Storing DVDs on your computer

[Vogel515]

What do you all use to rip DVDs to your hard drive? I am planning on picking up a 1TB drive solely for storing movies. What program is the best for ripping movies to my hard drive to stream to my PS3?

How much space does each movie typically take up?


Thanks

 

[CalvinHobbes]

DVDFabDecrypter is a good product. AnyDVD is also good.

SD DVD's can have a capacity of up to ~8GB. Most movies use less than 7GB. If you keep just the movie with one soundtrack (removing everything else) they will take anywhere from a low of say 3GB to a high of maybe 6GB. Those are just rough averages.

Can the PS3 stream a DVD in it's native MPEG2 format or does it need to be converted to something else first?

 

[ShawnD1]

Remember that your PS3 has limited support for what it can read. http://www.cdrinfo.com/section...ails.aspx?NewsId=18779

VIDEO

MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (PS,TS), H.264/MEPG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 SP

MUSIC

ATRAC (.oma .msa .aa3), AAC (.3gp .mp4), MP3 (.mp3), WAV (.wav)

IMAGES

JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF

 

[Vogel515]

My understanding is that with Windows Vista (or Media Center) I will be able to share a folder containing media with the ps3... anyone have any familiarity with this?

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Vogel515
My understanding is that with Windows Vista (or Media Center) I will be able to share a folder containing media with the ps3... anyone have any familiarity with this?

Probably doesn't work. Microsoft made the same claim about the Xbox 360, but a very large majority of my video files could not be played. Example: one file that always worked was DivX 5 video with mpeg-1 audio layer 3. A file that refused to play on Xbox was DivX 3 Low with mpeg-1 audio layer 3. What's the difference? Who the hell knows.

The lack of video playback on consoles is not because it's hard to make working codecs. The ffdshow plugin for Windows allows playback for almost all video and audio formats, and it was released almost 6 years ago. Are Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft deliberately making shitty consoles? Actually, yeah. A Nintendo Wii reads DVDs, but it cannot play DVD movies for legal reasons. It's those same legal reasons that make the Xbox and PS3 incapable of playing most kinds of video.

 

[Vogel515]

Alright, well I'm going to see if I can get it to work, if I do it'll make the ps3 one of my best purchases ever.

 

[tw1164]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Vogel515
My understanding is that with Windows Vista (or Media Center) I will be able to share a folder containing media with the ps3... anyone have any familiarity with this?

Probably doesn't work. Microsoft made the same claim about the Xbox 360, but a very large majority of my video files could not be played. Example: one file that always worked was DivX 5 video with mpeg-1 audio layer 3. A file that refused to play on Xbox was DivX 3 Low with mpeg-1 audio layer 3. What's the difference? Who the hell knows.

The lack of video playback on consoles is not because it's hard to make working codecs. The ffdshow plugin for Windows allows playback for almost all video and audio formats, and it was released almost 6 years ago. Are Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft deliberately making shitty consoles? Actually, yeah. A Nintendo Wii reads DVDs, but it cannot play DVD movies for legal reasons. It's those same legal reasons that make the Xbox and PS3 incapable of playing most kinds of video.

DivX 5 and Divx 3 (hacked from an old MS codec) are different codecs.

It's not hard to encode your own dvds/videos for the console of your choice. You just need to look up what the console supports and go from there.

You'd problably be safest using Divx.
You may want to try to convert you vob files to mpg files. You'll have no quality loss and this way will be the quickest.

On a side note, I think the PS3 supports VC-1 (WMV)

 

[0roo0roo]

save yourself the time and just use the ps3's dvd player.
how many times do you watch the same movie again?

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: tw1164
It's not hard to encode your own dvds/videos for the console of your choice. You just need to look up what the console supports and go from there.

The problem is that I have over 500gb of video, most of which is not compatible. It can be converted with the VLC batch converter, but it makes me wonder what happens after PS3 and Xbox. Will the console after that need it to be converted into something else?

It seems like it would be easier to just use an old computer for video playback and leave the PS3/Xbox for music and games. If that's not an option, VLC batch converter

 

[0roo0roo]

well by then everything will be hd, and old standard def stuff will just be too pathetic to bother with.

 

[ShawnD1]

DVD video is 480p, so high quality rips based on 480p are as good as you can get from your current DVDs. Unless you re-buy all of your existing DVDs in the next format, what you have now is what you'll have 5 years from now

It's not so bad though. I have VHS rips (capture card) that look fairly ok. Being less than perfect isn't the end of the world

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Handbrake.

 

[robphelan]

modded xbox FTW. I have two of these with 250Gb & 500Gb HDDs respectively.

cheap, and they play everything I throw at them. You can store movies on the HDD or stream them (with a little work) from your PC.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
DVD video is 480p, so high quality rips based on 480p are as good as you can get from your current DVDs. Unless you re-buy all of your existing DVDs in the next format, what you have now is what you'll have 5 years from now

It's not so bad though. I have VHS rips (capture card) that look fairly ok. Being less than perfect isn't the end of the world

its why i haven't bought a dvd for years now. netflix ftw

 

[BoboKatt]

This is my bread and butter. I have a PS3, 40GB version and it's hooked up directly to my N router via cable. My computer has Tversity running and in my home office and connects wirelessly to the same network and I have all my DVD's ripped to my HD on the computer mostly in ISO, IMG or actually opened up so you see the .VOB files. Now the PS3, and trust me I have tried a million ways, LOVES its .MP4 video files, but also now with a recent update also plays DivX.

It?s your choice. You can take that ISO file (either already on your computer or have to make one from the original DVD movie) and use a program that takes the ISO directly and converts it to either MP4 or AVI (DivX). The one I use is Fair Use Wizard. Works like a charm. I think there are actual settings for PS3.

If I have an ISO that is already opened as I was mentioning that I have the VIDEO.TS directory and all the files are in .VOB, then Handbrake works wonders and is fast and very good quality and again has a setting for PS3 which gives absolutely great quality and you just need to work with audio settings to ensure you are still getting the 5.1

If I have a MKV file, then I use MVK2VOB to convert the file to a MP4? again works wonders.

However, lately I have really gotten a bit tired of running Tversity. What I do now is use an external 750 HD, formatted to FAT32. I have a external "docking" station for it on my computer and again another docking station at my PS3. I take the drive and plop into this dock (connects to my comp via eSATA) and I transfer all my movies that I have encoded to MP4 etc. Remember it has to abide by the FAT32 standard so the files have to be no more than 4GB or some programs allow you to split or span them to multiple files (MKV2VOB is great for that).

Once they are all on there, I shut down the drive, pluck it out and put into the docking station at the PS3 ? connected to that via USB. Presto... all my movies there and I don't have to worry about quality etc. Don't get me wrong, Tversity works great but the issue was that when I had a HD/BD Rip in MKV that is like 24GB, and I have to stream that over my wireless connection... that ain't gonna happen or it does but it is still jerky over an N based wireless network.

When you encode your ISO, or VOB or however you have your current DVD library, play around with the size, quality, audio settings etc. You might figure out that to convert say 100 DVD discs you have may take a lifetime on some settings.. so go easy on that. I know Handbrake and fair use wizard support multi core and my quad core q6600 really gets a workout using these programs.