Main Purpose

Play ripped DVD movies from CD or HDD as close to the original as possible, including as many features of the original DVD as possible and giving as much comfort as possible compared to original DVD viewing.

We call a DVD converted to MPEG4 Video+MP3 Audio, put together with the converted original menus/languages and written to CD(s) a "Micro DVD".

Main Features

To achieve its goal, MDVDP has the following main features.

• Play Main Movie: The main movie may be any audio/video file type playable by the Windows Media Player (highly recommended is MPEG4 video and MP3 audio due to great quality at low filesizes).
• "Emulate" original DVD Navigation Menu: To get the look-and-feel as close to the DVD as possible, you can also rip the navigation menu of the DVD to video and still images and have MDVDP display it!
• Play Special Features: Often DVDs offer additional videos containing "making- of"s or similar background information. Those special feature videos can also be included and played by MDVDP, usually they are reachable through certain click-areas in the nav menu.
• Display Subtitles: An important feature, especially when you watch foreign language movies, are subtitles if you don't understand all of the dialog. Micro DVD Player can display your ripped subtitles.
• Play Multi Language: To make it all complete, MDVDP can even play multilanguage movies!
• High Comfort: To give you all the comfort you want when watching MDVDs, the player's user interface has a similar structure than that of the popular software DVD player tool PowerDVD. Most of PDVD's features are available, plus some more.

Further Features

• Automatic detection of Micro DVDs inserted in CD-ROM drives (can be turned off)
• Up to two CD-ROM drives can be used so you do not have to switch CD when watching a 2-CD movie
• Four different modes of operation:
  • "Load Movie from CD-ROM" checks the selected CD-ROM drive continously for insertion of MDVDs
  • "Load Movie from HDD" useful for development of MDVDs, all files belonging to all CDs of a MDVD are expected in the given path on your HDD
  • "Quick-INI Mode" if you wish to play a video file, plus optionally an audio file with foreign language synchronously, and display subtitles, and all that without having to write an INI File, use this mode. It's much like the tools SubViewer/SubMagic then.
  • "File (Playlist) Mode" acts like a normal A/V player like Windows Media Player or Winamp and lets you play single files just right away.
• Movies can consist of one to three CDs (main movie may be one or two CDs, special feature videos may be on CD 1, 2 or 3).
• Video files can have any file type/codec/resolution/data rate you wish (or rather: playable by Windows Media Player)
• Windowed or fullscreen playback
• Comfortable configuration options allowing customization of all important program features, e.g.:
  • Autostart movie after N seconds without activity in Nav Menu
  • Immediately start movie (skip main menu)
  • Skip transition videos in nav menu (those annoying video sequences that normally cannot be interrupted when watching a DVD) always or on clicking the mouse
  • Auto-hide mouse and/or control panel after N seconds without movement
  • Switch to fullscreen mode automatically when starting movie
• Comfortable control bar offering all the usual play control features and some more :-)
• Quick-access chapter/files list available while playing movie
• Bookmark feature: you can set bookmarks at any point in a movie and quickly jump to them later. Bookmarks are saved to the MDVDP.INI for all movies.
• Remember-last-play-position feature: when you press Stop while watching a movie, the current play position is saved and can be recalled later, so you can go on watching exactly where you left off.
• Automatic request and detection of next/another CD for a movie when necessary. Can be aborted.
• Supports different subtitle file formats, e.g. SubRipper/SubViewer
• Audio files for secondary languages can be automatically copied to and played from HDD to reduce CD-ROM laser movement.
• The player supports the following parameters on the command line upon start of the EXE:
  • One filename with extension .INI or .MVD (switch to MDVD Mode, set the movie loading mode either to "Load Movie from Directory" (if the given file is on a HDD), or to "Load Movie from CD" (if the given file is on a CD), use the given file as INI file (in case of HDD) and play the movie.)
  • One filename with extension .LST or .M3U (switch to File Mode, import the given filename as a playlist, and play the first entry.)
  • One more more filenames with any extension except .INI and .MVD (switch to File Mode, use the given filenames as playlist entries, and play the first one).
  • The text "/AutoPlayCD" (switch to MDVD Mode, set the movie loading mode to "Load Movie from CD-ROM", set the Primary CD-ROM to the drive you are running the EXE from, and play the currently inserted CD).
  • The text "/QuickINI /V:VideoFile /A:AudioFile /S:SubtitleFile" (switch to QuickINI Mode, set the video, audio and subtitle files to the given names and play the movie).
• Remote Control support. The player can be controlled through an IR remote control like the RealMagic Hollywood+ remote.
• Transparent subtitles. The subtitles are only shown in fullscreen mode and can be displayed either in the black space between movie and screen edge, or (if you force that or if no black space is available) transparently over the video.
• On-screen display. The following parameters of the player can be displayed transparently over the video when in fullscreen mode: timer, play state, chapter information, seek bar, volume bar and movie information.
• Drag-and-drop support. Files can be dropped from any Explorer window or other file manager on the control bar. The player behaves then as if the file name was passed on the command line.
• Pan-and-scan function for video. A widescreen (e.g. 2,35:1) movie can be vertically stretched to use the screen like a 1:85:1, 16:9 or 4:3 movie, cutting part of the movie to the left and right.