Mammoth Software

wkearney99 · Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Bethesda, MD, USA

Which package will allow me to access videos from data format DVDs in a VGP-XL1B changer? MCE2005 doesn't seem to have a way to access video files. Is there something from you folks that I can use to allow this?

mammoth · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 38

We're not 100% sure what you're trying to accomplish, access videos is a broad terminology.

PowerExplorer has support for two access functionalities:
1. to simply mount a specific DVD disk in a drive (which then the disk can be played)
2. use the PowerDVD plugin which is a loose integration with DVD Decrypter that will allow you to rip the dvd.

is there some other access you're looking for?

wkearney99 · Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Bethesda, MD, USA

Disc full of various movie files; mpg, avi, wma, wmv, etc. Not a video DVD, so there's nothing to decrypt or rip.

Yes, I can mount the disc. But can I then have the videos selectable in MCE? There doesn't seem a place within MCE to deal with knowing about video files that aren't stored in online storage (as in, regular drives or shares).

mammoth · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 38

From what i know of MCE, there is no way to view video files unless they are part of the DVR recordings.

What you want is a video catalog and playback? The closest product available to that is PowerExplorer or PowerArchive.

PowerExplorer will just show you the slot and the volume name of each disk in that slot. You can add a description to each disc in order to locate the videos you're interested in. To access your video files, you would have to open a slot and then double click on a file.

PowerArchive works by scanning your discs and keeping a database of all the files. You can navigate the files in Explorer and if you have associated a player to the video files ( like VLC Player, which will support almost all most formats), then double clicking on the file will, mount the correct disc and Open (i.e. Play) the file.