"External Hard Drive Media Centers"

[Coldkilla]

I edited the original post out to better explain myself.

What I am trying to do:
-Back up my dozens of DVDs on a hard drive instead of using another fragile DVD.
-Be able to watch these DVDs through the hard drive on my TV with minimum hassle.
-Have a user friendly graphical interface using the device w/ remote control.

Optional:
-Be able to transfer DVR content to the Hard Drive as well so it could later be put to disc for mobile entertainment. (I have direct TV DVR).

I have heard of this "Popcorn Hour" software. I would prefer not to have an additional PC running the Media as I do not have the space for another PC in my livingroom/home.

The perfect system: Get my DVD, use my software to back it up in a folder to desktop, move the file from desktop into a folder on a large external hard drive, take the external drive to a box next to my TV and plug it in, turn the box/device on and be able to use its interface to watch my DVD content in perfect visual/audio quality. The system would be a large plus if it could somehow take DVR content from our Direct TV DVR off and put onto the external drive for easy access so it could be ripped to disc for later mobile viewing.

 

[ViRGE]

Your best bet would be a Popcorn Hour for playback + an external USB hard drive to hold the media.

 

[mpilchfamily]

They are called HTPCs or Home Theater PCs. So you'll build a computer that has a capture card and a decent video card that can connecto to your TV. Then you will be able to connect your TV to it and run everything threw the HTPC. Or you can buy an HTPC from Dell or HP. But HTPCs are best being paired up with a HD TV rather then a standard definition TV. If the HDD in the HTPCs are not big enough you can always get a NAS which is a set of HDDs that connect to a network to be the main storage for the PCs on your network.

 

[Coldkilla]

I thought I remember seeing something like that of a box in which you could stick a hard drive in and on the box itself was controls like that of a DVD player and it could be directly connected to a television..

The PC is too far from our television to run a cord through the house. Not to mention the main PC is used quite often and can't split its resources in half for a "Media center PC" of sorts... I just want to know if there is some way to take ether an internal or external hard drive and have it be able to connect to a television through some sort of device.

I'm not talking "TiVo" I'm talking home DVDs to digital media that can be watched on our TV.


Edit*(Added to OP) Here's a little doodle I made to try and convey my question more clearly:

Picture

 

[mpilchfamily]

Yep your looking fro an HTPC. A seperate PC that you will have sitting on/next to your TV. You can get them with a wireless network adapter so that it can connecto to you home netwrok. generally the HTPC HDDs are not very big so you could connect it to your mian PC over WiFi and have the movies stream from the PC's HDD to the HTPC.

 

[Coldkilla]

DVD quality can be sent wirelessly through 3 walls spanning about 50 feet?

Also, I'm a little confused with these "HTPCs", a laptop wouldn't do? Or I would need an entirely new computer? I'm just a little confused.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Just as the Name suggests. Its a PC made to run your Home Theater. It connects to your TV much like a TiVO or DVR system and allows you to watch movies or surf the web from your TV. If you still don't understand here is the wiki for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_theater_PC

It will be a system you will either build or buy. You can then upload all your DVDs to the system so you can watch it on your TV. That is if the HDD in the system is big enough to hold them all. If not you can always connect a larger drive to it either internally or externally.

Chances are you'll have to build your own. There are plenty of good guides out there on how to build a decent HTPC.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
I thought I remember seeing something like that of a box in which you could stick a hard drive in and on the box itself was controls like that of a DVD player and it could be directly connected to a television..

The PC is too far from our television to run a cord through the house. Not to mention the main PC is used quite often and can't split its resources in half for a "Media center PC" of sorts... I just want to know if there is some way to take ether an internal or external hard drive and have it be able to connect to a television through some sort of device.

I'm not talking "TiVo" I'm talking home DVDs to digital media that can be watched on our TV.


Edit*(Added to OP) Here's a little doodle I made to try and convey my question more clearly:

Picture

Yeah, that would be a Popcorn Hour. What mpilchfamily is talking about is a HTPC, a whole computer running Linux/Windows to serve out media functions. I have one built with Windows Vista and it works well, but I also do PC stuff on it and need DVR functionality like a Tivo. For just watching videos, it's well more than you need.

The Popcorn Hour on the other hand is a small set-top box that just plays recorded media. You can either hook up a hard drive to it like what you are wanting to do (external or internal) or stream that media over wired/wireless networks from another computer. In your case you can just rip all of your movies to a hard drive, and then connect said drive to the Popcorn Hour and watch them. The cost is much lower since it's a set-top box, and it's fairly easy to set up.

 

[Coldkilla]

This is how I understand the 'popcorn hour':
I would have to by a new PC that contains a very large hard drive, connect it to an Ethernet port and plug it into the Popcorn device. Then I would rip my DVDs into my PC and put it wherever the popcorn hour device folder is.

A few questions:
1. Would the ripped DVDs have to be in an AVI or MOV format? Or can they be a ripped VIDEO_TS etc.?

2. Can this process be reversed? For example, if I own a TiVo, can I send video the other way to my PC & it's hard drive?

3. The new PC I would have to buy seems a bit much, I'd have to get an extra monitor, keyboard mouse tower & hard drive which'll end up costing $500 + the $200 or so for the popcorn hour. Could I just use my laptop and set it next to my Television and have an external hard drive plugged into the laptop?

 

[ViRGE]

Not quite Coldkilla. The Popcorn Hour has no internal storage unless you install a hard drive; I was thinking of using an external USB hard drive. So you'd only need to buy the Popcorn Hour, and then the hard drive. You wouldn't need a new computer unless your current one is too slow to encode stuff. You would then just copy encoded stuff to the hard drive, and the Popcorn Hour would find it.

1. Check the list of supported formats, I believe it accepts all of those.

2. I don't have a TiVo, I don't know.

3. See above: you don't need another PC

 

[Coldkilla]

I looked at the supported formats.. I'm a little confused as the format that was in question what that of the "Video_TS". I'd prefer not to have to convert the video into something like that of an "AVI" format, but am able to do it. What format is the typical DVD format that contains such files as "Video_TS" etc?

So if I get this right:
-Rip DVD to External Drive
-Plug external drive into Popcorn
-Have access to DVD content and be able to watch it

Does the external drive have any draw backs such as data transfer rate through the USB cord? If so, could there be an internal hard drive inside the popcorn box, and have the external drive transfer data to it so that there is a faster playback?

 

[ViRGE]

DVD-Video is MPEG2 PS (Program Stream), it's on their list. You can also find some more information in this thread about recommended ways to play backed up copies of DVDs on the Popcorn Hour.

As for if there are any drawbacks with the external drive, yes, there are some since USB isn't ideal for this. But to run in to problems, you would need to be using something at an extremely high bitrate, such as a BluRay movie (and even then that probably won't be enough, at only 10MB/sec). A DVD isn't going to exceed 1.5MB/sec, which is well below where you may encounter any problems. There's a thread about internal vs. external here.

 

[Lonyo]

Are you looking for something like these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?menuno=84396 ? (UK I know but it's the idea)

http://www.emprex.com/

And I'm sure other people make them too, more than just the Popcorn Hour thing.

 

[Adam8281]

Or you could get a modded original Xbox for less than $100 to run Xbox Media Center on