In the past I was collecting blu-ray movies and got up to about 30 blu-rays and was almost running out of shelf space and sold my blu-rays to a movie store. I also didn't like how some of my blu-rays had unskippable trailers although I could still fast foward through them and didn't like that I could not resume where I left off watching in some of them. I was thinking about buying HDX quality movies through Vudu and starting a digital movie collection. I'm already interested in a few of the bundles Vudu is selling such as the Batman collection, Superman collection, Back to the Future collection and they are on sale right now. With Vudu I don't need to buy ripping software that might not work with all blu-ray discs, and a huge hard drive, spend time ripping especially making sure that a rip turned out good. So how is the quality of these movies in HDX through Vudu and is it worth using Vudu in HDX quality for movies over blu-rays due to other factors other than quality?
Thinking about starting a digital movie collection through Vudu
- Thread starter Dave3000
- Start date
ImpulsE69
Lifer
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You should have made yourself a cheap NAS server, got a streamer and ripped all your blu-rays to that. That is the future. That is way more future proof than paying a company to do it for you and you are at the mercy of their network bandwidth and uptime. They are a nice plus, but I wouldn't make them my primary source of content, especially if you are 'buying' digital copies.
The thing is that I would have to eventually buy a bigger hard drive or more hard drives if I want to keep ripping from blu-rays with at a good quality. Also can Plex on the Roku auto resume where you left off on a movie or does it go back to the beginning if you later watch the rest of a movie?
sdifox
No Lifer
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ImpulsE69
Lifer
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sdifox
No Lifer
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I have about 900+ BD's and would never think about using a streaming service like Vudu to replace them. I use BD's at home because I don't want to sacrifice quality, and use iTunes digital copies for portable viewing. The great thing about iTunes movies is that I can leave the movies on Apple's servers until I want to pull them down locally for offline use. They can also be streamed via Apple TV if you'd like (I use this option if the movie is not available on BD).
Vudu doesn't really serve a purpose for me.
Vudu doesn't really serve a purpose for me.
I need to make a cheap NAS server. How does one go about doing that? I have some older computers around that I no longer use...
And with a little googling I have found this: http://technutz.com/diy-nas-freenas-2013/
I like it. I was hoping I could make something out of my old computer parts though. Perhaps that wont be possible.
I like it. I was hoping I could make something out of my old computer parts though. Perhaps that wont be possible.
Anyone have opinions on the build I linked there? Will it be fast enough for transcoding?
sdifox
No Lifer
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sdifox
No Lifer
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you can use any of your older computer. just needs more memory and sata ports.
installing freenas on the usb stick is to make as much drive space as possible for data partition.
I see...had no idea that was the case. So I guess my ps3 and whatnot wouldn't be able to work with certain files on that machine if I was to build it.
I'm trying to get a full Plex setup going, and I'm willing to spend quite a bit of money to do this (but hopefully under $500). I have various boxes that I'll need to send stuff to (game consoles, android tablets, chromecast or whatever the best device is I'd buy it). Would one of the synology things be better?
sdifox
No Lifer
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it's a NAS, it stores files, you are able to access the files through any device that can talk to a NAS. There is a DLNA plugin for it.
http://www.freenas.org/
what old machine do you have hanging around? The expensive bits are actually sata RAID controllers and hdds.
example
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/278917-32-controller-support-freenas-drives
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my old "dust collecting" computer is my previous rig before I upgraded recently: Q6600, Gigabyte DS3R motherboard. Dont think it has a RAID controller. So I guess that wont work.
sdifox
No Lifer
- Sep 30, 2005
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so add a raid controller. The RAID controller is for throughput and more storage support. You could just run 4 hdd with 4 sata ports. Q6600 is plenty fast.
hit up storage subforum and ask there if you want more info on freenas.
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poofyhairguy
Lifer
- Nov 20, 2005
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Exactly. Software raid works great. Or heck Unraid, I have two huge (10+tb) Unraid media servers.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
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I ran FreeNAS for 5+ years without any hitches, worked great.
I use VUDU. HDX is amazing. It's scary to say, but I've seen it look better than Bluray. First one I got was Hanna and it looked incredible! Downside is, no local storage, so if you have buffer issues, no Internet connection, poor reception (if you're away from home), etc. then you're hosed. We use it primarily for rentals, since it's easier to get than a babysitter sometimes.
We keep our favorites on our movie server - MakeMKV & Handbrake are a killer combination. We use Plex for that (like a newer XBMC with a server & client portion, works awesome).
I use VUDU. HDX is amazing. It's scary to say, but I've seen it look better than Bluray. First one I got was Hanna and it looked incredible! Downside is, no local storage, so if you have buffer issues, no Internet connection, poor reception (if you're away from home), etc. then you're hosed. We use it primarily for rentals, since it's easier to get than a babysitter sometimes.
We keep our favorites on our movie server - MakeMKV & Handbrake are a killer combination. We use Plex for that (like a newer XBMC with a server & client portion, works awesome).
boomhower
Diamond Member
- Sep 13, 2007
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I say make your own server and be done with it. Yes, it costs more. But if spend a bunch of money at Vudu and they close up shop all your stuff may go up in smoke. If your ISP suddenly institutes tiered date your hosed. Many potential downsides to it.
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
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As other posters have stated, hard drives are cheap. You can get 4 TB drives under $160. You can get a cheap NAS like the DS413j, stuff it with 4 TB drives, and have several TB of space available depending on your RAID configuration. You could store hundreds of ripped blu-rays that way. I'm not 100% of all of my settings, but my Blu-ray movie rips are roughly around 10 GB in size per movie and look great. I remove all of the secondary languages and audio tracks and just leave the highest quality track (DTS, Dolby 7.1, etc) in place.
Yes, it does allow you to resume.
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IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
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A Q6600 will be more than enough in all likelihood. My old server is based on a Q6600 and I ran PS3 media server on it and Plex and didn't see any issues. The board in that server is a Gigabyte DS3R of some sort and it had 8 SATA ports, which I used instead of a dedicated RAID controller. It works, but performance does suck. If you're on Newegg's mailing list, they probably send you coupons occasionally; RAID cards seem to be discounted all the time. When I built my new server earlier this year, I used a Newegg coupon for 15% off an LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i. You can definitely go cheaper than that. The new server I built replaced my Q6600 box as a media server and I'm running 15-20 SERVER VMs on it, along with the media server functions, and I still have so much spare horsepower in it that I am still looking at more uses.
The Q6600 server is still running two VMs and I'm thinking about replacing it with a low-power Gigabyte Brix or Intel NUC. At that point, I'll either hand the Q6600 server over to my brother so he has a media server or I'll look at possibly rebuilding it into a huge NAS down the road. I have a huge space surplus right now (I have roughly 50 TB of raw space between both servers and my DS413j) and even after you take away for RAID overhead, I think I'm still well under 33% utilization overall, so I'm in no hurry for another NAS.
EDIT: If you guys want to REALLY build a media server, use this board.
Depending on format and what he is playing the videos on, transcoding on the backend may not be absolutely necessary. For example, Rokus now support Direct Play for MKVs whereas before, you generally had to transcode them or risk crashing the Roku.
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sdifox
No Lifer
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He was asking about transcoding on the NAS box. I just answered that question. One could of course run free NAS inside a VM, but that is crazy talk
NutBucket
Lifer
- Aug 30, 2000
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My concern with a service like Vudu is what guarantee is there that the company will be around long term? You dump all this money into digital media that sits on some server that doesn't belong to you and one day it could disappear into thin air. Sorry, not the way I would spend my money.
Exactly. Renting is fine, but I wouldn't trust them to hold my catalog of movies.
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