Hmm… well apparently it’s not a CPU thing if some guy in his basement can figure this out but WD won’t implement DVD menus.
Well I guess you can purchase a WDTV Live Plus now…
DVDs Menus in ISO file are a very important function that needs full support, I’ve tried making a mkv file out of my DVDs and found it close to worthless. The DVDs I have are DVDs I created of my home videos with Chapters in the main menu that refer to events such as Joes 5th Birthday, Johns 3rd Birthday, June 4th Picnic, June 7th picnic July Picnic, Animals at Play etc. Tthe menu titles I have are very important to find these events. Similar DVDs I’ve purchase are tutorials and the menu items list the specific tutorial such as: introduction, creating a movie, editing a movie, burning a movie. When I converted these DVDs to a mkv file there was no way to find these menu titles that I could tell. Granted you can skip from chapter to chapter but that brutal and close worthless since there are no names associated with the chapter. Yes the mkv file is smaller then the ISO file but the menu titles are significantly more important then the saved space.
If there is a way to make MKV files of DVDs with chapter titles I can navigate to I sure would like to know how to do it.
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I have almost 100 DVDs converted to ISO on my HDD that VLC plays great on my PC and from what I’ve read Patriot Office and a few others can also play. ISO files are important vs vob etc since I don’t really want to deal with multiple files for a single DVD and containing them in a folder for each DVD and an ISO file does that…
The next firmware update is rumoured to contain DVD Menu support.
I use Handbrake. Handbrake will take a DVD and isolate the Titles. Each title can be ripped to its OWN MKV file with whatever title you give it. Within a Title, Chapter breaks are preserved, and are accessible via the WDTV’s Chapter menu.
No problem.
Here’s an example Directory Listing from my own library of my Star Trek series DVDs.
/mounts/tv/Star Trek/Star Trek Enterprise/Season 1> ls
101- Broken Bow.mkv 120- Oasis.mkv
103- Fight or Flight.mkv 121- Detained.mkv
104- Strange New World.mkv 122- Vox Sola.mkv
105- Unexpected.mkv 123- Fallen Hero.mkv
106- Terra Nova.mkv 124- Desert Crossing.mkv
107- The Andorian Incident.mkv 125- Two Days and Two Nights.mkv
108- Breaking the Ice.mkv 126- Shockwave (Part 1).mkv
109- Civilization.mkv 190- Disk 4 Extras 1.mkv
110- Fortunate Son.mkv 191- Disk 4 Extras 2.mkv
111- Cold Front.mkv 192- Disk 7 Extras 1.mkv
112- Silient Enemy.mkv 193- Disk 7 Extras 2.mkv
113- Dear Doctor.mkv 194- Disk 7 Extras 3.mkv
114- Sleeping Dogs.mkv 195- Disk 7 Extras 4.mkv
115- Shadows of P’Jem.mkv 196- Disk 7 Extras 5.mkv
116- Shuttlepod One.mkv 197- Disk 7 Extras 6.mkv
117- Fusion.mkv 198- Disk 7 Extras 7.mkv
118- Rogue Planet.mkv folder.jpg
119- Acquisition.mkv
/mounts/tv/Star Trek/Star Trek Enterprise/Season 1> du
8800220 .
I would argue that THIS is more logical than trying to remember which ISO contains a particular episode.
By the way, this entire SEASON only takes 8.8G on my NAS. EACH of the 7 DVDs that make up the season take about 8G, so this takes 1/7th the space.
Yeah but it does not seem to work with iso files? Or does it for anyone?
Yes, ISOs work FINE.
Is it maybe limited to local files and not working over network? Cause none of my iso files worked so far. 
cyrill wrote:
Is it maybe limited to local files and not working over network? Cause none of my iso files worked so far.
i’m using .iso and over NETWORK SHARES, works fine.
cyrill wrote:
Is it maybe limited to local files and not working over network? Cause none of my iso files worked so far.
Are you sure those ISO’s have menus in them? Did you convert your own DVDs to ISO’s?
I have heard tell that some third party people often remove menus from their ISOs.
ISO and VIDEO_TS folder are working fine here. Of course I can’t say anything on network shares because I still can’t see my Windows 7 machine.
The only thing I noticed is that in order to get to the Menu you need to press enter instead of play and navigate to the corresponding file containing the DVD navigation information.
Another thing that’s fixed and not documented is the thumbnails High contrast shown on screen. Now they show at normal contrast.
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Yeah I did rip my own dvd’s including the menu’s. In fact they play perfectly using VideoLAN.
Well I will try again later with a few other dvd’s.
Edit: Just read that I have to press Enter instead of Play. Since I usualy have each iso file in a separate folder I press Play such that I do not have to navigate into the folder. Will try later with Enter. thanks
There’s two ways to do this:
With ISO files (properly created, of course) just PLAY them as with any other file.
With VOB Folders (VIDEO_TS folder), Press PLAY on the file called VIDEO_TS.VOB. No other VOB files will work.
TonyPh12345 wrote:
There’s two ways to do this:
With ISO files (properly created, of course) just PLAY them as with any other file.
With VOB Folders (VIDEO_TS folder), Press PLAY on the file called VIDEO_TS.VOB. No other VOB files will work.
I don’t think that pressing PLAY works, Pressing ENTER is the way to do it. I tried it, and everytime I press play I get the main movie to load.
It should be automatic without needing to navigate to those files, simply press play on the folder and DVD navigation should start.
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TonyPh12345 wrote:
With VOB Folders (VIDEO_TS folder), Press PLAY on the file called VIDEO_TS.VOB. No other VOB files will work.
Actually, ANY file inside a VIDEO_TS folder will work.
Ok, I just could try it again and using the Enter button I finally get the menu. As I just realized pressing the play button on the iso file also works however if Play is pressed while the folder that contains the iso is selected no menu appears. Pressing the option button during the movie allows to return to the menu but only if the file has been started with the menu.
In fact I do like to have the option to skip the menu since I have some dvd’s that contain over 5 minutes trailers at the beginning that cannot be skipped (even pressing menu during the trailers does not work, they will just start again).
cyrill wrote:
Ok, I just could try it again and using the Enter button I finally get the menu. As I just realized pressing the play button on the iso file also works however if Play is pressed while the folder that contains the iso is selected no menu appears. Pressing the option button during the movie allows to return to the menu but only if the file has been started with the menu.
In fact I do like to have the option to skip the menu since I have some dvd’s that contain over 5 minutes trailers at the beginning that cannot be skipped (even pressing menu during the trailers does not work, they will just start again).
I think you are confused about the words here, its an ISO if its ONE FILE - otherwise its a directory of files.
I do thing there’s something a bit weird over how the WD interprets the files.
I confirmed last night, in 24 different VOB collections and ISOs.
1-> Pressing PLAY or ENTER while highlighting an ISO file yields menus.
2-> Pressing PLAY on a VIDEO_TS folder plays all VOBS (no menus.)
3-> Pressing ENTER on a VIDEO_TS folder just navigates into the folder (no surprise.)
4-> Pressing PLAY or ENTER on the file called VIDEO_TS.VOB yields the menu structure.
5-> If no file called VIDEO_TS.VOB, there’s usually a file called VTS_01_0.VOB that PLAY or ENTER will yield menus. I don’t know what happens if BOTH VIDEO_TS.VOB *and* VTS_01_0.VOB exist.
USUALLY, pressing PLAY or ENTER on the VERY FIRST FILE in the VIDEO_TS FOLDER will yield menus, while everything else will just play the whole thing.
(With wierd times, too… A 2.2 hour disk had a time bar of 4.7 hours, and the time went FAST. The video played normally, but seconds were ticking off at about 2x speed.)
Well I’m not confused. I only have one iso file per folder. 
