Ripping DVDs to Media Centre

[Syrilion]

One of the great things you can do with an ASENT Media Centre is play DVD's. But did you know you can also copy a DVD to your media centre and play it with out using the actual DVD? This process is called ripping and it involves copying your DVD to the media centre hard drive. This is a step by step guide to ripping your DVDs to your media centre so you can view them with out using your original DVDs.

There are some prerequisites:

1. Original DVDs
2. A DVD decrypter. Recommended programs are DVD43 (free) or AnyDVD HD (subscription). AnyDVD HD will also allow you to play Bluray's from any region.

To rip a DVD to your media centre:

1. From the Start Button open Computer
2. Expand the Computer folder and click on the Movies hard drive (usually E:)
3. Create a new folder called DVDs. From here on this will be referred to as the DVD folder
4. Create a new folder in the DVD folder and call it the title of the DVD you want to rip.
5. Insert the DVD. If the DVD starts to play, stop it.
6. In my computer right click on the DVD and select 'Explore'
7. Select the two folders VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS (if there is only one then select that)
8. Copy these folder by right clicking the mouse and selecting "Copy"
9. In Computer, go to the folder created in step 4
10. Right click and select paste. Pasting can take some time as it is transferring up to 4 Gb of data.

This will copy the DVD contents to your computer hard drive. Next we have to let the media centre know where the DVDs are:

11. Open Media Centre
12. Navigate to: Tasks --> Settings --> Library Setup
13. Select "Add folder to watch" by pressing OK and the select "Next"
14. Select "Add folders on this computer" and select "Next"
15. Tick the appropriate folder usually E:\DVDs (clicking a plus box will expand to reveal other folders, a minus will collapse folders)
16. When do select "Next"
17. Click "Finish"
18. Press the "Back" or "Exit" button several times to return to the media centre Start Menu

To check that you can see the DVDs folder on your hard drive, navigate to: TV + Movies --> DVD Library

You should be able to see any DVDs stored on the Hard drive in the DVDs folder you created. To play the movie simply press "Play"or "OK" on your media centre remote.

To add a custom thumbnail to your DVD folders (like a cover) simply add a picture file called "folder.jpg" to the folder you created in step 4. what ever the "folder.jpg" is will be displayed as a thumbnail for that folder.

So that is all there is to it. Enjoy!