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.

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. 

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