Hello Virgin says hello ;-)

[daley6522]

Hello all,

Firstly thanks for allowing me to become a member of your forum

I am an absolute novice virgin, however I have the common sense and ability to follow instruction and direction.... basically I'm far from a knowitall!!

I currently have a fully stocked cinema room and tv/plasma/lcd in all other rooms, everything is standalone except sky and tv that i pump from the loft to every room via slx loftbox and magic eyes. however I am in the process of selling my house and want to install a full and interactive system in my new house from scratch and budget is at least £20,000 to £30,000. I do have all the Tv's/projectors that I need however may purchase additional if recommended by you lot(The Experts)

I have a collection of over 1000 DVD/BLURAY discs that I want to burn to Media Centre or another recommended system and really need the help from the start, ie what format to burn, should I leave as VBO files or what???? I am basically at your mercy, so please go gentle.

Your fellow enthusiast
Phil

[elootos]

Hello and welcome to the site

You've sure made a statement in your first post that's for sure

Sounds very interesting and no doubt plenty on here will have opinions on how to spend your money for you

Any more on what kind of setup you imagine yourself to have in your next house? How 'geeky' would you want it to be?

[northan]

Hi dude.
I hardly think you can label yourself with the big V word, got some decent equipment in your house.
With that sort of green handy for an install I think that professional help could be hired.
I think you need to get advice from several tech fitters to find appropriate storage/hardware/software. With that in mind you might find that the equipment/software will dictate what format you start recording in.
I'm always mindful that the media should if possible be recorded in it's original format, others may disagree. I believe that way your better at being a little more future proof.
Also with new 3d coming out (mixed reviews) can make you think about what you would purchase.
Lots of research dude, you could always give someone a cheque and tell them to shop till they drop lol
See you around on the forum

[elootos]

(10-07-2010 06:15 PM)northan Wrote:  With that sort of green handy for an install I think that professional help could be hired.

Lots of research dude, you could always give someone a cheque and tell them to shop till they drop lol
See you around on the forum

Nah, that's why we're here! All a pro would do is buy something off the shelf and charge to fit it. A lot of what most of us do on here is DIY with plastic bottles and stickyback plastic but raise the budget and it becomes even easier with prefab gear. Easy peasy.

Hey I'm sure there'd be plenty of takers to shop it all out for you

[daley6522]

(10-07-2010 06:15 PM)northan Wrote:  Hi dude.
I hardly think you can label yourself with the big V word, got some decent equipment in your house.
With that sort of green handy for an install I think that professional help could be hired.
I think you need to get advice from several tech fitters to find appropriate storage/hardware/software. With that in mind you might find that the equipment/software will dictate what format you start recording in.
I'm always mindful that the media should if possible be recorded in it's original format, others may disagree. I believe that way your better at being a little more future proof.
Also with new 3d coming out (mixed reviews) can make you think about what you would purchase.
Lots of research dude, you could always give someone a cheque and tell them to shop till they drop lol
See you around on the forum

I dont want to hire pro back up, I want to do it all myself from the ripping to the installation. Infact I have started ripping my DVD's, well justr the main movie in VOB format and they play really well on my current sony vaio media centre, however i really do want the very best I can afford so Im all ears.....well eyes really

---

(10-07-2010 05:24 PM)elootos Wrote:  Hello and welcome to the site

You've sure made a statement in your first post that's for sure

Sounds very interesting and no doubt plenty on here will have opinions on how to spend your money for you

Any more on what kind of setup you imagine yourself to have in your next house? How 'geeky' would you want it to be?

Hi Elootos,
I am completely open to the geek scale.... Im a spark by trade so I can do most things.... please just fire suggestions my way, Im all yours!!!

[elootos]

OK, off the top of my head and just for starters I would think that 1000 discs of varying size (5Gb for DVD, 35Gb for Blu-ray) would be about 14Tb if ripped at full disc size. If you allow for My Movies as your film database of choice then it will auto-rip your films as you enter the discs in the machine (Windows Home Server edition only, but it may not be the best software to trust all that data to given the experience of some of us on here).

If you want to save space then rip only the main movie which for DVD requires something like DVDFab and AnyDVDHD for Blu-ray from which you can then use these guides on how to keep the film only and ditch the extras. All a bit hands on, but it does keep your films in all their original glory.

As for where to keep it all. Well WHS is a real bitch at organising its own drives and is the reason for its slowdown (don't ask!) but it would be the best option for pukka Windows integration and My Movies auto-ripping so perhaps avoid its own software based drive organising and get a hardware RAID card like the Adaptec 5805 for about £380 and that will connect upto 8 drives and make them appear as one to the PC. Put it in RAID5 mode and it will even allow for one drive to fail without you losing any data - just replace the failed drive and it will fix it all for you.

8 x 2Tb drives gives you 14Tb in RAID5 and it will all just appear as one C:/ drive to Windows Home Server. It'll be freakingly quick as well.

So as for just getting your films online - nothing too extreme: One full ATX case with high end PSU, basic motherboard, RAM, eight 2Tb drives connected to a RAID card and running Windows Home Server (£1400?). Install My Movies and it will auto-rip all your DVD/Blu-rays as you pop them in its drives.

Get external DVD and Blu-ray drives and you can remote them to somewhere more comfortable in the house with USB extenders so to stop you having to sit in front of whereever your server lives. You can then just manage the server either by the WHS Connector or something like Teamviewer.

As for the media clients around the home, well...

Ah, if all this going over your head, just say

[daley6522]

(10-07-2010 08:56 PM)elootos Wrote:  OK, off the top of my head and just for starters I would think that 1000 discs of varying size (5Gb for DVD, 35Gb for Blu-ray) would be about 14Tb if ripped at full disc size. If you allow for My Movies as your film database of choice then it will auto-rip your films as you enter the discs in the machine (Windows Home Server edition only, but it may not be the best software to trust all that data to given the experience of some of us on here).

If you want to save space then rip only the main movie which for DVD requires something like DVDFab and AnyDVDHD for Blu-ray from which you can then use these guides on how to keep the film only and ditch the extras. All a bit hands on, but it does keep your films in all their original glory.

As for where to keep it all. Well WHS is a real bitch at organising its own drives and is the reason for its slowdown (don't ask!) but it would be the best option for pukka Windows integration and My Movies auto-ripping so perhaps avoid its own software based drive organising and get a hardware RAID card like the Adaptec 5805 for about £380 and that will connect upto 8 drives and make them appear as one to the PC. Put it in RAID5 mode and it will even allow for one drive to fail without you losing any data - just replace the failed drive and it will fix it all for you.

8 x 2Tb drives gives you 14Tb in RAID5 and it will all just appear as one C:/ drive to Windows Home Server. It'll be freakingly quick as well.

So as for just getting your films online - nothing too extreme: One full ATX case with high end PSU, basic motherboard, RAM, eight 2Tb drives connected to a RAID card and running Windows Home Server (£1400?). Install My Movies and it will auto-rip all your DVD/Blu-rays as you pop them in its drives.

Get external DVD and Blu-ray drives and you can remote them to somewhere more comfortable in the house with USB extenders so to stop you having to sit in front of whereever your server lives. You can then just manage the server either by the WHS Connector or something like Teamviewer.

As for the media clients around the home, well...

Ah, if all this going over your head, just say

Hi elootos,
Thanks for the info, Like i say I really am all eyes for what info you give me, however I had starting ripping the DVD's to a few drives I had laying around a maxtor 500GB and a hitachi 1TB drive using DVDfab and all is going well.
I wont be building up the new system until I actually sell my house as then the money is released and the world is my oyst.... oh media centre .
However all the information I get now will allow me to plan everything for my new abode, from the home media server to the cabling drawing.
So please any information is appreciated and greatly needed
Thanks once again Phil

[elootos]

(10-08-2010 09:17 AM)daley6522 Wrote:  I had starting ripping the DVD's to a few drives I had laying around a maxtor 500GB and a hitachi 1TB drive using DVDfab and all is going well.
I wont be building up the new system until I actually sell my house as then the money is released and the world is my oyst.... oh media centre .
However all the information I get now will allow me to plan everything for my new abode, from the home media server to the cabling drawing.
So please any information is appreciated and greatly needed
Thanks once again Phil

Well whatever films you have on hard disk now can be copied across in time to whatever server you have in the future so ripping films now will save you time in the long run.

What format you rip them in is down to personal taste. I (and most others round here) prefer keeping the films as per the original i.e. no re-encoding. For me that means ISO files for Blu-ray and Video_TS folders for DVDs. However the MPEG2 data on a DVD could be compacted quite a bit with .H264 or Xvid (best all-round current codecs) so if wanting to compact your DVDs then look to use those formats. If you use a decent ripping software like DVDFab then the options should be clear. Try ripping and converting a good film and then seeing if the quality stands up when playing it back. If so then rip and convert away!

Blu-ray re-encoding? I think that's a bit heinous given the effort that goes into a decent HD encoding by the film studio. However if you find a method you're happy with then of course it's your library to do with what you want.

Now the server info I wrote has made me re-think how I manage my films. Hmmm.....

[daley6522]

(10-08-2010 10:05 AM)elootos Wrote:  

(10-08-2010 09:17 AM)daley6522 Wrote:  I had starting ripping the DVD's to a few drives I had laying around a maxtor 500GB and a hitachi 1TB drive using DVDfab and all is going well.
I wont be building up the new system until I actually sell my house as then the money is released and the world is my oyst.... oh media centre .
However all the information I get now will allow me to plan everything for my new abode, from the home media server to the cabling drawing.
So please any information is appreciated and greatly needed
Thanks once again Phil

Well whatever films you have on hard disk now can be copied across in time to whatever server you have in the future so ripping films now will save you time in the long run.

What format you rip them in is down to personal taste. I (and most others round here) prefer keeping the films as per the original i.e. no re-encoding. For me that means ISO files for Blu-ray and Video_TS folders for DVDs. However the MPEG2 data on a DVD could be compacted quite a bit with .H264 or Xvid (best all-round current codecs) so if wanting to compact your DVDs then look to use those formats. If you use a decent ripping software like DVDFab then the options should be clear. Try ripping and converting a good film and then seeing if the quality stands up when playing it back. If so then rip and convert away!

Blu-ray re-encoding? I think that's a bit heinous given the effort that goes into a decent HD encoding by the film studio. However if you find a method you're happy with then of course it's your library to do with what you want.

Now the server info I wrote has made me re-think how I manage my films. Hmmm.....

I have started ripping the DVD's to start with using DVDfab and ripping to Video_TS folders and all seems ok. I am presuming that you hard wire everything from the server and dont use media extenders. for example as a bit of a test i tried to use my sons Xbox as extender and although connected to media centre pc didnt play movies.
Regards
Phil

[elootos]

(10-08-2010 10:28 AM)daley6522 Wrote:  I have started ripping the DVD's to start with using DVDfab and ripping to Video_TS folders and all seems ok. I am presuming that you hard wire everything from the server and dont use media extenders. for example as a bit of a test i tried to use my sons Xbox as extender and although connected to media centre pc didnt play movies.
Regards
Phil

The hierarchy is:

WHS -> Media Center PC -> TV

or

WHS -> Media Center PC -> XBox -> TV

(The xbox will play some things directly off the WHS)

If wanting to stream your ripped DVDs to an XBox then you'll need My Movies installed on the PC and set the option to transcode them for the XBox. Xboxs won't play ripped DVDs so things like My Movies work around it.

It seems My Movies support the transcode option purely for workaround reasons. From the My Movies site:
"It is generally recommended to have multiple light weight PC's for movie playback in multiple zones, or, optionally store movies in a format the extenderes natively supports.

We understand that this is not possible in all situations, and for these situations the transcoding option is available as an alternative."