Other Managing all of my movies

[lexicmu02]

I own about 850 dvds/blu-ray discs and I would like to put them on an external hard drive and be able to just hook up to my tv and select a movie without having to go through my shelves trying to find a specific movie. Is this realistic? I have read a little about WDTV? Any suggestions as to how to do this or any ideas of something similar?! Thanks for you help!

[Guest]

Very easy. Very simple to do.
Rip your movies to an external hard drive.
Purchase a media player .
Connect the hard drive to the media player and the media player to your TV.

I have 9 hard drives for doing just that.
As far as what media player to buy... Mainman and Gregiboy will be along shortly with suggestions.

I use the WDTV and have not had any problems.

[lexicmu02]

Thank you for your help. What size are your hard drives?

[GregiBoy]

Speaking for myself, I have a total of 11 Terabyte of storage. Most on my network but 2 Tb internally within the player. I can pick up a 2Tb bare drive here in Australia for < $100 and externally about the same.

To put that in perspective, on 2Tb, I can store around 2000 movies @ SD or 200 movies @ Full HD.

My good friend, DiabloZoe, is looking at a new player that is available in the US and it looks very promising. Perhaps he/she will share the outcome on this with us.

Maineman has only good things to say about the Argosy that he bought and my main player that I am very happy with is a Kaiboer 530i.

I am generally underwhelmed with the Western Digital range of players but have a couple for testing.

Hope this helps.

[martythebrit]

I use a WD TV too, never had any problems with it and does what I want.

Pivos has a very promising looking media player.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You may want to consider keeping your movies on a network drive. Later on if you want to stream them to other players or computers it will be easier, also you won't need to leave a computer on.

[unclebubbies]

Please help me understand this. Instead of trying to back up my movies using crap discs that turn into coaster in a year or so. I could just load them on a hdd either in my computer or an external hdd. Than purchase a media player and I will be able to connect this to my hdd tv and surround system and still get hd audio and video?

[GregiBoy]

Totally correct!!! Saves a lot of problems.

I've been doing this for about 10 years now.

I usually recommend that when starting up you do not get into the networking side but just store everything on a external USB hard disk which you then plug into your media player..

Networking takes a bit more knowledge, time & effort.

Sound easier and a lot less hassle??

Please help me understand this. Instead of trying to back up my movies using crap discs that turn into coaster in a year or so. I could just load them on a hdd either in my computer or an external hdd. Than purchase a media player and I will be able to connect this to my hdd tv and surround system and still get hd audio and video?

[unclebubbies]

Could you tell us what to look for in an external hdd and media player to get the best quality reproduction on our home entertainment centers?

[GregiBoy]

Hard Disk - External USB & biggest storage space that you can get from a recognised manufacturer (eg WD, Seagate, Iomega) at the best price that you can afford.

For example, I was out looking for some internal 3Gb drives on the weekend and I picked up an external Iomega 1 Terabyte for $59!!

Although I am underwhelmed with the WD players, a WD Live may be a good start point (for around 100 bux) to get you into the game and gain enough knowledge to know what you really want in a player.

As I have said, I have multiple players installed but really like my Kaiboer 530i which I used to import from China for resale.

I'm going to get onto my favourite rant here though!!! You MUST think throgh and organise your library(s) on the hard disks right from the start otherwise they become unmanageable later on.

I have all my movies stored by genre folders with thumbnail images that the player show up for a better library navigation experienc.

[unclebubbies]

Please explain. Do you use Dvdfab to download the movie direct from the disc to the external hdd? Full Movie or Main movie Mode? I see some external hdd have either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0? Sata? Which do you suggest for high quality?
What kind of time is involved to load a 50 gb disc? Sorry but this is a new concept for me and I'm very glad lexicmu02 posted this thread! Is there a tutorial on this subject?

[unclebubbies]

I just saw and read you tutorial for Dvd's. Sorry I missed it in my last post.
Do you have any tidbits for Blu Ray? Also not ever even seeing a external hard drive (yet) Couldn't I just list the movies in alphabetical order to keep track of them? Any suggestions would be real welcome because I am really leaning to pursue this instead of making disc back ups.

[GregiBoy]

Same principles apply to BR.

If you stick them all in one directory and sort them alphabetically, you are bound for trouble. Most players are fairly slow navigating the pages and to navigate to a "ZZ Top Concert could take you all day once you get large numbers of movies.

Just ask Maineman!!! Because he was a SLACKO at the start and did not obey GregiBoy's instructions, the task has now become totally unmanageable and he whinges about the player being too slow to navigate.

[unclebubbies]

Ok I'm not even close to starting. Have to buy the hardward 1st. What about these?
Please explain. Do you use Dvdfab to download the movie direct from the disc to the external hdd? Full Movie or Main movie Mode? I see some external hdd have either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0? Sata? Which do you suggest for high quality?
What kind of time is involved to load a 50 gb disc? Can you watch the extras on the media player?

[unclebubbies]

Just noticed that most media players don't pass through DTS MA? That's useless for what I want. Any media players that would play the actual HD audio?

[GregiBoy]

Mine does. You have to do more research on what is available in the US.

Also, reread my DVD bible and see if you can get your head around that first before getting ahead of yourself. If you had read and understood it, you wouldn't be asking these questions.