Did Microsoft Answer Media Center Users Prayers?

Jun 9, 2009 by Adam Thursby

It appears that some Media Center users might finally get their wish.  Yesterday, Richard Miller, Microsoft Media Center MVP, tweeted that there was an interesting thread on The Green Button discussing DVD vob files and streaming to extenders.

After taking a look, I decided it would be a good idea to give this a try.  Media Center users have been clamoring to be able to stream DVD files to extenders for as long as there’s been Media Center and this ability seems to have finally been granted.

I was able to rip the main movie from my “Hook” DVD using DVD Shrink.  This created video and audio_ts folders from which I removed the vob.  After renaming the file to the title of the movie (NOT changing the extension) I moved it over to my media server.

From here I was able to get the movie to play both in the Video Library and the Movie Library.  While fast forward and rewind do not work, 30 second skip does.

There are still issues with playing VOBs.  Some folks from TGB are reporting problems.  I myself get an error when I try to play them in Media Browser.  Others have had issues when playing a single main movie VOB as opposed to several split ones.  I’ll be continuing to test streaming throughout the week and will report any additional findings.

I myself wonder when this feature was added to Media Center.  It was claimed several weeks ago that this was possible in Windows 7 but when I tried it then it didn’t work.  Could Microsoft have snuck in an update somehow?  Either way, this is a huge new feature to bring to the table and many MCE enthusiasts are going to be extremely happy!