Playing a DVD from hard drive

[patkay_156]

Hi,

I have a DVD on my hard disk in a folder. The only way I an get VLC to play it is to manually open each VOB file.

It doesn't do anything when I try and open a .TS or .BUP file a la PowerDVD.

Is there a way to get VLC play a full DVD (with chapters and menus) from a directory on the hard drive?

Thanks

[kjo]

Yes, you can. You just need two additional pieces of software. (I'm assuming you are in a Windows environment.)

First, you need to get a copy of ImgTool Classic 0.91.X, which you can
get from http://www.doom9.org/software2.htm . (Look for it near the bottom of the page.) ImgTool Classic will create a DVD image (.ISO) of your .vob, .ifo, .bup, AUDIO_TS, and VIDEO_TS files/folders.

Second, you need a copy of Daemon-Tools, which you can get from
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/portal/ ... ry&catid=5 .
Daemon-Tools is a CD/DVD-ROM emulator that will allow you to mount the .ISO image you created with ImgTool Classic. Using Daemon-Tools, your operating system will "see" another CD/DVD-ROM loaded with your DVD image. Once you've mounted your DVD image, you can view it, menus and all, with VLC or any other DVD software player.

Things can get even more interesting if you have a network of PCs. You can store your DVD images in a shared folder on a file server, and then mount the DVD images over the network on the client PCs using Daemon-Tools. This way all the client PCs will have access to the DVD media, without the hassle of distributing the physical media or the risk of it getting scratched/damaged. (I have small children.) And this method, unlike the simple streaming (i.e., no RTP/RTSP) method, maintains all the trick-play features of your DVD software player.

Think of it as a poor man's video-on-demand.

kjo

[fkuehne]

Is there a way to get VLC play a full DVD (with chapters and menus) from a directory on the hard drive?

You can use the 'Open Video TS Folder' option to do that. Select it in the "Open disk" dialog and select afterwards the Video TS folder of your copied DVD. After that, you should see your DVD as it were in your DVD drive.

Regards,

[Gibalou]

Or just drag&dropping the folder which contains the .ifo/.vob files should work.

[Critt]

This works great for children. You don't want them to be handling their DVD's because they could damage them, so I also put them on the hard drive like you do.

I have a top level folder to organize them all (eg. D:\DVD_VIDEO\) then each DVD is copied into its own folder to keep them separate (like D:\DVD_VIDEO\Shrek\)

After setting up several features this way I then put some shortcuts on the desktop (Windoze®) to launch each feature.

Here is how I code the shortcuts:

• Shortcut name: Feature - Shrek
  
  Target: "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" "dvd://D:\DVD_VIDEO\Shrek@1:1"
  
  Start in: "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC"

Now I can put the DVD's in a safe place and not have to worry about replacing them.

I hope this helps. --Critt.