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[carfac]

Hi:

I've been using MC for a while. Just started to look at the Video possibilities. Basically, we are going on Vacation, and I want to take some stuff on my laptop for my four-year-old to keep her entertained.

So, no problem, ripped some VOB's (of DVD's I own, of course!) to my HD. I have them in Videos sub menu- have cover images and such. Cool. But playback is pretty choppy.

Playback in PowerDVD is fine- no problems there. Just choppy in Media Center.

ANy advice?

Thanks!

Dave

[glynor]

I can't help you with your playback problems (it's probably DirectShow filter related though) but if you use AutoGK to convert the files from raw VOB's to XviD-compressed AVI's you'll have better luck playing them back (and much more room for more movies since it squishes them down signifigantly).

It's really easy to use.  You basically just rip the DVDs onto your hard drive using DVD Decrypter in IFO Mode (or something that works similarly).  Open AutoGK and open the main movie's IFO file as the Input File (it will also work with VOBs, M2Vs, and bunches of other MPEG-based content but the IFO is the easiest to use and still get all the audio tracks and whatnot).  Then you select what size you'd like the output to be (I find 1024MB gives pretty good quality for most ~2hr movies), select what audio tracks you want included (and Subtitles if you want them) and hit go.

You can download the latest, completely free, version of AutoGK here. (The site seems to be down right this minute, but it was working yesterday and I'm sure it will be back soon.)

There's a nice guide for using it here.

To make sure the playback of these (and many other) video files works well, I'd recommend you install the latest version of the ffdshow DirectShow filter (get the Alpha 2004-10-12 version) and AC3Filter.

(BTW, for anyone who wants them, the "Daily" builds of ffdshow are available here.  I haven't tested them thoroughly enough to recommend them, but they are built by the actual developer.)

[carfac]

Thanks for the help.

I d/led this, and gave it a whirl. Takes a while to encode (2:17 for Lilo and Stitch), but it sure looks good! On my 15" HP, I see no problems. I compared to the original, and it's dang close! Just a bit darker is all. I encoded to 1.5 Gigs. Compared to the 4.5 gig original, that's worth it for me.

And it seems to play great in MC, so that is the important thing!