Managing all of my movies

[unclebubbies]

Ok I have read your tutorial on "Dvd to Mobile" and understand some of your directions. But the main thing for me right now is I cannot find a Media Player that actually has pass through for full DTS MA that is not under $200. (Popcorn Hour). So at this point unless someone can steer me in another direction my thought is just to buy an external hdd. Back up my movies to it and use a rewritable disc to watch them when I want. I'll start a thread to seek out a reasonably priced media player that can support DTS MA. Any comment would still be welcome and thanks for all you insight.

[martythebrit]

Pivos does and it's only $99.

Check it out here;

[lexicmu02]

I am sure this has been mentioned some where before, but what tab do I select when I put my dvd in to burn it to a hard drive to later be played through the media player on my tv? Is there an option that is better than the other? Thank you for all of your answers and input so far!

[GregiBoy]

I am sure this has been mentioned some where before, but what tab do I select when I put my dvd in to burn it to a hard drive to later be played through the media player on my tv? Is there an option that is better than the other? Thank you for all of your answers and input so far!

Your post has absolutely nothing to do with this topic.

Do not hijack other members threads & learn some forum ettiquete before posting.

[lexicmu02]

I am asking when I am putting my dvd's onto the external hard drives using dvd fab what should i be using? DVD Copy? DVD Ripper? If I am ripping it, should I rip it to AVI, MP4, etc. That is what I meant with that question.

[GregiBoy]

It depends on what you intend to play them with.

Some of your details on possible hardware configuration would be helpful.

[joeclarke]

The media player approach is one that I had considered initially in assembling my movie libary (about 500 DVD & BD) but in my narrow view it just seemed to be a redundant piece of hardware.

The essentials are a PC, a surround sound system and a TV. Why add a media player?

I built a fast dedicated movie PC with an SSD OS drive and a few TB HDD in RAID to provide primary storage and then added a Drobo Pro which can provide 20TB or more of additional storage.

Decent sound and video cards thrown into the mix and connect HDMI with unprocessed audio to my receiver and then HDMI to the display.

I built my movie library just using Excel and some simple macros and prettied the whole thing up with a nice user interface and links to Media Browser for content.

It's really easy to build in drop down menus for movie sort criteria within Excel and the ouput and search is always lightening fast.

I store movies as ISOs and then playback using virtual drive.

Two weaknesses in my approach:

1) Media Browser can be a bit slow sometimes.

2) I have not found an effective way to "point and shoot" - to be able to mount and play ISOs with a play command within Media Browser. Others claim this can be done, but I just use MB for content.

If there are advantages to a separate media player I have yet to understand them.

[GregiBoy]

Yeah undoubtedly!!!

Usually called "WIFE" or "GIRLFRIEND" and other family members that qualify for the "LUDDITE" badge.

On a serious note, just a couple of points are:-

Convenience, convenience, convenience
Point and shoot capability
Cost
Noise Levels
Storage space
Consumer Electronic approach rather than a Propellerhead approach
Level of technical competence
Media Security
Media Distribution within dwelling
Portability
Just the plain fun & enjoyment of getting it all working PROPAH!!

[joeclarke]

Yeah undoubtedly!!!

Usually called "WIFE" or "GIRLFRIEND" and other family members that qualify for the "LUDDITE" badge.

Yes, I hear you. I work around this with really supportive and user friendly interfaces.

And I also make really nice "tutorial" videos that are available on demand in case any of the resident luddites are in control of the remote controls and have issues.

But also seriously, I find that using a diNovo keyboard to manage the movie PC works very well and is also quite luddite-friendly.

I tried a Logitech "air mouse" but notwithstanding the quality of the kit, it is just frustrating to try to manage movie playback in Power DVD, particularly with BDs.

On the noise front - I run my movie server in a different room and run HDMI to the theater room - bluetooth mouse and keyboard links make this easy. This allows me to build as robust a movie server box as I desire and noise is never an issue. In any event, a well built, large capacity PC box will never be particularly noisy. Look at the silverstone products as excellent examples.

On the distribution/portability front - I can stream on my network to any device in my residence (or externally) if I want to. My wife even streams movies to her iPad while she's on her treadmill.

I acknowledge that my posture/system is completely unconcerned about cost. But still, I can't help but think - I need a PC anyway to do my ripping and storage work - why add another piece of kit to do playback when that same PC is perfectly capable of doing the job, even using basic motherboard and OS gear?

[GregiBoy]

In my heyday, I had 6 screens with a player on each within the house all streaming from my NAS.

At $100 a pop for player box compared to a PC, albeit minimalistic, in each location, cost was certainly a consideration.

Now that I have got rid of the baggage (Wife & Kids ), I am back to only three screens.