Anybody have their movie collection on Harddrives instead of DVDs?

[JImmyK]

Instant access no waiting, blanks cost me usually 50 to 75C printable for good quality stuff, and its such a waste of time to decode it, then strip out the movie, then burn the dvd and make a cover etc etc...

Im thinking about just buying 2 or 3 500GB HDs and ripping my top 200-300 movies to that.. and movies that I dont want on it I can burn and archive them...

does that sound crazy?

If I have 3 or 4 HD tvs is there anyway to hook all of them up using some type of video server? and some cheap terminal on each tv to just play the movies over a wireless network?

Just brainstorming very discordant post.. thanks...

 

[sygyzy]

I have lots of movies on my NAS but I still have plenty on DVD as well. The idea is great but do you realize how long ripping would take? Not only that, but you better think long and hard of how you want to automate it (not much of it can be) and how you are going to organize it. Do it right the first time.

 

[Qwest]

Yep, that's my current setup except I only have 1 500 GB hd with tv shows and movies on it. My modded xbox with XBMC installed works wonders. If they can get XBMC on a 360, i'll be set.

dont know what u could do for multiple tvs.

 

[sygyzy]

Why do you care if they get XBMC on the 360? I have both and I couldn't care less.

 

[rsd]

I have a 1TB Raid 5 array (5 x 250gb hard drives) on one computer, and share that over my network. Then I have in the TV room a Windows MCE computer with the MyMovies plug in so I can access the 170 ripped DVDs I have on the server.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: rsd
I have a 1TB Raid 5 array (5 x 250gb hard drives) on one computer, and share that over my network. Then I have in the TV room a Windows MCE computer with the MyMovies plug in so I can access the 170 ripped DVDs I have on the server.

Do you have a backup though?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Still a little expensive doing it that way. Figure $100 for a 400GB drive, that will hold about 90 movies. So $1.10 per flick. Quality DVD blanks are under 40 cents a pop. So you're essentially paying 3 times more to store them on hard drives.

 

[ShockwaveVT]

The primary advantage to a media server solution is accessibility from multiple PC's. Secondary is the ability to play a movie without having to find and load the DVD. Cost really isn't an advantage.

 

[Golgatha]

There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network. You're even pushing it over wired 100Mbit and forget HD content over 100Mbit altogether. You could always rip and recode the movies to actual files and use an XBox 360 to playback everything. You still need a pretty beefy PC to playback anything HD though.

I've found the least time intensive thing to do is rip the DVD to an ISO file, mount the images over a 1000Mbit network connection, and playback with an actual computer. That could get really expensive with 3-4 TVs though. But if you have enough cash for 3-4 HDTVs in your house, the costs might not be too large for your budget.

 

[aldamon]

We have a file server/DSM-520 setup and I have never considered doing this because I think dumping a large collection of DVDs onto a file server makes even less sense than amassing a huge DVD collection in the first place! There's only so much time to watch a DVD in the day and if you're like us, we have a limitless supply of new Netflix DVDs to watch every week. How much content do you really need at your fingertips and why would you even consider buying a bunch of media streamers for every TV when DVD players are almost free these days? Are you really going to be watching the same DVD in multiple rooms at the same time? Maybe somebody can explain to me why this kind of setup would be practical. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's cool, but I just think it's a waste of time too.

Now, having a file server is very cool for music. Music is different because you can play hours of it in the background while doing other things, but why do this with video? I always delete the TV shows and VOBs we watch on our DSM-520 after we're done with them.

Originally posted by: Golgatha
There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network.

My DSM-520 plays native VOBs fine over my 802.11g network.

 

[dquan97]

do you guys encode the dvds into a single file (ie divx) to save space? I keep mine as is.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: dquan97
do you guys encode the dvds into a single file (ie divx) to save space? I keep mine as is.

I think it takes too much time to convert the content to another format. It would make an impractical idea like this even more impractical, especially with 300 DVDs.

 

[sdifox]

I have close to 1200 dvds. I can't afford that kind of drive space, even if I shrink it.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I don't bother to copy DVDs at all, since I can always rent them again with netflix.

Lossy re-compression is a lot of work just to build a collection of reduced-quality copies, especially now that blu-ray discs are available (including rentals at netflix).

Uncompressed storage of DVD copies at 4-9 GB per disc makes a little more sense if you like to watch discs over again often, but that's a lot of drive space to build a collection.

Music servers I agree with: I have my CD collection in both lossless FLAC for playback on my stereo, and 192 kbps MP3 for my ipod.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I only backup important movies (ones I know I will want archived). The rest I just copy and keep in a folder, not too much of a hassle to get them out and watch them.

 

[50cent1228]

i have 130 gigs of movies

 

[beemercer]

I have around 100 DVDs in xvid (.avi) and 15 HD movies in .X264 (.mkv).

 

[JImmyK]

Hey Im pretty excited about your post and I researched this DSM-520.

Cash is always an issue but I have a couple grand I have set aside for this project and 3 of these DSM 520s with 2 terabytes of storage will only set me back about a 1200-1400.

My question though: is it pretty straight forward to play vobs off my main machine using the DSM 520?

IE if I use dvd shrink to rip the movie onto the HD in a folder like c:\gridiron\ can I jsut navigate to that folder using dsm 520 and pretty much play it?

Thanks again!

Originally posted by: aldamon
We have a file server/DSM-520 setup and I have never considered doing this because I think dumping a large collection of DVDs onto a file server makes even less sense than amassing a huge DVD collection in the first place! There's only so much time to watch a DVD in the day and if you're like us, we have a limitless supply of new Netflix DVDs to watch every week. How much content do you really need at your fingertips and why would you even consider buying a bunch of media streamers for every TV when DVD players are almost free these days? Are you really going to be watching the same DVD in multiple rooms at the same time? Maybe somebody can explain to me why this kind of setup would be practical. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's cool, but I just think it's a waste of time too.

Now, having a file server is very cool for music. Music is different because you can play hours of it in the background while doing other things, but why do this with video? I always delete the TV shows and VOBs we watch on our DSM-520 after we're done with them.

Originally posted by: Golgatha
There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network.

My DSM-520 plays native VOBs fine over my 802.11g network.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: sdifox
I have close to 1200 dvds. I can't afford that kind of drive space, even if I shrink it.

Wow, I bet you were pissed when you heard about Blu-Ray / HD-DVD.

Also, you certainly can afford that much.

14 * 750gb drives = $5000
14 bay enclosure = $xxx
16 port RAID card= $xxx

sell your dvd's for $7 each and you have $8400. $8 each -> $9600, etc...

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: sdifox
I have close to 1200 dvds. I can't afford that kind of drive space, even if I shrink it.

Wow, I bet you were pissed when you heard about Blu-Ray / HD-DVD.

Also, you certainly can afford that much.

14 * 750gb drives = $5000
14 bay enclosure = $xxx
16 port RAID card= $xxx

sell your dvd's for $7 each and you have $8400. $8 each -> $9600, etc...

When I say afford, I am counting the time it would take me to compress them or even jsut to rip them.

I am going to pass on HD-DVD and BR... I have 1.5TB of HD movies off the air.

My computer does a decent job of upscaling my dvds anyway. Feeding it to a 720P DLP projector shooting 92"

My movies are on 2 racks that I built (4 foot wide, 7 shelves per rack) and it's alphabetical. Probably faster than me trying to find it amonst 1200 files.


And your method won't work, you have a catch 22 issue, if I sold my movies already, how am I going to back it up?

Never mind I can't afford the electricity for running that setup.

 

[TheCanuck]

Originally posted by: Golgatha
There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network. You're even pushing it over wired 100Mbit and forget HD content over 100Mbit altogether. You could always rip and recode the movies to actual files and use an XBox 360 to playback everything. You still need a pretty beefy PC to playback anything HD though.

I've found the least time intensive thing to do is rip the DVD to an ISO file, mount the images over a 1000Mbit network connection, and playback with an actual computer. That could get really expensive with 3-4 TVs though. But if you have enough cash for 3-4 HDTVs in your house, the costs might not be too large for your budget.

Full quality DVD is easy to stream over a wireless network at 802.11g. I do it all the time. I even stream HD material to my laptop with my HDHomerun and that takes up about 15Mbps...which is no where near the capacity of 100Mbps and only about 50-60% of the wireless stream.

 

[ecopure]

I also stream hd content from a 2ghz media center pc to my 360 {omg this was my 360th post} over a wired connection. I've never had a problem

Originally posted by: TheCanuck

Originally posted by: Golgatha
There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network. You're even pushing it over wired 100Mbit and forget HD content over 100Mbit altogether. You could always rip and recode the movies to actual files and use an XBox 360 to playback everything. You still need a pretty beefy PC to playback anything HD though.

I've found the least time intensive thing to do is rip the DVD to an ISO file, mount the images over a 1000Mbit network connection, and playback with an actual computer. That could get really expensive with 3-4 TVs though. But if you have enough cash for 3-4 HDTVs in your house, the costs might not be too large for your budget.

Full quality DVD is easy to stream over a wireless network at 802.11g. I do it all the time. I even stream HD material to my laptop with my HDHomerun and that takes up about 15Mbps...which is no where near the capacity of 100Mbps and only about 50-60% of the wireless stream.

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: sdifox
I have close to 1200 dvds. I can't afford that kind of drive space, even if I shrink it.

Wow, I bet you were pissed when you heard about Blu-Ray / HD-DVD.

I don't think anyone cares as much as you may think.

 

[DBL]

I'm in the process.

XBMC + cheap comp w/ Highpoint 2322
1.5TB expandable to 5.25TB with 8 drives in RAID5

It's fast enough with only 3 drives to stream HD over a GB network (80MB/s).

 

[jtvang125]

Originally posted by: Golgatha
There's really no way to stream full quality DVD over a wireless network. You're even pushing it over wired 100Mbit and forget HD content over 100Mbit altogether. You could always rip and recode the movies to actual files and use an XBox 360 to playback everything. You still need a pretty beefy PC to playback anything HD though.

I've found the least time intensive thing to do is rip the DVD to an ISO file, mount the images over a 1000Mbit network connection, and playback with an actual computer. That could get really expensive with 3-4 TVs though. But if you have enough cash for 3-4 HDTVs in your house, the costs might not be too large for your budget.

A 100Mbit wired network can easily stream full dvd content. I have a few movies on my media player in iso that I sometimes mount on my computer with alcohol 120 and stream it over. No skips, pausing or out of sync problems.

I even have a few mpeg2 clips in hd around 14-16Mbit bitrate and those play pretty well with only a few pauses here and there but still totally watchable.