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Home server project underway....tedious.

I

imported_Mike

Lifer
I am in the process of ripping all my media and storing it on a home server. I have 201 DVDs ripped so far out of over 500. I only have 33 Blu-rays ripped so far. I am going to wrap it all up with a Popcorn Hour A110.

DVDs

Meh

I bought 3 TB WD drives to stick in there but including the 500gb drive that has space taken up with Windows Home Server I only have 3.18 TB of total space with 1.99 TB remaining. I also want to throw my ~100GB music folder on there.

Server

Going to order the Popcorn Hour A110 pretty soon here so I can actually view them on my LCD. The best thing about the Popcorn hour is that it will playback MKVs (1080p) perfectly.

Popcorn

EDIT 3/16: Ripped 233 DVDs so far, only 267+ to go.
 
It's a tedious process, but it will be worth it! I did it a few years ago and it's absolutely fabulous. I never lose or damage movies anymore, I can call up any show within seconds, my living room is much cleaner, etc. etc. etc.

One thing I would recommend, rip to ISO or something for now until you see what is best for your Popcorn player and for your TV. If you are doing encoding, you will want to be sure it looks good on your TV through your Popcorn player. Also test out some high-bitrate 1080p stuff to ensure that playback is smooth.
 
Are you doing 1:1 movies transfers? I'm not talking about the whole disc, I'm talking about just the movie but with no compression. If you are doing no compression, that 3 TB is going to get eaten up REALLY quick. And if you are compressing Blu-ray movies, I don't know if convenience is a good trade for quality.
 
Always ISO's first. You can always have the server converting things to whatever you want later. But when your collection starts degrading over time you'll be happy you had the ISOs.

From there I agree with you, x.264 encoded MKV's are your best bet. I dont see any quality difference between a high bitrate MKV using x.264 and a Blu-Ray using VC1
 
Originally posted by: Kaido
It's a tedious process, but it will be worth it! I did it a few years ago and it's absolutely fabulous. I never lose or damage movies anymore, I can call up any show within seconds, my living room is much cleaner, etc. etc. etc.

One thing I would recommend, rip to ISO or something for now until you see what is best for your Popcorn player and for your TV. If you are doing encoding, you will want to be sure it looks good on your TV through your Popcorn player. Also test out some high-bitrate 1080p stuff to ensure that playback is smooth.
Click to expand...

Everything tested so far looks like an identical match. This being between a Samsung BD player and a Quad core with HDMI out. You bring up a good point, there is no way the Popcorn hour will be able to process 1080p like a PC with the right components can.
 
Originally posted by: JackBurton
Are you doing 1:1 movies transfers? I'm not talking about the whole disc, I'm talking about just the movie but with no compression. If you are doing no compression, that 3 TB is going to get eaten up REALLY quick. And if you are compressing Blu-ray movies, I don't know if convenience is a good trade for quality.
Click to expand...

Yea, 1:1. I don't want to give up an quality. Most DVDs hover around 5GB with some dual layer ones getting up over 7GB.

I expect to use up 2.5TB on just DVDs.
 
Originally posted by: thecoolnessrune
Always ISO's first. You can always have the server converting things to whatever you want later. But when your collection starts degrading over time you'll be happy you had the ISOs.

From there I agree with you, x.264 encoded MKV's are your best bet. I dont see any quality difference between a high bitrate MKV using x.264 and a Blu-Ray using VC1
Click to expand...

I :heart: MKVs

🙂
 
Originally posted by: Mike
Originally posted by: JackBurton
Are you doing 1:1 movies transfers? I'm not talking about the whole disc, I'm talking about just the movie but with no compression. If you are doing no compression, that 3 TB is going to get eaten up REALLY quick. And if you are compressing Blu-ray movies, I don't know if convenience is a good trade for quality.
Click to expand...

Yea, 1:1. I don't want to give up an quality. Most DVDs hover around 5GB with some dual layer ones getting up over 7GB.

I expect to use up 2.5TB on just DVDs.
Click to expand...

Very nice man.
 
This would be fun to buy.

I am currently doing basically the same thing. Right now there are about 200 dvd's I need to back up, but need to pick up some more HD space (the 1 tb WD caviar black drives for $100 are tempting since I have one already).

So the popcorn hour pulls content from the server, and plays it sending it out over HDMI/component/etc (i.e. basically a media player that just uses the server as the source instead of a DVD for example)?
 
Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
This would be fun to buy.

I am currently doing basically the same thing. Right now there are about 200 dvd's I need to back up, but need to pick up some more HD space (the 1 tb WD caviar black drives for $100 are tempting since I have one already).

So the popcorn hour pulls content from the server, and plays it sending it out over HDMI/component/etc (i.e. basically a media player that just uses the server as the source instead of a DVD for example)?
Click to expand...

That is what I got, 3TB WD Black. Only get 1 when you need one. With WD releasing 1.5tb and 2tb drives, the 1tb will do nothing except decrease in price.

The popcorn hour pulls content from the server in my case, but you can set it up to pull content from your computer if you don't have a server, just a home network. You can get the WiFi for another $30 IIRC.

The best thing about it is that it will play every file extension known to media. If a new one comes out, you can update it to play that too.
 
Originally posted by: Mike
Originally posted by: Kaido
It's a tedious process, but it will be worth it! I did it a few years ago and it's absolutely fabulous. I never lose or damage movies anymore, I can call up any show within seconds, my living room is much cleaner, etc. etc. etc.

One thing I would recommend, rip to ISO or something for now until you see what is best for your Popcorn player and for your TV. If you are doing encoding, you will want to be sure it looks good on your TV through your Popcorn player. Also test out some high-bitrate 1080p stuff to ensure that playback is smooth.
Click to expand...

Everything tested so far looks like an identical match. This being between a Samsung BD player and a Quad core with HDMI out. You bring up a good point, there is no way the Popcorn hour will be able to process 1080p like a PC with the right components can.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had a WD TV HD unit and it choked on high-bitrate 1080p MKV files, so testing is definitely in order. Make sure it plays what you want it to play, that the interface is usable to you, etc.
 
Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: Mike
Originally posted by: Kaido
It's a tedious process, but it will be worth it! I did it a few years ago and it's absolutely fabulous. I never lose or damage movies anymore, I can call up any show within seconds, my living room is much cleaner, etc. etc. etc.

One thing I would recommend, rip to ISO or something for now until you see what is best for your Popcorn player and for your TV. If you are doing encoding, you will want to be sure it looks good on your TV through your Popcorn player. Also test out some high-bitrate 1080p stuff to ensure that playback is smooth.
Click to expand...

Everything tested so far looks like an identical match. This being between a Samsung BD player and a Quad core with HDMI out. You bring up a good point, there is no way the Popcorn hour will be able to process 1080p like a PC with the right components can.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had a WD TV HD unit and it choked on high-bitrate 1080p MKV files, so testing is definitely in order. Make sure it plays what you want it to play, that the interface is usable to you, etc.
Click to expand...

From reading several dozen reviews the A110 does exceptionally well with MKV files and displaying the content. Thankfully my home server project doesn't hinge on the popcorn hour. Worst case, I have to throw a HTPC together that can do a better job. I def will need to test it out once I get it though.
 
As everyone has said, rip to 1:1 ISO to start. Then, if you feel the need you can have the WHS churning out to mkv/high res XVID/whatever in batches while you sleep.
I've had a home server for years and years using XBMC on xbox1. Been using WHS as my server side since its beta1 release. Now running to 2 XBMC machines and 1 XBMC/Boxee combo (boxee is too buggy right now in alpha but I think I will switch when it matures. I was on the first shipping batch of PCH, but wasn't impressed. I like the felxibility and open-sourceness of XBMC (not to mention I was just familiar with it for the past many years. Hard habits.
 
Originally posted by: Mike
What did you not like about the PCH, or as you mentioned, were you just used to XBMC?
Click to expand...

Well as I mentioned, I and a few others I know were in the first shipping round. The OS was still pretty infantile at that point and lack some features, was buggy with others and I just didn't have a good "feel" about it I guess. I'm sure some (maybe all?) of my dislikes were along the lines of "yeah but XBMC can do this... and that..." and now that XBMC (and boxee) are on PC, I can just use what I am used to, is mature etc. Maybe the PCH is mature at this point too. I know several guys on IRC that simply LOVE theirs and wouldn't part with it.

To each their own. I think you just fall in a "grove" with hardware and interfaces and such and its hard to break free from those patterns and usage and familiarities.

"Change is bad!!!!!!"
 
Originally posted by: Homerboy
Originally posted by: Mike
What did you not like about the PCH, or as you mentioned, were you just used to XBMC?
Click to expand...

Well as I mentioned, I and a few others I know were in the first shipping round. The OS was still pretty infantile at that point and lack some features, was buggy with others and I just didn't have a good "feel" about it I guess. I'm sure some (maybe all?) of my dislikes were along the lines of "yeah but XBMC can do this... and that..." and now that XBMC (and boxee) are on PC, I can just use what I am used to, is mature etc. Maybe the PCH is mature at this point too. I know several guys on IRC that simply LOVE theirs and wouldn't part with it.

To each their own. I think you just fall in a "grove" with hardware and interfaces and such and its hard to break free from those patterns and usage and familiarities.

"Change is bad!!!!!!"
Click to expand...

Agreed. Both my friend and I bought Popcorn Hours early on and promptly sold them because we were so used the functionality & interface of XBMC. Hard to let go once you've gotten a taste of power 😉

I'd imagine the Popcorn Hour has made some progress in GUI though, as a lot of people seem to like it. It's certainly a very capable device, but I was just more used to XBMC.
 
Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: Homerboy
Originally posted by: Mike
What did you not like about the PCH, or as you mentioned, were you just used to XBMC?
Click to expand...

Well as I mentioned, I and a few others I know were in the first shipping round. The OS was still pretty infantile at that point and lack some features, was buggy with others and I just didn't have a good "feel" about it I guess. I'm sure some (maybe all?) of my dislikes were along the lines of "yeah but XBMC can do this... and that..." and now that XBMC (and boxee) are on PC, I can just use what I am used to, is mature etc. Maybe the PCH is mature at this point too. I know several guys on IRC that simply LOVE theirs and wouldn't part with it.

To each their own. I think you just fall in a "grove" with hardware and interfaces and such and its hard to break free from those patterns and usage and familiarities.

"Change is bad!!!!!!"
Click to expand...

Agreed. Both my friend and I bought Popcorn Hours early on and promptly sold them because we were so used the functionality & interface of XBMC. Hard to let go once you've gotten a taste of power 😉

I'd imagine the Popcorn Hour has made some progress in GUI though, as a lot of people seem to like it. It's certainly a very capable device, but I was just more used to XBMC.
Click to expand...

Hve you tried out BOxee alpha yet? Its based on XBMC, and while their is a noticeable difference there, you can feel the XBMC underneath. Because its designed to be a retail product too, the professionalism is in it. The forums are very active and the devs are all over it too soaking up ideas, requests, likes, dislikes, etc. Very much the community feel like XBMC is. I haven't made the switch fully (as its still alpha) but I have a feeling I will once the wrinkles are ironed out.

Hey, they got it working with a WiiMote which is simply awesome to navigate with.
 
Did you guys have the PCH A100 or the A110? Im trying to stay away from having to dump money into a PC. PC always > media streamer but if it can do the job then I am ok with it.
 
Originally posted by: Mike
Did you guys have the PCH A100 or the A110? Im trying to stay away from having to dump money into a PC. PC always > media streamer but if it can do the job then I am ok with it.
Click to expand...

A100. Like I said, first shipment. 110 wasn't even around. IIRC they are pretty much the same, only minor HW differences right?
 
Might I ask what youre using to rip all those DVD's? Im getting ready to do the same thing and was wondering if there is anythnig that is 1 push button or almost automatic. Ive got around 300 DVDs to set up to iso
 
Originally posted by: DarkTXKnight
Might I ask what youre using to rip all those DVD's? Im getting ready to do the same thing and was wondering if there is anythnig that is 1 push button or almost automatic. Ive got around 300 DVDs to set up to iso
Click to expand...
Once upon a time, I saw a script that used DVD Decrypter and the Sony 200-disc Firewire changer. Unfortunately, acquiring the latter these days is almost impossible.

Ripping problems are why I'm still holding off on doing stuff like this - the last thing on earth I want is for a drive to fail and me being stuck spending a month of weekends re-ripping discs. OTOH, I've tossed around doing something like this for my HD-DVDs - I only have ten of them, so re-ripping wouldn't be horrible.

(Popcorn Hour doesn't handle EVO in hardware, though, so that's another annoyance. *sigh*)
 
well i dont mind swapping out the discs from a standard player,
Im just trying to make the process as close as possible to just "insert dvd and push button" as possible. I have 6 machines with DVD drives here, so it would be ncie to work a stack on each machine that running a script to just make an iso out of the main movie and store to a common location.
 
I am too lazy to rip. There is no way in hell I am going to rip 1200 dvds. I'll just stand up, grab the disc and put it in the player.
 
Originally posted by: sdifox
I am too lazy to rip. There is no way in hell I am going to rip 1200 dvds. I'll just stand up, grab the disc and put it in the player.
Click to expand...

Ironically I am too lazy to stand up, grab a disc and put it in the changer.
 
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