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I often get asked how to archive movies for optimal playback with the Control4 Media Player. So we here at C4Central thought that a quick “how to” would help you guys out. Now i do have to point out that there are good points and bad to the C4 media player. The good is it is the easiest player for use with a Control4 system on the market. Seriously, why shouldn’t it be it was made for C4! The bad, well for you guys who like menu’s, extra’s, bonus material, etc. this is not the player for you. As for me and my family we just want to pick a movie and hit play. SIMPLE is what we like!

NOTE: This is a tutorial for Archiving the movies you own. This is not for Illegal ripping of movies you do not own.

So here is a simple walk through based on my personal software of choice when it comes to the simplicity associated with the C4 Media player.

Items required:

Hardwired computer running DVDfab software. “don’t even try wireless”

Control4 Media Player

Network Attached Storage “NAS”

Software Tutorial: DVDfab Platinum

The software is easy to use and comes in several flavors. It also features addons for BluRay and conversion to mobile devices that will not be covered here.

Upon opening DVDfab you will notice on the left many options for archiving. The simplest and most compatible for the C4 media player is the “Main Movie” option. Since the C4 media player does not support Menu functions this eliminates this for us to save space and confusion!

Next in the center portion of the program you will find the archiving options. the first to notice is on the bottom left. You will notice a box that by default says “DVD5″ this is a default setting that archives at about 90% quality. By hitting the drop down menu here you can change this to “DVD9″ which is a “1 to 1″ 100% quality setting. I recommend this as you will lose none of the video quality! This also presents a noticeable difference when your C4 media player is set at a default resolution of 1080p. The software will format your movie in the smallest VIDEO_TS format available without losing any of the quality we expect.

Next is the part where all the confusion resides. AUDIO! I hear time and again that “my DVD archived but the audio is in french!”. You will now see in the center area the ability to check mark the audio you want to associate with the archive session. Simply select the English version that contains AC-3/5.1. This will give you both the stereo track as well as the surround versions of audio. But don’t forget right below this to un check the “subpicture” option for captions. By forgetting this step you may get stuck with the captions on some DVD titles!

One of the other nice features about DVDfab is not having to get out all you DVD’s to re archive to a compatible format. You do have the option with this software to locate the .ISO file or other format and re archive directly from the Network Attached Storage without the physical. This is a benifit for those of us going from a Media Center solution to the much simpler to use C4 media player.

We hope this tutorial was helpful information for all of you using the Control4 Media Player or considering adding one to you equipment arsenal!

If you have any other questions or comments please post here.