Get 5.1 surround from Front Row with Ripped DVDs (tutorial)

[HiFiGuy528]

Rip the commercial DVD with Ripit (www.ripit.com) or Mac the Ripper. This will create a VIDEO_TS file. You can point the file to where ever you like.

Get the artwork for the movie on the web. www.slothradio.com/covers is a good start. Save the artwork to your Mac. Make a copy of it and paste it in the ripped folder (inside the movie title folder where the VIDEO_TS file is, NOT in the VIDEO_TS folder). Now rename the artwork file to Preview.jpg. Then make an alias of the (titled) movie folder that contains the Preview.jpg & VIDEO_TS file. Drag the alias folder to you User/Home/Movies folder.

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Connect the optical out cable to your receiver. Open Audio/Midi app. in OS X and make sure "built-in output" is optical out.

Open DVD Player in OS X and make sure in Preference pane, DVD setup section, Audio output is selected to "optical out". Very important! Close DVD player.

Open Front Row and go to Movies/Movies Folder and you will see your ripped movies along with the artwork. The movie will play like if it was the DVD spinning. All menus and FBI warnings are still there. Go to DVD Menu and make sure Dolby 5.1 is selected.

Hope this helps.

I can post screen shots tomorrow when I get home. Enjoy!

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

This is a great idea. I've been looking for a site that has album covers. I just usually googled in the picture sections for the album titles but this is so much better on so many levels. Definitely worth donating some money to this site!

**added**
Just tried this with my movies that I haven't converted yet and this works incredibly well with Front Row. It's so awesome to go through all the movies and see the cover art. Thanks for that tip!