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ISO vs. VIDEO_TS Storage for Media Center

In my continued research into how best to go about digitizing my movie collection and making it more accessible than it currently is (binders full of DVDs aren't too accessible) I'm reconsidering my position on storing the movie as ISO and might now just copy the VIDEO_TS folders to a drive instead. (I like DVD Decrypter for this.)

It turns out that both MediaPortal and My Movies for Media Center will support ISO playback using Daemon Tools, but ISO doesn't work for Media Center Extenders like the Xbox 360. Ideally you'd just store one copy of the movie, but with ISO not working, saving ISO would mean having to save two versions of it - the ISO and a MCE-compatible version. Talk about space usage.

My Movies has a document talking about which format to store movies in (they recommend VIDEO_TS over ISO) and the Xbox 360 as a media extender. Turns out Transcode360 can handle VIDEO_TS now, too, so from a "lossless" standpoint, it may be that VIDEO_TS is the way to go.

You can even burn VIDEO_TS to a watchable DVD later, which was my original notion of saving the ISO - so if the original DVD gets corrupted or scratched, I can re-create it. The only thing I don't know is how the various audio tracks (commentary, etc.) and extras (menus, behind-the-scenes videos) live on via VIDEO_TS and/or manifest on the Media Center Extender.

Print | posted @ Monday, January 29, 2007 12:16 PM

Comments on this entry:

Gravatar # re: ISO vs. VIDEO_TS Storage for Media Center
by arnaud at 11/9/2007 7:55 AM
Hi there,

Where are you now, 6 months after your original post ?
I'm using VLC to play my ISO collection. DvD shrink is also able to play ISO files but there you have almost no options.
GeexBox is also able to play ISO but you have to like the MPLAYER interface.

As I was not as clever as you when I saved all my DVDs into the iso format, I don't feel very enthusiastic to redo the work in VIDEO_TS format so I'll continue to look for a good ISO player.

Keep us informed on your progress
Gravatar # re: ISO vs. VIDEO_TS Storage for Media Center
by Travis Illig at 11/9/2007 8:34 AM
I've continued to blog discoveries as I make them, but generally, I'm not much further. I'm still working out whether the best approach will be to try to get Xbox 360 to stream the movies from a media center or not. Other projects came up, and I'm not any further. It's not forgotten, though, and I'll keep working on it.
Gravatar # re: ISO vs. VIDEO_TS Storage for Media Center
by tyler at 2/28/2008 1:47 AM
For many reasons I prefer to have my discs stored as ISO files rather than as folders. However, I too am unable to play them in Media Center or on an Extender. I do use VLC, but it's just not the same. I do plan on building a LinuxMCE in the near future, but until then I'm stuck with this ISO problem.

I just wanted to let arnaud know that you can use compression software (like 7-zip or WinRar) to extract your ISO files to folders that are usable in Windows Media Center.

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