DVD ISO player software

First I will explain my problem. Maybe somebody has a solution that I dont see.

My children have a TV in their playroom. I have about 50 DVD movies for them in there. The problem is they dont know how to handle them properly. They are NOT the originals that they have, so the copies get ruined even esier. I dont feel like burning copies for them all the time from the originals whenever they wreck the copy.

SO I thought it would be cool if I could pick up a cheap P3 computer. Hook it to the tv, and set it up to auto load into a program that I could list the movies on, with icons from the movie. They could move a curser around and select the movie they want to watch.

This way they are only getting a mouse or keyboard dirty and ruined, rather than all the DVD's. I essentially want to create a DVD jukebox. As much as I like the DIVx and Xvid codecs and all that, I dont want to spend the time to encode each movie. I would like to be able to just dump an ISO image of the movies to a HDD and be done with it.

Now for my problem. I cant seem to find a player that plays ISO files. Not only that I dont know what software would list the movies so they could see what it is with an icon. I need to be able to lock the rest of the PC so they can ONLY run that program. I dont need th em changing system settings by accident or anything. I originally thought of using media center 05. But it wont play an ISO. I do like how it will list recorded TV shows with an icon if availible. I suspect if I put the movie in MPG2 or 1 format it would play in there. And I could get the icons. But again I am then stuck with some pretty nasty file convertion times.

Anyone have anything setup that is simalar?

I am not totally set on running windows on the PC either. So if there is a linux version of something like this I may be interested. I have never used linux though, and I dont really want to start on this project with that in mind.

 

Well what you can Do is Rip the Main Movies from each DVD to the Hard Drive as a Big VOB file..(essentially the same as a Mpeg-2 file)

Most DVD Rippers have settings in them that allow for Ripping just the Main Movie as a single VOB file Like DVD Decryptor and Smartripper if you go into the settings and set the "File Splitting" to "None"....

Also you will need to have a DVD Playback Software installed Like WinDVD or PowerDVD.....

After you have each VOB file for each Movie ripped to it"s own seperate Folder you Make a Shortcut from each VOB file to your Desktop and Name each shortcut after the Name of the Movie...

Now when One of the Kids wants to watch a Particular Movie they Just have to double click the Shorcut on the Desktop and then the Movie will start Playing.....(Just make sure that the VOB files are associated with the DVD Playback software which it should be allready)....

If your Kids are To young to read then it will be More Difficult as you will have to create Icons that the Kids will recognize as each Particular Movie..To do this you would need to use an Icon creation program to Make the Icons from say Pictures of Characters in the Movies and then Set the Icon for each Shortcut as the Icons you just created....

This seams like it would be the easiest way about it and the easiest for the Kids and once you have it set up it should work Trouble Free cuz all the Kids have to do is double Click the Shortcut for the Movie and it will start Playing.....

Cheers

 

I will look into that.

The thing that bothers me a little about that idea is that the children are still pretty young. My 5 year old is the oldest. So she is the one that loads the movies int he DVD player now. But if they are clicking shortcuts on the desktop there is a chance for them to slide the desktop icon around, essesntially ovelapping them.

I wonder if it would be esier to set it into a folder, and lock the folder layout. Also set it so they only need to single click them to load.

But I will give what you said a shot.

If anyone has any other ideas I am more than happy to hear them and try them out.

 

Well you can Put the Shortcuts anywere you want to put them, i only suggested the desktop because this is were the Computer opens to when you start it up so the Icons would be right there in front of them and if there were only Movie shortcuts on the desktop then there wouldn"t be anything else for them to accidently click on accept the Start Button which really is Impossible for anyone to screw up when clicking on it....

Cheers

 

thanks. Im gonna try that VLC thing. It looks like a LOT less work than the other option so far.

 

I just tried it now. If I change the default program to open .iso files to VLC it loads right up and starts playing.

I still will need to create a new icon for each movie for my kids. But this way I dont have to deal with virtual drives or any of that other stuff. I can just DVDSHRINK the movie and then it will play right away. I doint have to grab the video_ts folder and move it around or anything. So this saves me at least a few steps.

I just need to teach my kids to read so I dont need visual icons for them to know what they are loading.

Now I just am going to set up a DVD server. It will start with a 10 gb hdd with windows loaded on it. It will be netoworked to the rest of my network. And then I will add a 250 gb hdd to start loading the movies onto. That way I can access them all from ANY pc in my house.