Building My Media Center with Blu-ray

[puremick]

I want to say hi to all and thank everyone in advance for their help in answering my questions and helping me address issues I may have!I am new to this forum and new to building media centers even though I have been a PC tech and built many custom towers in the past! But it's been a while!

I put together a media center. Compononents below;
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini Itx Case
ASRock Z87E-itx Motherboard
Intel Pentium G3220 3.2 Ghz Processor
8 GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
WD Green 1 TB Hard Drive to start(have other TB and Larger Hard Drives around for extra media)
LG BluRay
Corsair CX430M Power Supply
Rosewill Remote
Windows 7 Ultimate

Everything is running fine! I have it booting directly to Windows Media Center where my 1st problem lies. It seems I have to ok PowerConfig.Exe(My Remote Dongle Program/Driver) to run at startup which is quite annoying since I really don't want a keyboard a mouse around. I know there is a way to ok this at boot but don't remember how to do it!

2nd issue is the BluRay. I know there was an issue with Sony and Microsoft and they didn't allow their Media Player to play Blu Rays. Is their any codec for the Windows Media Center that will allow me to play Blu Ray Discs through Windows Media Center? I don't want to have to switch to a 3rd party program

When Ripping Dvd's, what is going to be the best quality format and allow me to keep 5.1 or 7.1 surround if that's possible? The quality on some of my different video file types becomes pixelated on 50+ inch LED. A DVD plays perfect but I want to rip my DVD's to keep that quality

Another thing: When I add a secone TB or 2 Hard Drive, Can I format it to exFat for large files? I partitioned my 1st Hard Drive and installed Windows 7 on a small partition and I wanted to format the main part of the Hard Drive in exFat but I don't have that option and can't figure it out!

I think that's it for now but I may have more questions as I load media and tinker with it. Thanks again!

[barnabas1969]

No. Buy Total Media Theatre. It integrates with Media Center better than PowerDVD.

[newfiend]

+1 for TMT probably the best for blu-ray playback.

[STC]

Oppo 103D
Sorry... Seriously though, the PQ blows away any form of HTPC PQ and it just works all the time. I'm glad I switched.

[milli260876]

Rip them to mkv with makemkv, cheaper and bluray thru wmc blows....

[barnabas1969]

I've never had a problem with TMT. It works great and the video looks great.

I missed puremick's question about ripping DVD's. If you want to keep a DVD (not a Bluray) in full-quality, just extract the VOB files from the main movie (using a tool like AnyDVD from Slysoft), and append them together as a MPG. Media Center will play them natively. Appending them together is as simple as opening a Windows command prompt (DOS), and typing the following command:

Code: Select all

copy /b FILE1.VOB+FILE2.VOB+FILE3.VOB NewFile.mpg

Obviously, there can be any number of VOB files, and you'll need to specify the actual name(s) and path(s) of the VOB file(s) in the copy command. Just make sure to join all the source files using the + symbol. The output file (NewFile.mpg in my example) can be named whatever you like, as long as the file extension is MPG. If your file names have spaces in them, surround them with quotes. Make sure that the target path for the target file is on a drive with enough disk space, and that you have write permission to the target directory.

[milli260876]

^ or you could use vobmerge if you're happier with a GUI..
or use makemkv and install lavfilters(with bitstreaming enabled too.. NICE!)

[barnabas1969]

The above, mentioned by milli260876, is probably correct. vobmerge may be a good tool. I've never used it. But, plain old DOS will do the job... very efficiently. It only uses disk I/O. Want a GUI? I can make one for you that will ask for the source and destination files... and it will just use plain old DOS.

Regarding MakeMKV and LAV filters... well... that's a whole different animal. What I recommended was simply appending VOB files into a new container. The Windows command line (commonly known as DOS) can do that for this type of video. When you get into MakeMKV and LAV filters, you're going to involve trans-coding, which involves lots of CPU and RAM. That's fine, if that's what you need... but you don't need it for DVD.

[STC]

How about just playing a disc in the ole' you know, spinny thing?

[barnabas1969]

How about just playing a disc in the ole' you know, spinny thing?

You mean, like just putting the disk in the DVD/Bluray drive in the PC, and letting TMT just... you know... "play it"? Yeah... I do that all the time. Works great. Not sure why you needed to resort to buying a separate player. My HTPC does the job just fine. I actually like having one box that serves as my cable box, my DVD/BD player, and my media server all in one. The only exception is that I prefer using my Roku for Internet sources.

[blueiedgod]

How about just playing a disc in the ole' you know, spinny thing?

You mean, like just putting the disk in the DVD/Bluray drive in the PC, and letting TMT just... you know... "play it"? Yeah... I do that all the time. Works great. Not sure why you needed to resort to buying a separate player. My HTPC does the job just fine. I actually like having one box that serves as my cable box, my DVD/BD player, and my media server all in one. The only exception is that I prefer using my Roku for Internet sources.

Windows 7 does not play BD natively, only DVD.

[STC]

I have three versions of TMT installed (which is supported), mainly due to the fact I have a HD-DVD player and quite a few movies on those discs.
All versions of TMT work well 95% of the time but can glitch and either bring up visual anomalies or just crash back to MC. This happened with a Nvidia and with ATI on more than one machine (other machine has Blu-ray drive).

You're saying how can I be having problems with TMT? I could ask you the same thing about Ceton products. Everything I have that is made my them works 100%. This includes 2 Echos.

Regards to quality, well, I used to think like you then I compared TMT HTPC playback to a PS3 the PS3 won, so I used that as the 'reference' player and to perform calibrations from (i1D3 profiled with a i1Pro/ Calman Enthusiast) then go up another level to the Oppo which is simply breathtaking. My meter readings are that much closer to perfect which allows me to be tighter dialing things in. You wouldn't think it's possible until you see a disc play, Darbee or no Darbee (all other processing off). They have some very nice chips inside doing the work and it shows. I highly recommend you see a 103D in action playing a reference flick on a well calibrated TV.

[STC]

Windows 7 does not play BD natively, only DVD.

Yep we know that. I think the point was that I don't want to spend time ripping and storing, I just like to buy or rent a movie disc and play it. I also like to see a movie without compression and don't want to have to rely on a NAS or similar thing to do it.

[IownFIVEechos]

You're saying how can I be having problems with TMT? I could ask you the same thing about Ceton products. Everything I have that is made my them works 100%. This includes 2 Echos.

Your preview window works on the echos? How did you fix that? I want my echo to be 100% too

[STC]

^ I don't use that function and can only talk from my experience.
The Echos are on 24/7 as is the HTPC, they don't glitch or reboot.

We watch TV from them, pausing, rewinding, ffwding, setting recordings etc. and use them just as we did the poorer stability DMAs that I decommissioned.

[barnabas1969]

You're saying how can I be having problems with TMT? I could ask you the same thing about Ceton products. Everything I have that is made my them works 100%. This includes 2 Echos.

Touché!

Well, it looks great to me, and I like having it all in one box. In the three years I've been using TMT, I think it may have crashed once or twice... I can't remember the last time it happened.

[newfiend]

You're saying how can I be having problems with TMT? I could ask you the same thing about Ceton products. Everything I have that is made my them works 100%. This includes 2 Echos.

Touché!

Well, it looks great to me, and I like having it all in one box. In the three years I've been using TMT, I think it may have crashed once or twice... I can't remember the last time it happened.

Lets face facts.. These are PC's.. Anything software related is never 100% all the time. I think I have had every software crash at some point or another.. Windows, Programs, Games, Phone apps.. it's the nature of the beast. If you want a decent Blu-Ray software for HTPC then TMT gets my vote. The times I have used it TMT has always worked well for the most part and blends pretty seamless into WMC.
There are always better options out there as far as PQ etc. but if you want it all in one box and not have multiple boxes attached to the TV then this is the best option IMO.
Media Center is getting long in the tooth but it still does what I need and I like having a nice clean looking media stand like barnabas's all in one box solution... I thought the PQ on TMT and a Blu-Ray disk looked quite good. But I have never used a different Blu-Ray player other than my Sony which sits in the bedroom untouched and I really saw no difference in PQ between TMT and the Sony. (I know STC it's not an Oppo)

[STC]

^ I hear you

My vote would always be TMT. It's the best player for Windows IMO.

[barnabas1969]

Just in case the OP wants to buy TMT, we should tell him that there are often discount codes available that will knock 50% off the price of TMT. Just search for them on Google.

[barnabas1969]

OK, so now that we've beat the Bluray horse to death, I suppose we should answer the OP's other questions. I hope we haven't scared him away... he posted his questions 4 days ago and hasn't been back!

@puremick: Please give us more details about the PowerConfig.exe thing. I don't know what you're talking about. There is a built-in Windows program named powercfg.exe, and I have had some problems with it in the past when I was running it in a batch script... but I'm not sure what PowerConfig.exe is. I assume you're talking about the software that comes with some of the Rosewill remotes. I would recommend just uninstalling the software that came with the remote, unless you're actually using it to customize some of the buttons on the remote (e.g. the "Netflix" button).

If you want to keep the Rosewill software and want to eliminate the prompt, then you need to login as a user with administrative rights, find the program, right-click it, and go to Properties. Then, in Properties, click on the Compatibility tab. On this tab, click the "Change settings for all users" button. A new window will appear... put a check mark in the box next to "Run this program as an administrator", and then click OK.