How to Play Back Ripped DVD Folder with Vista Windows Media Center?

 

After copying a protected DVD to computer hard drive using Any DVD Clone on Window Vista, people may wonder how to play the backup DVD folder in Vista Windows Media Center?

Windows Media Center is not able to recognize a DVD folder as a DVD unless you give it a helping hand. Here, there is an easy way to fix this by modifying a section of the registry, which will alter how Vista handles DVDs.

Open Registry Editor (Start, Run, REGEDIT) and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\DvdSettings

Double-click the key ShowGallery and change the value from "Play" to "Gallery".

Click OK and exit the Editor. If you've got Media Center open, you'll need to shut it down and re-launch it. Now, under "TV + Movies", the "Play DVD" option is now "DVD Library".

 

Select this option. Apart from a couple of trailers there won't be any content. Right-click on Media Center, and select "Add Movies"

 

And then click "Add folder to watch" -> "Next" -> "Add folders on this computer" -> "Next", then navigate to the folder which contains the DVD folder copied by Any DVD Clone, and click "Next".

 

Vista will automatically scan and recognize the contents of the folder Aden populate the DVD Library. Select any tile, and it will play it as if it was a standard DVD.

 

As with DVD file playback on XP MCE 2005, each DVD title found doesn't have a visual representation.

To enable this, simply do a quick Google Image search for the title, and find a appropriate DVD cover and save it to the subfolder containing the VIDEO_TS and Audio_TS folder - make sure you save the image as "Folder.jpg". Go back into the DVD Library and the DVDs will have the appropriate image assigned to them.

 

Now, you can play the DVD movie on Windows Media Center: