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[Ecrofirt]

I've got a friend asking me some stuff about it, as he got one for christmas.

Apparently the device plays movies or something, and he'd like to know what he has to go through to recode some DVDs so they'll be able to play in his player.

I don't have a clue what kind of hoops he'll have to jump through or anything, and I was hoping that maybe you guys did.

If you can help, please respond.

 

[DarienA]

From: http://www.engadget.com/entry/9377496751773606/

Recording DVDs to the PMC
To do this we used DVD To Pocket PC from Makayama. This tool takes any DVD and creates a WMV (Windows Media) video file out of it. While it is meant for the Pocket PC, it’s perfect for converting DVDs for the PMC. The cost on the application is $27, but it’s worth it. We converted 4 or 5 movies, and they looked and played pretty well.

 

[Ecrofirt]

Thanks for the link.

When I was looking at that page, I came across this:
Supported digital media file types:
•Windows Media Video and Photo Story files (.wmv, .asf) at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and at a bit rate less than 800kbps
•Windows Media Audio files (.wma)
•MP3 audio files (.mp3)
•JPEG image files (.jpg, .jpg, .jpe, .jfif)

Compatible with:
•Windows Media and Photo Story files (.wmv, .asf) at a resolution higher than 320 x 240 pixels and/or at a bit rate higher than 800kbps
•Microsoft Recorded TV Show file (.dvr-ms)
•MPEG movie file (.mpeg, .mpg, mpe, .m1v, .mp2v, .mpeg2)
•Windows Video file (.avi)
•Windows Audio file (.wav)

now, it says it's compatible with mpeg movies. I guess that means it will play them? Can you take a dvd and rip it to an mpeg file and play it, or is that beyond what the system will play?

Also, it says it supports .avi video. Any idea what codecs it supports? Would it be possible to divx a movie for yourself and have it play on the system?

 

[DarienA]

From what I read in another review using WMV to encode doesn't seem to work very well... but I haven't found a forum that really goes in depth on this type of thing.. sorry.

 

[retardboy]

I believe media centers make you use WMV no matter what anyway. Anyways, wmv works great on my ppc so I don't see why it wouldnt on the PMC. So what you need to do is just convert the DVD to a file on your computer that Media Player will play. Then you just click on sync and it'll automatically convert it for you. I dunno if this works, but I'm thinking get the mpeg2 codec and convert the dvd to an mpeg2 file and just load it up in media player and click sync. Or you could download Windows Media Encoder and encode it yourself using that.

Also, it says it supports .avi video. Any idea what codecs it supports? Would it be possible to divx a movie for yourself and have it play on the system?

Yes you can. I do it all the time on my PPC. You should be able to just hit sync in media player (the newest media player) and it will encode it for you to WMV. (I've never done it this way since I don't have a PMC, but that is how you're supposed to do it with the PMCs. You could also do it with Windows Media Encoder (which is what I do), just download it for free and encode it. I personally use variable bitrate for my video and it turns out looking dvd quality.