How to Setup Video On Demand...... Minus the Cable Company

I had looked at my TV cable company who offers “On Demand" videos\movies and wondered, why I couldn't do this myself? Well, I found out that I can do it myself and here's how I did it.

You'll need the following items to make this work:

A TV....(well duh)

Home Computer

Wireless Router

Streaming Media player

DVD convert software

Since most of us have the first three items, let’s focus on item number four. A Streaming Media player is a unit that will receive the videos from your computer and output to your TV. This device comes with software that you install on your computer to make it a streaming video server (don't worry, nothing monstrous done to your computer). Once installed, you select a folder to where you want to keep all your videos and that folder will display on your TV to allow you to select the movie\video of choice. So the path will be from your PC, thru your wireless router, to the streaming media player, to your TV.

Now item number five, lets you convert your DVD movies to format that you can store\backup to your computer. My favorite software for this is DVD Ripper, which allows you to save in many different formats. I normally choose the Divx format because of it’s flexibility and popularity. Let’s do a trial run here from scratch….

Purchased needed items:

Streaming Media Player: D-Link DSM 520 http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=165023&WT.m...

DVD converting software: Xilisoft DVD Ripper http://www.xilisoft.com/dvd-ripper.html

Setup Media player on TV, then install software for media player on computer. Next install DVD convert on computer, then convert your DVD movies to files on your computer. Now you can watch all the movies you have, with out having to put out any DVD’s (and if you have kids, you know you’ll end up with scratches on those DVDs). My whole family enjoys being able to just click on the movie they want and my DVD collection is safely stashed away….