The goal was to setup a simple and intuitive media center solution for our growing collection of DVD’s. What it ended up being was a long drawn out hack-fest. First the goals:

• Full digital backups of DVD’s
• Compressed feature films with subtitles
• The latter two incorporated in media center server
• Simple distribution to Xbox360
• Bonus: Online content (still unsolved)

Full digital backups of DVD’s

This was easy enough and was solved while figuring out other issues. The simple answer was to use DVDFab to grab the DVD content and save it to an .ISO. For those following along: Under DVD to DVD select Full Disc, then on the target section click the file with the circle and select a target ISO location. The ISO will then be the source for future conversions so you can take the DVD and wrap it up and store it for future generations to marvel at the wasted space (bits/atom). I went with the full DVD9 if applicable because it is the master backup copy.

Compressed feature films with subtitles

Although I spent a few hours decoding the cryptic world of codecs, media splitters, and other extremely painful ways to control your media post-processing, I found that using DVDFab again, you can knock off this goal as well. This time using the DVD to Mobile option with your fresh ISO as the source and a folder as your Target location, you can pick your favorite file format (I choose .avi) from the far left dropdowns, and then your encoding types from the Profile dropdown (I prefer h.264 and mp3). If you let it roll with this you will get the default encoding settings which target a 700MB file, which is not really applicable in my situation so I mucked around in the settings (edit button to the right of the profile dropdown) to optimize (two passes & 1400MB file) and embed subtitles directly into the video (major bonus later on).

The latter two incorporated in media center server

So with the available hardware/software (Windows 7 box with Windows Media Center) I found that the Movies section did a poor job of presenting the files I had just added to its library. This led to another Google chase after the best plugin that would ‘just work’. I tried both “My Movies” and “Media Browser” plugins for Windows Media Center and found My Movies to be the excessive OCD option (with a database manager to boot) and Media Browser to be the ‘just work’ solution that helped with getting the Xbox360 to play nice (extender options). An extra sub-note, in order to get Media Browser to not ‘find’ both the ISO (it can handle them by passing the buck off to Daemon Tools which is cool but not useful to me) and the avi, I wrapped the ISO up into a .zip.

Simple distribution to Xbox360

Finally after setting up the Windows Media Center as an extender on the 360, connecting to Xbox Live to download a codec update, and adding .avi’s to the supported extender rendering list in the Media Browser advanced options, it all worked like a charm. As mentioned previously I had the subtitles added to the movie frames during encoding. Since we like to have the subtitles on anyway, this was a no brainer; but its pretty much a big hassle to get those subtitles up on the server (.srt or .sub files and codec fun again unless you use VLC) and nearly impossible to get the extender to act similarly. So the easy, quick , (and in our situation optimal) fix works well: subtitles on the extender Xbox 360.

Phew.
Now I just need to get busy copying all these DVD’s

New site update today includes a new header, icons, favicon.ico’s and more, all thanks to Dan Satterfield. The new designs really make the site pop and I think they fit my/the sites personality well. Thanks so much Dan!

Today I am going to try to build and install the recently released Google Chrome OS. Ill updated fail/win results later.

Needless to say, I was not suprised when my gate number was incorrect…

We don’t know what the future is yet.

-unintentionally prophetic

I kicked my ass to get to the airport, changed while driving, parked and ran, bit my fingers while the bus driver slowly creeped to the terminal, ran to security, jipped the line ran to the gate and got there exactly 15 mins before takeoff (they give your seat away after that), and guess what? Delayed 20 mins. FML.

RIP: A Remix Manifesto is a great film that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the music industry / copyright policy debate.  This section of the film is something that really stuck out to me as troubling and interesting.

I picked up the phone last week and am enjoying it. This is just a list of ideas/links/questions about the phone.

1. The media dock and car dock modes can be accessed by placing a magnet on the back of the phone at the right locations.

2. Home screen doesn’t tilt when held sideways.

3. More as they come…

(Typed from the phone)

musicaddiction is going through a major UI overhaul.  First, and most dramatically is the new theme which I am adapting from manifest.  It won’t look simplistic soon, but for now I am building up from scratch.  Also you may notice the new ‘categories’/'blogs’ which are actual additional blogs that are directed to from subdomains.  This will allow for more diverse topics to be covered and easier navigation.  This has been in the back of my mind to do for the last 2 years.

Finally this editor blog will serve for these types of announcements, as well as a place to write about unrelated things or topics that may not be appropriate for the main blog.

Thanks for your patience!