Playing Ripped DVD's in Vista Media Center (Xbox 360)

Greetings! And welcome to my first post. I had originally planned on posting about my many adventures with Alienware's m5700, but that will have to wait for another time.

Today I will be detailing a step by step guide on how to play DVD's on your Xbox 360 extender from your hard drive on your PC. This guide applies to Windows Media Center in Vista Ultimate (or Premium).
I can not vouch for how it works in Windows Media Center 2005.

Note: This guide is to help people store and backup their media legally, and enjoy it on their Xbox 360. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should use this guide to illegally rip media.


So first, things you will need:


DVDShrink: Click here to download
DVDShrink is the program I will be using in this guide, but any program can be used as long as it outputs the correct file.

VideoReDo: Click here to download
There are two versions of VideoReDo, either will do, so I recommend downloading the Plus version.

DVDFab HD Decrypter: (Alternative) Click here.

A PC running Vista Ultimate or Premium with a DVD drive and around 10 gigs of free space.

An active email address.


First thing's first, let's get everything configured before we start ripping.

Once DVDShrink is installed, run it and go to EDIT>>>PREFERENCES.

On the bottom of the Preferences tab, you can decide to uncheck "Run analysis and backup in low priority mode to improve multi-tasking". I personally uncheck this so that it will run faster, and because my system can handle the usage.

After you decide, click on the Output Files tab.

Uncheck the "Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks". This is very important! After this, you can click OK.

Now we can switch over to VideoReDo. After jumping through the initial setup hoops, you will see this screen.

Now navigate to TOOLS>>>Quickstream Fix. When you do this a window will pop up with two options at the bottom. Select the one that says something along the lines of "Get a Trial Key".

An email will be sent to the address that you enter. Check your junkmail! This email will contain a key. Highlight and copy this key.

Now go back to VideoReDo and click on HELP>>>ENTER SOFTWARE KEY. On this page click "Paste Key From Clipboard" and then hit the Register key. You will need to restart VideoReDo.

Ok, now we are ready to get started!

Open back up DVDShrink and stick a DVD into your DVD drive.

Now click on "Open Disc" and select your DVD drive with the DVD in it from the drop down and click "Ok". DVDShrink will now pop up with an "Analyzing" box. This process usually takes between 1 and 3 minutes, depending on your system.

Now you will see a screen that looks like this, with all of your DVD's folders and audio options displayed.

Now we want to click on the "Re-author" button in the top right. This will bring us to a screen that looks like this.

Under the "Main Movie" section, drag and drop the movie to the left under "DVD Structure".
Note: For the DVD I am using, it has two titles, in most cases there will only be one, and it will be the only title listed under "Main Movie".

NOTICE: Many people highly value quality, and thus do not want to shrink the DVD file size. If you want the smaller file sizes at a partial loss of quality, skip these colored steps.

If however you want to keep your movie at it's original size, follow these couple of extra steps.

After you drag and drop the "Main Movie" from the ReAuthor page, click on "Compression Settings" and on the drop box select, "No Compression". Now you can click Back up, and it will give you a warning about the file not fitting on a DVD, but that's OK since we are sending it to a Hard Disk Folder. Also when you do no compress the file, you do not have to change the settings on the preference tab, as this will automatically create one large VOB file.

Now click backup! Clicking Backup will give you this window.

Uncheck "Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders", we will not be needing them. Now click OK and DVDShrink will start encoding. This will take between 10 minutes and an hour, depending on your system and the size of the file. Times will vary.

After the encoding is done, we will be welcomed with this window.

Congrats! We now have our VOB file!

Now open up VideoReDo and click File>>>Open Video. Navigate to the VOB file you just made with DVDshrink. It will generally be named VTS_01_1 unless you renamed it.

This will open the video and by default start playing it. Feel free to hit pause.

Now click on Tools>>>Quickstream Fix. This will bring up this window.

Leave the Input as it is, but if you want to output to a different location, feel free to change it. I have mine going to my DVD folder that Windows Media Center looks at.

Now the Quickfix will begin. This usually doesn't take more than a few minutes.

And that's it! You now have a .mpg in whatever folder you designated. Hopefully you sent it to a folder Windows Media Center watches.

Important! Wherever your .mpg file resides (The folder Windows Media Center is watching) you must also move the rest of the files (most importantly the .ifo file) that were generated when you "Backuped" the DVD to the same folder as the .mpg.

To see your video in Windows Media Center (Via PC or Via Xbox! Horray!):

Open up Windows Media Center (Hit the Green Button!) and navigate to Pictures+Video>>>Video Library

Now here is one of few downsides I've found with Vista Media Center. It automatically finds random folders to look at, and I can't find anything to get rid of them! I will be sure to post when I do, for now, just navigate to the directory where you saved your .mpg.

This will bring you to a list of folders you have. I have my folders labeled for what movies are in them, and with their cover art. If you need a walk-through for the cover art, let me know!


Open up the folder where your .mpg is, select and enjoy from the comfort of your Xbox 360.


Footnote: You need the IFO files for everything to work correctly, just keep whatever is generated. If you need help doing this with DVDdecryptor, let me know.
Mr. Lemons