windows media center

[Brayton5232]

Anybody ever heard of windows media center xp? I know a guy who has it and it's so cool! You can rip your movies right in your hardrive and play them. It even acts like a tivo!!! But does anybody know what you need to have? I mean a pc obviously but what kind of v-card ect?

[Zealot125]

You dont need the media center edition to rip dvds....look for a piece

of software called DVD Decrypter. Sony sued the guy who developed

it, so the only version that is still availible for download is

outdated, but it has worked for all of the DVDs that I have thrown at

it. Eventually, a new copy protection will render it useless, but

for now, it works. The DVD decryter rips dvds into an IFO and a

VOB file. Then download a program called Auto Gordian Knot, which

will encode these files into an avi file, which is basically a

compressed version of the movie. You can decide what kind/how

much compression, or you can give the program a target like 75% quality

of the original DVD (still looks a thousand times sharper than VHS) and

it will encode accordingly. This process is not particularly

user-friendly, so if you dont feel confident with configuring these

programs, then it is not for you.

Also, in order to work as a TIVO, you will need 1 or 2 TV tuner cards

(nvidia makes a great one). You'll need 2 if you want to be able

to record a program and watch another at the same time. Again,

the special edition is not actually REQUIRED, its just user-friendly.

[dougdrake]

Also, there is more than you ever want to know on this subject at

www.avsforum.com. They have an entire forum section devoted to

Home Theater PCs, in which these subjects are discussed to a level way

beyond what I can handle.

I am using a DVICO Fusion5 HDTV card in my PC to pull HD over the

air. It works great on digital signals, but the analog tuner

section is for crap. I also have an ATI All In Wonder in another

PC and it has a great tuner section. However, as mentioned, MCE

just needs a tuner card without the attendant software as it provides

its own.

For DVD "ripping," I actually use DVD Decryptor to create an actual

image of the DVD - an ISO file. I believe the encryption point is

moot in that case, since I'm not ripping it - just making a bit image

of it on my hard drive. I then use Daemon Tools to "mount" the

ISO image as though it was an actual DVD in my DVD drive. Then,

DVD playback software just accesses the ISO image directly for normal

playback. Works great. However, there is no further

compression done, so the ISO image is pretty large.

For audio playback, I use an M-Audio Revo 7.1 with a digital output to my HT receiver...

[DrWho]

Everything you ever wanted to know about video for the comptuer:

http://www.videohelp.com/

There are also many legal pieces of free software that will store a dvd

on your computer for later playback. As far as video cards go, you

probably want to go with an ATI All in Wonder, which will have all the

processing necesarry to ouput into just about any video format you can

think of. If your intent is strictly movies you can also get by with a

built in digital audio output (most motherboards come with this

functionality now). Then you just plug everything into your reciever.

[ARPRINCE]

You dont need the media center edition to rip dvds....look for a piece

of software called DVD Decrypter.

This software is really good however, it is limited to copying only

DVDs to DVD-R if the size is approx up to 4.36 GB. If the DVD size is

greater than this (ex. dual layer DVDs), then I believe this will not

work for you.

[wstrickland1]

You dont need the media center edition to rip dvds....look for a piece of software called DVD Decrypter.

This software is really good however, it is limited to copying only DVDs to DVD-R if the size is approx up to 4.36 GB. If the DVD size is greater than this (ex. dual layer DVDs), then I believe this will not work for you.

but if you use Nero Recode you can fit it on a single disc. it omits unneeded crap and if that's not enough it will compress what's left and tell you what the "quality" is going to be(as a percentage)