Xbox 360 and .VOB playback

[smitbret]

My buddy just picked up his new flat panel tv and set it up in a corner of his living room. He games using an Xbox 360 and uses it as his DVD player. He has about 60 DVDs that are taking up space and he would like to just rip them all to an external HDD and just plug it in to his XboX 360 for playback. The kicker is that he would like to keep multi-channel audio for all of them. Since the Xbox is so versatile (rolls eyes) we're limited to .avi (Divx/Xvid) format, at least as far as I understand. Unfortunately, we don't wanna take the time to transcode everything to an .avi file if we can just rip straight to .vob. I know my PS3 will handle these with no problem.

Can I rip a DVD movie to a single .vob file, rename and save it to an external HDD and then play it back on an Xbox 360?

 

[MrWizzard]

Can I rip a DVD movie to a single .vob file, rename and save it to an external HDD and then play it back on an Xbox 360?

Strictly like that, nope.

 

[smitbret]

Bummer. Thanks.

 

[Anteaus]

You can use something like VOB2MPG to create a MPEG2 that will work. It won't transcode so you lose no video quality and the AC3 soundtrack is left intact so multichannel audio is also fine. If the 360 can use MKV files, then VOB2MKV is another option. It does the same thing, except its free.

 

[smitbret]

You can use something like VOB2MPG to create a MPEG2 that will work. It won't transcode so you lose no video quality and the AC3 soundtrack is left intact so multichannel audio is also fine. If the 360 can use MKV files, then VOB2MKV is another option. It does the same thing, except its free.

Will the 360 natively read an mpeg2 file? I know it won't read an .mkv and from what I understand, mpeg1/2 files are ignored as well. It is probably just gonna be easier to rip 6 or 7 DVDs and then just queue them up in Handbrake; letting them transcode to .avi files while he's sleeping or working.

Unless anyone out there knows an easier/quicker way to get a DVD with multi-channel audio onto an external HDD for playback on an Xbox 360..........

 

[sdifox]

so what is wrong with sticking in the dvd when he wants to watch that movie?

 

[Anteaus]

Will the 360 natively read an mpeg2 file? I know it won't read an .mkv and from what I understand, mpeg1/2 files are ignored as well. It is probably just gonna be easier to rip 6 or 7 DVDs and then just queue them up in Handbrake; letting them transcode to .avi files while he's sleeping or working.

Unless anyone out there knows an easier/quicker way to get a DVD with multi-channel audio onto an external HDD for playback on an Xbox 360..........

It shouldn't have any problems reading MPG2 files. If your worried thought you can use Handbrake to convert to h.264.

so what is wrong with sticking in the dvd when he wants to watch that movie?

There is nothing wrong with that. Having all of your movies in one accessible place is just very convenient and protects the discs. This is why HTPCs are so nice. Imagine having all of your movies and music in one place. I'm guessing you never create MP3s and only ever listen to your music on an actual cd player? Same basic thing, except its movies.

 

[sdifox]

It shouldn't have any problems reading MPG2 files. If your worried thought you can use Handbrake to convert to h.264.



There is nothing wrong with that. Having all of your movies in one accessible place is just very convenient and protects the discs. This is why HTPCs are so nice. Imagine having all of your movies and music in one place. I'm guessing you never create MP3s and only ever listen to your music on an actual cd player? Same basic thing, except its movies.

I have 1200 dvds. No way in hell will I rip them.

I also have 16TB of HD movies :sneaky:

my point is, 360 doesn't really support an external hdd method. so why bother trying?

 

[boomhower]

Spend $50 on a streamer and call it a day. I paid $65 for a WD TV Live and all BS of encoding to a specific format is gone. The darn thing will play pretty much anything. Plug in a HD or do it over the network, both work well. I have mine set up on a wireless bridge and stream everything off my server.

 

[nsafreak]

You could always use a DVD ripping program that rips to MPEG2 and preserve the multi track audio and video quality. I use WinX DVD Ripper although DVDFab Platinum will do the job as well. Personally I rip my DVDs then store them on my PC and share them via Windows Media Center with a plugin called Media Browser

 

[smitbret]

I have 1200 dvds. No way in hell will I rip them.

I also have 16TB of HD movies :sneaky:

my point is, 360 doesn't really support an external hdd method. so why bother trying?

Yeah, but we're talking 60 movies. Looks more like a mess than a collection when it is sitting out on the tv stand. He wants to do it more for aesthetics than anything.

He streams his .mp3's through a wireless G network, right now, but the problem is that his only PC is a laptop with limited HDD space and he'd rather just plug/unplug the external into the Xbox 360 to occasionally add more files (if ever) instead of all of the time whenever he wanted to move his laptop. He's so emotionally attached to his Xbox 360 <rolls eyes> that he quickly vetoed my idea of a WD TV Live.

The other option, would of course be some kind of NAS, but he doesn't care enough to throw any more money into the project.

That being said. I used good ol' DVD Shrink last night to rip and convert Super Troopers to a single .vob file (that can be changed to .mpg by simply renaming) and was reminded that most current DVDs are gonna rip larger than the 4gb max for Fat32, so some kind of compression is going to be necessary, anyway. Looks like Handbrake is gonna be seeing some action over the next few weeks. Thanks for the help, guys.

 

[50]

You can rip the DVD's to .wtv which 360's will play fine with multichannel audio.