Thinking about converting DVD collection into a media library

[MrChad]

I have a modestly-sized DVD collection (probably around 200 or so movies) that are taking up a lot of space in our basement. We don't watch these movies very often, and my wife wants to sell or donate the collection. I'm in favor of keeping the movies but boxing them up and storing them in the attic. Since HD storage is so cheap, my thought was to rip the movies to a big storage drive so I could stream them to the living room if I chose to do so.

The PC is Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and the living room has an Xbox 360, so using the Xbox as a media center extender seems like a reasonable fit. Some questions:

1. Right now the Xbox is wired to the network via an 802.11g wireless bridge. Is this sufficient to stream DVDs?
2. What format should I store the movies in? I'd like to preserve the audio and video as best I can. Can any of the formats support DTS audio tracks?

Any other tips are appreciated.

 

[velillen]

1.) yeah that will be enough for DVD. Is the pc wireless? Sometimes those wireless g routers/access points had gigabyte Ethernet ports.

2.) The best would be to just copy the disk image. Either as an .iso or in the dvd folder structure. You lose next to nothing quality wise that way. Some benefits of this route are you get a feel as if you put the disk in. menu's, extras, all audio tracks, ect. Its only ~10gb (less for some) per a movie for this method. One 2tb hard drive will get a mass majority (if not nearly all) of the dvd's.

If you want to convert you have to realize it will take ~ 10 hours PER a movie (vs ~30 minutes per for just ripping). Thats ripping and converting and assuming nothing goes wrong. Best choices would be x264. I personally leave the main audio track untouched. (as you usually cant do much better anyways).

As for the DTS track, you dont need/want to convert to dts. Thats for bluray and isnt found on dvd's. Most dvd's are simple AC-3 audio with only 2 channels (i might be wrong there! but thats the idea). Like i said when i encode my old dvd's i simply leave the audio untouched.


Honestly if i was you...rip to folder or iso. Check what the xbox can play

 

[IndyColtsFan]

My Movies is a plug-in for media center that will transcode ISO files on the fly so that the Xbox 360 can stream them. I use it and it works great.

 

[BTA]

I use MyMovies on a Windows Home Server, ripped to folder format, and play them back on HTPC's in each room.

Never was able to ge transcoding to xbox360 to work well. Mostly because I really like it to have DVD menus and all that.

If you just want to reclaim space, might I suggest these:
http://www.amazon.com/Caselogic-DVB-...9401311&sr=8-6

I use a couple of them to hold the DVD's I dont feel like wasting storage space on (stuff I don't watch a lot but dont want to get rid of). Saves a ton of space and fit right on a shelf.

 

[BTA]

To start though I would suggest My Movies for WMC. Sign up for the trial points (you have to buy points to unlock transcoding now), and test out transcoding to the Xbox360.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yep, that's my recommendation as well. They'll give you trial points and just test it out and see what you think of the transcoding. As BTA mentioned, with transcoding, you'll just get the movie and not the menus. For me, it isn't a big deal but it might be for you.

 

[MrChad]

Does the My Movies plug-in allow full rewind / fast forward?

As for the DTS track, you dont need/want to convert to dts. Thats for bluray and isnt found on dvd's. Most dvd's are simple AC-3 audio with only 2 channels (i might be wrong there! but thats the idea). Like i said when i encode my old dvd's i simply leave the audio untouched.

I have a number of DVDs with 5.1 DTS audio tracks. Most DVDs have 5.1 AC-3 audio tracks (not 2 channel), and those will be fine, but my research suggests that streaming DTS audio tracks is not supported (I could be wrong though).

 

[MrChad]

I use MyMovies on a Windows Home Server, ripped to folder format, and play them back on HTPC's in each room.

Never was able to ge transcoding to xbox360 to work well. Mostly because I really like it to have DVD menus and all that.

If you just want to reclaim space, might I suggest these:
http://www.amazon.com/Caselogic-DVB-...9401311&sr=8-6

I use a couple of them to hold the DVD's I dont feel like wasting storage space on (stuff I don't watch a lot but dont want to get rid of). Saves a ton of space and fit right on a shelf.

That's a decent idea too.

 

[Homerboy]

I'll throw in 2 cents. I'm not a fan of the 360 for playing videos etc.
I'll suggest ripping to .iso (1:1 is ideal) storing on a file server (XP, Win7, *NIX or (my recommendation) WHS).
Set up a XBMC machine (you will never go back) or if you want to take the easier, cheaper route buy one of the many streaming set-top boxes out there.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Does the My Movies plug-in allow full rewind / fast forward?

It does support rewind/FF from what I recall, but it isn't very smooth.

 

[jtvang125]

1.) yeah that will be enough for DVD. Is the pc wireless? Sometimes those wireless g routers/access points had gigabyte Ethernet ports.

2.) The best would be to just copy the disk image. Either as an .iso or in the dvd folder structure. You lose next to nothing quality wise that way. Some benefits of this route are you get a feel as if you put the disk in. menu's, extras, all audio tracks, ect. Its only ~10gb (less for some) per a movie for this method. One 2tb hard drive will get a mass majority (if not nearly all) of the dvd's.

If you want to convert you have to realize it will take ~ 10 hours PER a movie (vs ~30 minutes per for just ripping). Thats ripping and converting and assuming nothing goes wrong. Best choices would be x264. I personally leave the main audio track untouched. (as you usually cant do much better anyways).

As for the DTS track, you dont need/want to convert to dts. Thats for bluray and isnt found on dvd's. Most dvd's are simple AC-3 audio with only 2 channels (i might be wrong there! but thats the idea). Like i said when i encode my old dvd's i simply leave the audio untouched.


Honestly if i was you...rip to folder or iso. Check what the xbox can play

A fast dual core or a quad core will cut that ripping and converting time in half. I never had a dvd rip to .iso take more than 15 minutes and that was a few years back.

Also, quite a few DVDs did come with a 5.1 DTS track. If the DVD is ripped with the DTS track intact and digitally outputted to a receiver it will decode the track and display DTS on the panel.

 

[thegimp03]

I undertook a similar project recently because of space limitations for our DVD collection. So far, I have ripped about 150 DVDs, but have a lot more to go. To make searching for a specific genre easier I've allocated all my rips to different folders and to play them back on my PS3, I run PS3 Media Server.

 

[velillen]

A fast dual core or a quad core will cut that ripping and converting time in half. I never had a dvd rip to .iso take more than 15 minutes and that was a few years back.

Also, quite a few DVDs did come with a 5.1 DTS track. If the DVD is ripped with the DTS track intact and digitally outputted to a receiver it will decode the track and display DTS on the panel.

It does take ~15 minutes to rip most movies. Some take a bit longer but that sprobably just my pc. Encoding on the other hand on one pc takes ~ 12 hours but on the other takes ~6 hours. Still longer than id want to wait!

And my bad on the audio i was spacing out after doing a bunch of my ski movies (which have 2 channel audio). Most are the Dolby Digital 5.1 now that i look. I apologize on that part! Converting DD5.1 to DTS is pretty moot from what i understand. not much point to it.

But as others have said just rip the iso or folder sturcture and have a 1:1 copy.

 

[ericlp]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/rip_your_movie_dvds_and_watch_them_anywhere

Pretty good guide to follow. I'm a fan of mkv containers.

 

[IGemini]

It does take ~15 minutes to rip most movies. Some take a bit longer but that sprobably just my pc. Encoding on the other hand on one pc takes ~ 12 hours but on the other takes ~6 hours. Still longer than id want to wait!

Also probably your computer. A 4400+ isn't really fast for that purpose, as video encoding is heavily threaded. I haven't encoded any movies in a while but with my Q9650 I'm pretty sure I could encode the movie in half the time it would take to watch it. 2nd pass encoding is a waste of time for what it does.

For video quality, the best way to go on DVDs is H.264, bit for bit. DivX/XviD is more ubiquitous (and the easiest to stream) but you sacrifice some image quality. AC-3 and AAC both support multi-channel audio I believe. MKV is especially great when you're talking HD and multiple audio tracks but an absolute bitch to stream to the 360 because it requires transcoding.

I use the direct index sharing for 360 streaming from my main PC at the moment. I have another file server that uses TVersity for streaming, though only the pro version allows transcoding. Installing the DivX MKV codec for the Media Center extension to the 360 does work somewhat but I only found it to be stable in some cases.

 

[velillen]

2nd pass encoding is a waste of time for what it does

Then why does everyone recommend it seems like? pass 1 takes all of 30-40 minutes (if that) on the E8400 machine so ive just always done it.

I haven't encoded any movies in a while but with my Q9650 I'm pretty sure I could encode the movie in half the time it would take to watch it

Depends on your settings to for that. My E8400 machine if i use a low quality/ipod type profile then yeah it takes no time. But going for quality using a high quality profile takes a lot longer. And yeah you have a newer, more powerful processor so of course it will take less time right off the bat from that vs an E8400. (actually the benchmarks on here show is the e8400 doing ~10fps vs yours doing ~20fps)

AC-3 does support multi channel. AAC no clue

but o well no sense getting into a pissing match! Am curious why you say 2 pass is a waste though just so i have an idea. Not an expert in that area so always curious on other peoples thoughts.

 

[sdifox]

just iso the dvds.

If you don't watch them all that often, why not just mount them in virtual dvd drive when you do want to watch it?

 

[0roo0roo]

if its worth watching, it is worth watching in hd. spending countless hours and energy essentially degrading dvd image is pointless. how many times are you going to watch a film anyways,..in inferior form no less. dvd is inferior, just leave it to rot with the vhs, there is no point investing more effort into it.

 

[Homerboy]

if its worth watching, it is worth watching in hd. spending countless hours and energy essentially degrading dvd image is pointless. how many times are you going to watch a film anyways,..in inferior form.

He doesn't have an HD source though. He has the DVDs. And if he rips 1:1 he's not losing a single bit of PQ from the original DVD.

I found that once I had my DVD collection available at a click of a button (via XBMC) I watched A LOT of the old movies I had that I would have never have actually pulled out of the DVD case and played. I often simply scroll through my HTPC and click on random movies I haven't seen in forever.

 

[Chapbass]

He doesn't have an HD source though. He has the DVDs. And if he rips 1:1 he's not losing a single bit of PQ from the original DVD.

Also depends on what his TV is, how far away he is, etc.


Its rough for me watching anything less than an iso dvd nowadays. I have some rips that I wanted to shrink down a few years ago when HDD storage was a little mroe of a premium, and I had to go back and rerip them as iso's because I couldn't stand the image degradation.

At the same time, I'm on a 130" projector, so the difference between a 2-3gb rip, the original 10gb iso, and a native bluray is pretty substantial.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

I did this over the summer. It takes about an hour per movie ( win 7 x64 4gb ram quadcore) to rip and encode with dvd decrypter and Gordian knot. Gordian knot allows you to queue up a bunch of econding projects so once you rip all your movies you can queue them up, hit start and let it run until its done.

Here is the video I followed from a revision3 episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soLRR0wJswU

I stream my digital content with TVersity to my Xbox. I do it wired though not over wireless.

 

[IGemini]

Then why does everyone recommend it seems like? pass 1 takes all of 30-40 minutes (if that) on the E8400 machine so ive just always done it.

Depends on your settings to for that. My E8400 machine if i use a low quality/ipod type profile then yeah it takes no time. But going for quality using a high quality profile takes a lot longer. And yeah you have a newer, more powerful processor so of course it will take less time right off the bat from that vs an E8400. (actually the benchmarks on here show is the e8400 doing ~10fps vs yours doing ~20fps)

AC-3 does support multi channel. AAC no clue

but o well no sense getting into a pissing match! Am curious why you say 2 pass is a waste though just so i have an idea. Not an expert in that area so always curious on other peoples thoughts.

Got me, though I never heard 2nd pass recommended. I always had success with just a good 1-pass encoding. I tried 2nd pass on top of it but it didn't really seem any better. I think 1500kbps was my magic number for that. In a tragedy of testing this in ripping my copy of Fight Club while typing this, the Marvell controller on my P5Q Deluxe spazzed out. :hmm: DVD drive is the last vestige of IDE on this machine, getting a blu-ray drive at some point.

Didn't intend for a pissing match, just stating a fact. It's not really that a Q9650 is newer, it's basically two E8400s on a single die. My next upgrade probably won't be until Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

 

[MrChad]

Also depends on what his TV is, how far away he is, etc.


Its rough for me watching anything less than an iso dvd nowadays. I have some rips that I wanted to shrink down a few years ago when HDD storage was a little mroe of a premium, and I had to go back and rerip them as iso's because I couldn't stand the image degradation.

At the same time, I'm on a 130" projector, so the difference between a 2-3gb rip, the original 10gb iso, and a native bluray is pretty substantial.

I do have a BD player and a handful of BDs. Most of my movies are DVD.

TV is a 42" 720p Panasonic plasma. I would like to maintain DVD quality if I can.

I'll play around with one or two discs to get a sense of what the LOE is going to be like.

 

[velillen]

Got me, though I never heard 2nd pass recommended. I always had success with just a good 1-pass encoding. I tried 2nd pass on top of it but it didn't really seem any better. I think 1500kbps was my magic number for that. In a tragedy of testing this in ripping my copy of Fight Club while typing this, the Marvell controller on my P5Q Deluxe spazzed out. :hmm: DVD drive is the last vestige of IDE on this machine, getting a blu-ray drive at some point.

Didn't intend for a pissing match, just stating a fact. It's not really that a Q9650 is newer, it's basically two E8400s on a single die. My next upgrade probably won't be until Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

Ah most of the guides i have seen say to just do 2 pass. For my e8400 machine 1st pass is quick...like 20-30 minutes then the second pass is more like 3-4 hours. As for why to do it...supposedly it improves quality a bit. Marginally i guess but figure at quick 1st pass times it doesnt matter much to me to just do two pass.

All i know is the "scene" rules call for 2 pass and *most* of the guides i have seen say to use it. So beats me if it really improves much!

I need to upgrade lol. This machine is starting to lag. Then again it is 5 years old All stock minus the psu and video card. Video card spazzed out and died. PSU well went poof in a power surge of some sort. Got a uber cheapo replacement one then upgraded to an actual brand id heard of lol. Id upgrade the pc but to busy building home theater stuff so someday the pc will get upgraded!

 

[0roo0roo]

He doesn't have an HD source though. He has the DVDs. And if he rips 1:1 he's not losing a single bit of PQ from the original DVD.

I found that once I had my DVD collection available at a click of a button (via XBMC) I watched A LOT of the old movies I had that I would have never have actually pulled out of the DVD case and played. I often simply scroll through my HTPC and click on random movies I haven't seen in forever.

Eventually he will.

Putting a dvd into the dvd player once a day or every couple of days is no hard task. It is no way equivalent of having to shuffle cd's in and out to have the same functionality of an ipod. ripping dvds is solving a problem that doens't need solving. further more it is not free, using drive space for no reason for an inferior obsolete experience is simply nuts. anyways it is easier to use netflix or the like, why watch old and there is so much you probably have not seen, even old classics, not just new releases.