Prolific add-in developer Brent Friedman has kicked off a new Windows Home Server project, which has been released in alpha form this week. DVD Manager is a free DVD ripping application and is set to compete with My Movies for Windows Home Server, which is already receiving a huge amounts of votes for 2008 Best Windows Home Server Add-in in this year’s WGS Readers Awards (make sure you vote now if you haven’t already).
DVD Manager is the latest in a series of media focused add-ins to hit Windows Home Server – it’s great to see how the platform is evolving in this direction in the back end of 2008, through add-ins like RipNAS Essentials, My Movies for Windows Home Server, and DVD Manager.
DVD Manager still needs a lot of development, and Brent is looking for testers to try the add-in out, provide feedback and feature requests. Here’s the lowdown:
DVD Manager is an easy (and free) solution to automated DVD ripping using your Windows Home Server. DVD Manager supports ripping to many formats including: a folder, International Standards Organization (ISO), Windows Media Video (WMV), Audio Video Interleave (AVI), and soon more. All you have to do is pop the DVD in, and DVD Manager will do the rest!
DVD Manager does not decrypt your DVDs so you need an on-the-fly dvd decrypter. Supported decrypters include DVD43 (free) or SlySoft’s AnyDVD (not free).
System Requirements:
- At least one DVD-ROM drive.
- DVD43 or AnyDVD.
- At least Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
- IMAPV2 update for Server 2003
Current Rip Modes::
- To a folder.
- To an ISO.file.
- To a WMV file.
- To an AVI file.
Notes:
- If you have both AnyDVD and DVD43, DVD Manager will use AnyDVD instead of DVD43.
- If you have issues with the Home Server Console tab, double check that you have service pack 1 for .NET 3.5.
- When ripping the DVD to a folder, DVD Manager will go online and grab the front cover saving it as folder.png. This allows Media Center’s DVD Gallery/Videos and Windows Media Player to have a thumbnail provided.
- With AnyDVD, DVD Manager must first disable AnyDVD before ripping to make grabbing the correct dIsc id possible. This disc id is used for finding the DVD’s title. After getting the required information, AnyDVD is re-enabled and will start scanning the disc removing the encryption. After that, DVD Manager will start ripping and disable AnyDVD when done. The point of this bullet is to point out that using AnyDVD can make the process before ripping a bit slower.
Future Thoughts:
- Add a way for users to specify a custom codec as long as Mencoder supports it.
- Create an SDK of some sort.
- Add an abort feature for canceling ripping.
- Write up documentation.
Download: DVD Manager | Discussion and Support
