Stream DVD to XBox 360 via Media Center Extender

September 16, 2008 19:53 by John M

Ok so obviously I always will write something regarding some code or coding concept. However, I'm writing this more on a personal level as to what I was doing, and too be honest I love software and I think that I am able to do this is pretty cool.  And big props to those out there who do design the software that makes this possible.

So this may be old news, but my DVD player recently took a shot and is no longer working, so this is why I got interested in this concept in the first place.  Here is my setup that I currently have

Home Theater system with my Xbox 360 in my living room, and my Windows Vista Ultimate PC in my office.  The Vista box is running a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM. Yes I know I need to get more RAM, because I also run Virtual PC on here for development purposes.

So since Vista runs Media Center I wanted a way to utilize my Xbox 360 and Media Center to watch my DVD's.  I know I can just pop in a DVD into the 360 but that is besides the point as I'm trying to get rid of having to store all of my DVD's in shelving units. 

Here is what I'm doing to watch my movies via streaming from Media Center to the Xbox 360.

Overall concept is the following:

1. Shrink the DVD to about 4.37 GB
2. Convert the VOB files to AVI files
3. Convert AVI files to WMV files

Seems like a alot of converting but I promise the quality is fine to watch the movies on the 360.

Software Required:

1. DVD Shrink - download it via the link below

http://www.dvdshrink.org/where_en.php

2. DVDx - I actually found this via a Wiki article here

http://www.wikihow.com/Rip-a-DVD-to-an-AVI-or-MPG-File-Using-DVDx


Note: When you download DVDx it will install an XviD MPEG4 Codec and AVISynth Codec as well (you need them both)

3. Windows Movie Maker (built in with Vista Ultimate)

Now I'm not going to go into tons of detail on how to use the software, just what I have done.

- Run DVD shrink and backup your DVD to your Hard Drive to a location your specify. This process takes anywhere from 7-20 minutes

Once this is complete you will have 2 directories, and AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. You can Ignore the audio one

- Now open up DVDx and follow the steps above in the Wiki Article. The only thing I changed from the article is loading up from a File and changing the resolution to 720 x 480

This process takes anywhere from 1.5-2.0 hours.  The end result will either be one AVI or two AVI's.

Next and final step is to convert those AVI's into WMV's so they can play through the XBox 360 Extender.

- Open up Windows Movie Maker and import the AVI's created from the step above.  Drag the two AVI's onto the storyboard and Publish to the computer.

When you publish select "Windows Media DVD Quality"

The end result of this will be the WMV file that allows you to watch the movie via the 360.

So far I have done about 7 movies and the file size averages about 1.6GB per movie.

NOTE: Keep in mind the WMV file is strictly the movie and nothing else (i.e., menu, extras).


VIEWING MOVIES VIA THE XBOX 360

Go ahead and start your XBox and fire up Media Center at this point.

Browse to your WMV file via Media Center and select the movie you want.

Now depending on what TV you may or may not be satisfied with the view.  I personally have a 42" Plasma TV so I have the black bars on the side of the movie.  To eliminate this, I set my Zoom Setting on my 360 to Zoom 3.

And that is that to make your DVD into a WMV so you can stream it to your Xbox 360!  Like I said I have done this with about 7 movies so far and haven't had any problems.

Oh yea keep in mind I'm not a hard core media/video guy...I usually rather spend my time coding or hanging out. But considering my circumstances with my DVD player failing I decided to do this and it works excellent!  Enjoy

I promise I won't write too many of these types of articles, but I couldn't find any useful ones that didn't require configure my box, xbox or media center all wacked out.


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Team Websites - Club Dynamix

July 6, 2008 12:15 by John M

Hey everyone we have released a new product called Club Dynamix.  This product helps those club/teams out there who don't have a website or want to change their website.  You can check out more info about the product at http://www.clubdynamix.com.  This differs from other team website systems because we do the full design and layout per customer.  They are basically purchasing the engine that runs the site and any additional modules if they choose.  I'm pretty excited about this product as I think it will be very helpful for those teams out there who need to get information out to fans, friend, team members, and family. Plus it's only a one time cost of $600 (without additional modules).   The customers only need to pay for hosting and domain name each yr, or whatever renewal period they choose. 

Check out www.westwoodfootball.com to see the product in action (I think they are still working on adding content).

What you won't see is the whole management/admin aspect of the product.  They control about 90% of the content.

Again check out the product page at http://www.clubdynamix.com to see a full description of the product. 

 


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Blog Posting Downtimes

June 11, 2008 08:50 by John M
Hey everybody, I apologize about not being able to post anything on here for awhile now.  I've been working a new product for XDev Software called Club Dynamix. It is basically a content management system for club/teams. I'm pretty excited about it and hopefully you guys will see something on the XDev site in a few weeks or so. 

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How To Pass Credentials Across Servers in ASP.NET

February 28, 2008 15:32 by John M

Sometimes you will run into the situation where you are not able to pass windows authentication/credentials across servers when dealing with a web application.

In order to do this you can do a few things:

1) Setup Kerberos on your network so the 2 servers trust each other and will accept passing the domain credentials

2) Create Application Pools so your web application can run under that identity and it will pass the application pool's credentials across servers.

Then the question rises...what if I want to have identity impersonate=true in my web.config? Below are examples of what you will

get when identity impersonate=true and when it is not configured in the web.config.

From a developer stand point and a network standpoint, I feel it is easier to configure application pools then starting to setup Kerberos

on the network.

First thing is first for this example, whatever web application you are using please make sure Anonymous Access is disabled in IIS on this web application.

Second, make sure authentication mode in the web.config is set to Windows

Below is code you can put in the Page_Load method to see how the credentials change through out configuring impersonation and application pools

using System.Security.Principal;

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  Response.Write("<b>HttpContext:</b> " + HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name.ToString() + "<br />");

  WindowsIdentity id = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent();
  Response.Write(
"<b>ApplicationPool Identity:</b>" + id.Name);
}

Below are the results without impersonation being enabled in the web.config.

With Web App Using Default App Pool

----------------------------------------------------------------

HttpContext: DOMAIN\yourusername

ApplicationPool Identity:NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

With Web App Using Application Pool
configured to use a seperate domain account

-------------------------------------------------------------

HttpContext: DOMAIN\yourusername

ApplicationPool Identity:DOMAIN\seperate_domain_account

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now lets set identity impersonate = true in the web.config and see the results

 

Below are the results with impersonation being enabled in the web.config.

With Default App Pool

----------------------------------------------------------------

HttpContext: DOMAIN\yourusername
ApplicationPool Identity:
DOMAIN\yourusername

---------------------------------------------------------------

With an application pool configured to use a seperate domain account

-------------------------------------------------------------

HttpContext: DOMAIN\yourusername
ApplicationPool Identity:
DOMAIN\yourusername

---------------------------------------------------------------

You notice with the identity impersonate = true the application pool does not matter what application pool you are using.

This concept helps when you are trying to deal with passing security credentials across servers to access SQL databases.

For most of the applications I have designed, I use the following concept if I need to use impersonation:

1) disable anonymous access in IIS
2) make sure impersonation is enabled
3) SQL connection string uses a standard SQL user account

This allows me to use the impersonation feature and since its a normal sql account we are using to access the SQL server it doesn't matter if it's on the same server or not.

This concept also helps even if the SQL Server and Web Server are on the same server. Reason being is that it's easier from a maintenance side for managing how many SQL accounts need to be configured on the database.


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Designing a Good API

December 7, 2007 13:07 by John M

Below is an excellent presentation that one of my peers informed me of.  Please visit the following link below to watch the presentation on how to design a good api.

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/effective-api-design

Below is a summary from the link below that describe a little bit of background on the presentation and presentor.

"Summary
A well-written API can be a great asset to the organization that wrote it and to all that use it. Given the importance of good API design, surprisingly little has been written on the subject. In this talk (recorded at Javapolis), Java library designer Joshua Bloch teaches how to design good APIs, with many examples of what good and bad APIs look like.

Bio
Joshua Bloch is a Principal Engineer at Google. He led the design and implementation of numerous Java platform features, including the Java Collections Framework. He is the author of the Jolt Award-winning book Effective Java. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia. "

Reference - http://www.infoq.com/presentations/effective-api-design


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