMC
heathuff
2008-03-07, 08:01
Hi all,
I'm hoping someone can help but I'm not sure on how to ask. Here's what I want to do: I have a 3 year old daughter and the movies I buy for her keep getting scratched up. Whenever I buy one of her movies (and yes I own all of my movies), I immediately back up the DVD onto my hard drive in ISO format. I currently have a 250GB hard drive and XBMC installed on my XBOX. Is there a way to play her movies in XBMC without loss of quality? I know I can convert them to AVI and play them, but I would like to get them converted without any loss of quality? I hope someone can help...I know I can't be the only father in here with a toddler :laugh: Thanks in advance!
Gamester17
2008-03-07, 13:58
Just press play on the ISO/IMG file (XBMC support playing ISO/IMG files with or without menus).
I am sure that is stated in the XBMC Online Manual (and the FAQ), ...did you read it? :rolleyes:
XBMC Fan
2008-03-07, 16:04
I use a program called "DVD Shrink" to make ISO files of my personal DVDs, after ripping the entire contents of the DVD to temporary files using Smart Ripper.
If you have a recent version of XBMC, it should play back any ISO files without any problems, even using SAMBA (Windows filesharing).
Due to the nature of these programs, I cant link you, but just do a search for "DVD Shrink" and "Smart Ripper" and you should find them without too much hassle.
Note that for Smart Ripper, you may need to briefly open up the DVD in Power DVD or Windows Media player to unlock the DVD drive (just play it for a second or two). Also, for Smart Ripper, use "Files" and then "select all" for all content to be ripped. After that, just open up the temp files in DVD Shrink and create an ISO that is 4-5 GB, or about half of the retail original.
**If you have playback problems, you may want to change the cache for DVD playback. I had some stuttering across SAMBA, but then set everything in cache to 2048 KB, and now I have no problem playing back anything, and that's using wireless @ about 30 feet distant over Wireless G.
Why do you need DVD Shrink if you use Smart Ripper? you can use SR to pull just the main movie and remove menus and stuff...
heathuff
2008-03-08, 06:17
Hi guys, thanks for all of the replies...I was unaware that xbmc played ISO files, the version I have definitely doesn't. I am already aware of how to rip the movies and I am very familiar with DVD shrink, but like SleepyP said, if you use smart ripper, you don't even need DVD Shrink. Anyway, I'm in the process of downloading a more recent version of XBMC, so hopefully I will get it working. I assume I just put the ISO file into the "movies" folder and run it from there. Thanks for all the responses, I'll let you know if I run into problems!
exactly right, ISO playback and DVD menu support are actually over a year old if I remember right, so grab the T3CH build from 2-24-08 (I think thats the most recent) and have fun.
XBMC Fan
2008-03-09, 09:58
Why do you need DVD Shrink if you use Smart Ripper? you can use SR to pull just the main movie and remove menus and stuff...
Right, I guess it's a matter of personal preference - Some of my retail DVD's - for example the Seinfeld episodes - have a lot of extra stuff that otherwise would be stripped out (Notes about nothing, deleted scenes and so on).
Some people don't care about getting the "full retail experience" shrunk down to a 4.7 GB ISO, in which case using SR to strip out all the extras is the way to go.
Regardless of that, ISO's play great on the newer XBMC builds. The only other thing I could point out is to make sure that the DVD region is set to the same region (or region 0) as the ISO image. Was told that the region locale setting didnt have an impact on ISO playback, but for some reason I could not play Region 1 ISO's without changing this setting (no idea why this was so).
I assume I just put the ISO file into the "movies" folder and run it from there.
If you're putting the ISO on your Xbox you'll need to shrink them below 4Gig as that's the file size limit.
heathuff
2008-03-12, 08:08
If you're putting the ISO on your Xbox you'll need to shrink them below 4Gig as that's the file size limit.
hmm....I forgot about this...anyone know how I would get around this being all of my ISO's are around 4.3GB? :shocked:
heathuff
2008-03-12, 08:48
Never mind, I wasn't thinking...I'll use DVD shrink :)
Why do you need DVD Shrink if you use Smart Ripper? you can use SR to pull just the main movie and remove menus and stuff...
XBMC Fan said he used DVD Shrink to make an ISO after ripping selected parts with smart ripper. If he doesn't need DVD Shrink, does that mean SR can write an ISO image? I got SR the other day & have successfully ripped various ways: full DVD, just movie etc, but I can't see where it can write an image file.
What I mainly want to do is copy my music DVDs to ISO's onto a NAS drive I have, then play with XBMC. I'd prefer to rip just the main title, have it play right away (no menu) but still have the track/song chapters. Can anyone recommend a good way to do this?
Never mind, I wasn't thinking...I'll use DVD shrink :)
I have 4 iso files that are greater than 4gb I guess I need to DVDShrink but when I open the iso files in DVDShrink, I get error messages reading "Invalid UDF file system".
I can get these to play on laptop using Daemon Tools to mount the drive but cannot get XBMC to play.