Network Media Tank Users - Please Help

[pbusardo]

Hello. I'm considering purchasing a Network Media Tank, either the eGreat M34A or the Xtreamer.

I have a large personal collection of standard and Blu-ray DVDs.

I want to be able to back them up to hard disk for playback on the NMT.

I'm wondering if you have experience using this software to create backups for playback on the NMT. If so, can you please tell me:

Is it easy to do? Can you provide a high level process?
Is there any loss in quality? Will I get true hi-def playback?
Can I backup just the movie, or do I need to have all the extras.
Will the files created by the software be directly playable by the NMT or will I need to convert?
How long does it take to go from Blu-Ray DVD to playback on the NMT? (Entire process)?


Any information you can provide me with would be very helpful. Thanks so much!

[signals]

I will move your post to the DVD to Mobile forum, where streaming is regularly discussed. Welcome to the DVDFab Forum!

[GregiBoy]

Hello. I'm considering purchasing a Network Media Tank, either the eGreat M34A or the Xtreamer.

I have a large personal collection of standard and Blu-ray DVDs.

I want to be able to back them up to hard disk for playback on the NMT.

I'm wondering if you have experience using this software to create backups for playback on the NMT. If so, can you please tell me:

Is it easy to do? Can you provide a high level process?
Is there any loss in quality? Will I get true hi-def playback?
Can I backup just the movie, or do I need to have all the extras.
Will the files created by the software be directly playable by the NMT or will I need to convert?
How long does it take to go from Blu-Ray DVD to playback on the NMT? (Entire process)?


Any information you can provide me with would be very helpful. Thanks so much!

Hi there and welcome to the forum. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

I haven't had experience with a NMT specifically but have had experience with streaming to network media players over the last 8 years. I currently have 8 different streaming devices that I use for testing.

Firstly, Fab currently will only do your standard DVD's through the DVD to Mobile option but the BluRay options are currently being developed & tested.

To encode your DVD's for a NMT is a simple process and is outlined here:-


Depending on the power of the PC that you use for encoding, a rule of thumb for the entire process is around the same as the runtime of the movie.

Quality is a very subjective topic but I feel that with the encodes that I have done (over 500), there is very little loss in quality and play back at normal DVD resolution. File size is around 1.2 Gb for a 90 min movie with the original Dolby 5.1 soundtrack maintained.

You can just do the movie only but if you do want any of the extras, you can encode that as a separate title.

The files created will be directly playable.

Hope this helps....

[pbusardo]

Hi there and welcome to the forum. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

I haven't had experience with a NMT specifically but have had experience with streaming to network media players over the last 8 years. I currently have 8 different streaming devices that I use for testing.

Firstly, Fab currently will only do your standard DVD's through the DVD to Mobile option but the BluRay options are currently being developed & tested.

To encode your DVD's for a NMT is a simple process and is outlined here:-


Depending on the power of the PC that you use for encoding, a rule of thumb for the entire process is around the same as the runtime of the movie.

Quality is a very subjective topic but I feel that with the encodes that I have done (over 500), there is very little loss in quality and play back at normal DVD resolution. File size is around 1.2 Gb for a 90 min movie with the original Dolby 5.1 soundtrack maintained.

You can just do the movie only but if you do want any of the extras, you can encode that as a separate title.

The files created will be directly playable.

Hope this helps....

Thanks, but what about DVDFab HD Decrypter 6.0.6.0 or DVDFAB Blu-ray to Blu-ray?

[GregiBoy]

There are various features that you uses in DVD Fab to achieve what you want.

You use DVD->DVD to get the files on your hard disk (HD Decrypter)
You use DVD->Mobile to convert the file.

As I said, currently all that Blu-Ray->Blu-Ray will do is copy a Blu-Ray disk, not encode for playback on NMT's.

[pbusardo]

There are various features that you uses in DVD Fab to achieve what you want.

You use DVD->DVD to get the files on your hard disk (HD Decrypter)
You use DVD->Mobile to convert the file.

As I said, currently all that Blu-Ray->Blu-Ray will do is copy a Blu-Ray disk, not encode for playback on NMT's.

GregiBoy, thank you for your response, but this is very confusing to me. I have people on the AVS forum and from DVDFab telling me the software CAN create files from standard DVDs and Bluray that can be played back on the NMT.

This is really frustrating to someone trying to figure this all out.

[GregiBoy]

GregiBoy, thank you for your response, but this is very confusing to me. I have people on the AVS forum and from DVDFab telling me the software CAN create files from standard DVDs and Bluray that can be played back on the NMT.

This is really frustrating to someone trying to figure this all out.

Hi there.... I'll try to clarify...

Firstly, you will need to establish the specs of what file types the actual player will play. I know my high end network players will play ISO's which are a disk image and Fab wil produce these from both DVD's and Blu-Ray (without copy protection, of course)

Fab can also produce a disk structure on your hard disk also.

If your player will play either of these, you should then be able to play from either the ISO or Folder, but you will really need to establish this from your player specs.

This has drawbacks though. A BD can take up to 50Gb of storage and a DVD up to 9Gb of storage so it won't take log to fill up a 1Tb drive. ie 20-30 BD Titles or ~150 DVD's.

Hence the desire of most people to compress the titles (encoding) while maintaining good quality and currently Fab DVD->Mobile will only handle DVD's and does not have this feature avalable yet for BD but I am sure the authors are working on it.

An average DVD of a 90Min movie wil come down to just over 1Gb whilst maintaining the original Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and good quality video. (I play most of mine on a 52" Samsung HD TV and quite often do comparisons between the original and the encode)

To be quite honest, I see no real reason for me to go to BD as I am quite happy with he results from DVD and will not spend any of my hard earned dollars on BD equipment until I am absolutely forced to.

Hope this helps.

PS: Do not even think about trying to do any of this using a wireless connection when using high bitrate files such as BD....

[Complication]

NMT will play an ISO, a folder with DVD structure, a VOB file, and/or an encoded file. At present, the NMT does not handle FF/RW on a VOB file created by DVDFab to Mobile. Other files work fine.

In summary, you can use Full Disc or Main Movie modes to rip a DVD and NMT will play them just fine. You can also create an encoded file using DVDFab to Mobile using whatever settings look good to you to save some space but it will take extra time.

[GregiBoy]

Hi Complication. Thanks for chipping in with your knowledge of NMT's..

So, just confirming, NO Blu-Ray?

So that it is all clear to PBUSARDO !!!

[Complication]

So, just confirming, NO Blu-Ray?

I have no idea. To me, the higher quality of BD isn't worth the space it takes up. I suggest you consult the NMT forums.

[GregiBoy]

Hi Complication,

The user can do that. I am in total agreement with you on DVD.

From my previous posts !!!

"To be quite honest, I see no real reason for me to go to BD as I am quite happy with he results from DVD and will not spend any of my hard earned dollars on BD equipment until I am absolutely forced to."

[signals]

Maybe it plays m2ts files. Hardly seems practical with multi-TB storage.

[GregiBoy]

Maybe it plays m2ts files. Hardly seems practical with multi-TB storage.

Both the NMT's that he listed say that they will play m2ts files but the amount of storage for that would be incredible.

Like complication, why would I waste say 30Gb of drive space when I am quite happy with the quality of the DVD->Mobile files that I produce at less than 1.5Gb.

On the other hand, I have just upgraded to 8Tb of storage on my network !!!

[pbusardo]

Thanks to everyone for the support.

I think the difference between standard DVD and Bluray is pretty substantial especially when viewing in my theater on a 106"screen.

Drive space is cheap, so I don't consider that a concern.

It sounds like I'm able to do this:

Do a blu-ray to blu-ray main movie rip. Inside the folder it creates, there will be a 18GB+ file with a .m2ts extension. That's the movie. Just rename it with the movie's name and save it wherever you like. No other conversion is necessary.

So it sounds like it's time to order and start to play and experiment a bit on my own.