Hard Drive Media Players

[Dwyreaux]

I buy the movies when they are on sale and cheap and they may sit on the server for a couple of years if she said I have to wait to watch it with her.

I have this issue as well. But I would like to house my entire collection permanently on a server somehow.

Microsoft is capable of a solution using a Media Center PC connected to a Windows Home Server (WHS) like this:

Adding your DVD Library to a Windows Media Center PC with Windows Home Server on a Friday night

Again, I'm not sure what you will need to do to get the correct box cover art into the WHS but it is certainly possible. I also don't know if the WHS route would ever allow you to compress the DVD to a different file format to save space. About 4-6G x 4000 DVDs is a lot of storage but you can probably use multiple WHS devices ("... and this is my server for comedies" ).

So now you're suggesting a HTPC for my situation? What file formats does Windows Media Center support?

If the OP is not interested in menus but wants to maintain the chapter stops then an ISO using Main Movie mode would chop out the extra (and work with the WD TV).

I read this from you in another thread. Chapter stops are another thing that is of some importance to me. Will this also allow for all of the subtitle and audio tracks for the main movie? I guess I am starting up the debate again about what is the best file conversion method? ISO, H264, VOB, Xvid? And by best I mean best for me not best overall.

[Complication]

I have this issue as well. But I would like to house my entire collection permanently on a server somehow.

So now you're suggesting a HTPC for my situation? What file formats does Windows Media Center support?

I don't know exactly (much info on-line). However, if you want cover art then DVD Library is probably what you are looking for. That would be a ripped DVD in a folder with XML meta data included or added.

I read this from you in another thread. Chapter stops are another thing that is of some importance to me. Will this also allow for all of the subtitle and audio tracks for the main movie? I guess I am starting up the debate again about what is the best file conversion method? ISO, H264, VOB, Xvid? And by best I mean best for me not best overall.

Best = what works for you. Best quality? Best sound? Best features? Best trade-off between quality and hard drive space?

Unless you are willing to get rid of the cover art requirement, then none of those formats will work and the file conversion debate is moot. MKV looks promising but I haven't heard of being able to use it to store meta data like the cover or of a media player that would display it.

It may be counter intuitive, but the best option for you may be an NMT (or similar) and full DVD rips in ISO. It would take about 20TB of storage but hard drives are fairly cheap. The HTPC + WHS + storage for 4000 compressed movies isn't going to be cheap either (not to mention the processor time it would take to do the compression). The interface would be text but your wife could easily click into one and be presented with the DVD menu to see if she would like it. This would kind of get her the cover art and would maintain all the chapter and subtitle options. If, in the future, the MKV option or something else came along that suited your needs then you can use the created ISOs as the source for large batch processes.

I personally have given up on the chapters and subtitles for now and just use VOB Passthrough ripped to a DNLA server. Then I use my PS3 to watch them over a wired network connection. My wife just has to look it up on the laptop or try-and-see to figure out which one she wants to watch. I also have a PCH in the bedroom that the wife ends up using when she is sick to watch Twilight for the umpteenth time.

[GregiBoy]

Maybe another option that certainly would cost you less that what you are indicating. Just a thought !!!

Complication and I have had this discussion in varied forms over a number of years on a number of forums and we agree that we disagree as we are most probably coming from different points of the compass and with far different A/V equipment and as we both always has been said, the quality of encodes is a very subjective topic and what plays well on one setup combination may look awful on another.



On my secondary TV in the bedroom, I just have a hard Disk Player with an SD slot for convenience, but don't forget, I have between six and ten different players connected at any one time as my business is based on development and importation of Hard Disk & Network Media Players from China for resale.

As Complication said, I do not think that there is anything on the market out of the box that will do what you want and you will have to cobble together from bits/pieces/software.

As an aside, I do keep a darn good library of my 1000+ movies and I use ABCAvi Tag edotor which maintains the info (Title, Director, Release Date, Actors & more... & FREE) within the tags of the AVI file with the exception of Album Art.

Unfortunately, MOST players will not read these tags so I export the data to an Access database where I could store the Album Art.

[Scott]

How much are you looking/willing to spend on the streamer? I just recently bought the Acer AspireRevo ($200 in the US). It's an Atom/NVIDIA ION based "nettop" box which, in its current form as sold in the US, has Windows XP, a single-core CPU, the NVIDIA GPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HD, Gigabit ethernet, and HDMI out. I'm running XBMC for Windows on it, but that version of XBMC doesn't take advantage of the NVIDIA GPU, so you need to configure it to call a separate video player which is optimized for the GPU. MPC-HC is one such player and it works great.

[rpratali]

Look at the media players offered by Masscool ... www.masscool.com. In particular, look at model # MP-1371RS.

[GregiBoy]

One of my mod colleagues is looking at one of these.



Apparently, they are on sale at New Egg in the US for about $90.

EDIT: Gone back up in price

[maineman]

One of my mod colleagues is looking at one of these.



Apparently, they are on sale at New Egg in the US for about $90.

EDIT: Gone back up in price

Sorry GregiBoy, I should have been more accurate in my pm.
The discounted price is good until 2/3 ($89.99 + free shipping), but is only available as an email promo for those who subscribe to the egg's newsletter.
I'm not sure, but new subscriber's may be eligible for this promo

[billbell52]

Just saw another Argosy like player. You can download the source code and do your own mods.

http://www.mvixusa.com/ultio/1080p-high-definition-home-theater-pc.html

[LovettLn]

I've had a great deal of success with for my media players. They are still working on their firmware but that’s good. I only like o-play with the ISO previews and better control of the dvd. Still the menus get lost sometimes through movie previews popping up, as I would like to see the menu first sort of as a preview for that dvd. Hope this helps.