This tutorial will guide you through adding your DVDs to Windows Media Center (part of Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate), so you don’t have to get up off the couch and switch discs each time you want to watch a movie.
Using a few free programs, you can add your entire DVD collection (or a portion of it) to your hard drive, and then access them via Windows Media Center. This isn’t a tutorial on how to encode/convert your DVDs to a different video format, rather, it explains how to watch them in full DVD quality, via Windows Media Center. Note: If you have hundreds of DVDs, you’ll need a pretty huge hard drive (or several very large hard drives) to store them on.
- The first step is to convert one of your DVDs into an .ISO file (step-by-step instructions can be found here).
- Now download and install Daemon Tools Lite. The installation is very straight forward, but you’ll need to reboot during the process. Make sure to install Daemon Tools to the default location (C:\Program Files\Daemon Tools Lite\)
- After you’ve created at least one .ISO file from a DVD (to test with), download and install mceDTools.
There’s one step in the mceDTools installation you need to make sure you follow carefully. When you get to the Configure Daemon Tools Loader Settings screen, make sure you enter the full path to your .ISO files. I created a sub-folder in my Videos folder called dvd images – so the full path to my .ISO files/DVD library is: C:\Users\Ross\Videos\dvd images\
- Now that Daemon Tools Lite and mceDTools are installed, and you’ve created at least one .ISO file to test with, there’s one more thing to configure. Open the Control Panel and navigate to Play CDs or other media automatically from the Hardware and Sound section.
- Make sure that both DVD movie and Enhanced DVD movie are set to Play DVD movie using Windows Media Center, and then click Save.
- Now launch Windows Media Center. In the TV + Movies category you’ll see that a Daemon Tools Loaded option has been added. Select it.
- A list of all the .ISO files (DVDs) that you’ve created and stored in your ISO folder (the one you specified back in step #3) will be listed. Select one…
- and it will start playing! You can go back to the main menu and select another movie, and it will load. No more getting off the couch!
Just one question: Do the ISO files HAVE to be in one folder, or is there an options to create subfolders in it? Namely, in case of a few dozen DVDs or more, having them all in one folder would be a helluva scrolling all the time. Please advise.
I cant get daemon tools to show up in the tv+movies category in media center. What am I doing wrong?
thanks!
I have also installed all of the above programs and their respect pre-requisite programs as well. The Daemon does not show up in the windows media center screen. Any suggestions?
Worked perfectly for me; however watch out for the application permission dialog box that appears behind Windows Media Center the first time the daemon runs in Vista.
thanks
Bill
I did get it to work finally….half way. The daemon shows up on the screen but when I choose it, it says that it is an “invalid application” and it will not open it.
I have this working fine, but when i use it with my extender of course it launches on my computer not the extender.
Is there a way to have the extender play it and not launch media center from my computer?
I get the “invalid application” error as well. What is the fix for this? It shows up in Windows Media Center and everything looks ok..but it wont play.
The “invalid application” error also comes up for me. How do I fix this?
When I try to watch a DVD on my extender, it fails to start automatically. I then used the controller buttons in an effort to make it start. However, the DVD begins to play but on my computer instead, as Jon reported above!
I noticed that in DVD Library the virtual drive is listed as an HD DVD-ROM and not an ordinary DVD drive. In the AutoPlay of the Control Panel there is no provision to “Play DVD Movie using Windows Media Center” for an HD drive! I believe that is why the DVD does not start automatically when the ISO file is mounted in the virtual drive.
Howabout adding covers to the isos?, can that be done!! it would be sooo cool!
Everything seemed fine up to step seven. I open Media Center and I see the Daemon Tools icon. I click the icon and can see the ISO’s. I click on the desired ISO and it says ‘mounting image’ but nothing ever happens. Any ideas?
Thanks
Well… what am i doing wrong, since the movie starts playing on my computer, instead of the xbox ??
WTF am i doing wrong… i can see the daemon tools icon, and i can choose the images, but everytime, the movie starts playing on my computer… Arrhhgggg
Mike D check my comments
Salut
J’ai scrupuleusement suivie le tuto mais cela ne fonctionne pas l’icon Daemon Tools n’apparait pas dans WMC.
Je suis sous vista 64 SP1 DaemonToolsLite 4.30.3
I too can’t get daemon tools to show up in tv+movie category,
please help
Thanks for the writeup, it stinks that this wasn’t a feature right out of the box (along with avi and every other useful codec support, which I had to hunt for).
However, this doesn’t work at all for me either with SP1 Vista Ultimate. The Daemon icon doesn’t even show up in WMC. I’ve been hearing good things about Windows 7 Media Center, if it’s no better than this I’m off to Linux.
Control Center auto play settings pull down tabs for DVD does not have Media Center as an application option. It is in the video tab as an option. Do you know how I can get the DVD tabs to have Media Center as an application option?
Thanks
Thanks for this. Works great for me. To bad I can’t put images to show instead of the titles. Does anyone know if it’s possible to change the name Daemon tools loader in WMC?
Have anyone found a way to make the ISOs play in an extender like XBOX?
Is it at all possible?
Hi all…I noticed a number of users had difficulty getting the programs to work…the current version of Daemon tools has a different ‘name.exe’ than the default in MCE Daemon tools loader…so in step 3 you need to change both settings to be the same as your computer and your version of daemon tools…..this solution wont allow you to run ISO’s on an extender…XBMC can do this if that’s what you need….
“(…..this solution wont allow you to run ISO’s on an extender…XBMC can do this if that’s what you need….)”
Rodney, does this mean that Extenders like XBOX 360 can play back ISO movies from XBMX (Windows edition)?…