Hard drives have finally gotten big enough to be of use in storing DVDs.
With 4 two terabyte drives, you can stuff 8 terabytes into a Linux server.
I assume you can with Windows also, but have no idea what the upper drive
size limits might be for XP.
I have in mind (eventually) putting all my DVDs on a server, then just
accessing it over the network to play one. However, I don't want to view
it through a PC video card since the quality is alway way less than in
native DVD Player to TV mode. So the problem is how to get a DVD player
to access the file server. I have been told that there are a few DVD disk
players that have a network connection, but so far haven't found one or
how it is supposed to work. I doubt that they would do what I want to
attempt, since somehow I will have to browse the file server to select a
movie.
MythTV will work for the above, and has the advantage that it throws away
all the macrovision crap that causes artifacts in the picture. But with
even the best video card I have ever tried in it, the picture quality is
inferior to a straight player to TV setup.
This project is just getting to the planning phase, so anybody got any
ideas?
DanB <dbxxxxxxx@yahoo.com> writes:
>Hard drives have finally gotten big enough to be of use in storing DVDs.
>With 4 two terabyte drives, you can stuff 8 terabytes into a Linux server.
> I assume you can with Windows also, but have no idea what the upper drive
>size limits might be for XP.
I don't believe there are any 2TB drives out yet. Perhaps next year.
>
>I have in mind (eventually) putting all my DVDs on a server, then just
>accessing it over the network to play one. However, I don't want to view
>it through a PC video card since the quality is alway way less than in
>native DVD Player to TV mode.
This is quite far from true, unless you're using composite or S-video. Given
that most modern TV's have VGA, DVI or HDMI inputs, you can do much
better from the PC video card than you can from any standalone player.
> So the problem is how to get a DVD player
>to access the file server.
Buffalo LinkTheater. D-Link MediaLounge. Any DLNA compliant device.
They will require to you browse the server for the DVD you want to watch;
how else will the player know what DVD from your 8TB to watch?
>
> I don't believe there are any 2TB drives out yet. Perhaps next year.
Right, but they are on the way. (I saw the estimated release date, but
don't remember. But is isn't long off) Four 1 TB drives would hold about
a thousand full length movies in VOB format, but I would rather wait a
short while for twice the capacity.
>
>
> This is quite far from true, unless you're using composite or S-video. Given
> that most modern TV's have VGA, DVI or HDMI inputs, you can do much
> better from the PC video card than you can from any standalone player.
Interesting. So far I haven't been able to get DVD quality from any video
card, Happuage, ATI or Nvidia. You are saying that a PC can put out
better quality than a DVD player? (A good one, that is, not some $29
dollar Walmart junkola.) I have a high end JVC that puts out DVD that is
just short of HD, and can really only tell the difference by sticking my
eyes up to the screen or setting them side by side.
I am not a video geek - programming is my turf -
but I have some fairly high level hardware and I can definitely tell the
inferior difference even without a side by side comparison. Are you
talking about a specialty video output card, rather than the usual
computer type?
>
>> So the problem is how to get a DVD player
>>to access the file server.
>
> Buffalo LinkTheater. D-Link MediaLounge. Any DLNA compliant device.
>
Ah so. That is the info I needed. DLNA Google time.
"DanB" <dbxxxxxxx@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mdydnWVtVKWW4yrVnZ2dnUVZ_t_inZ2d@oco.net...
>>
>> I don't believe there are any 2TB drives out yet. Perhaps next year.
>
> Right, but they are on the way. (I saw the estimated release date, but
> don't remember. But is isn't long off) Four 1 TB drives would hold about
> a thousand full length movies in VOB format, but I would rather wait a
> short while for twice the capacity.
>
>>
>>
>> This is quite far from true, unless you're using composite or S-video.
>> Given
>> that most modern TV's have VGA, DVI or HDMI inputs, you can do much
>> better from the PC video card than you can from any standalone player.
>
> Interesting. So far I haven't been able to get DVD quality from any video
> card, Happuage, ATI or Nvidia. You are saying that a PC can put out
> better quality than a DVD player? (A good one, that is, not some $29
> dollar Walmart junkola.) I have a high end JVC that puts out DVD that is
> just short of HD, and can really only tell the difference by sticking my
> eyes up to the screen or setting them side by side.
No fair. Your eyes are *already* probably side by side.
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:13:15 -0500, DanB <dbxxxxxxx@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Hard drives have finally gotten big enough to be of use in storing DVDs.
>With 4 two terabyte drives, you can stuff 8 terabytes into a Linux server.
> I assume you can with Windows also, but have no idea what the upper drive
>size limits might be for XP.
>
>I have in mind (eventually) putting all my DVDs on a server, then just
>accessing it over the network to play one. However, I don't want to view
>it through a PC video card since the quality is alway way less than in
>native DVD Player to TV mode. So the problem is how to get a DVD player
>to access the file server. I have been told that there are a few DVD disk
>players that have a network connection, but so far haven't found one or
>how it is supposed to work. I doubt that they would do what I want to
>attempt, since somehow I will have to browse the file server to select a
>movie.
>
>MythTV will work for the above, and has the advantage that it throws away
>all the macrovision crap that causes artifacts in the picture. But with
>even the best video card I have ever tried in it, the picture quality is
>inferior to a straight player to TV setup.
>
>This project is just getting to the planning phase, so anybody got any
>ideas?
>
>Thanks
>Dan
I do that using my Playstation 3 as a media server. I have an
external usb drive 500gig (I haven't tried that with a 1 tb yet). It
takes about 15minutes per disc to do the transfer. Here is a link http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...tup-tests.html
Read the thread all the way through to see how it progressed.
I now have a media jukebox hooked up to my HTS. All my CDs are being
transferred to Hard drive and eventually all my favorite movies.
> I do that using my Playstation 3 as a media server. I have an external
> usb drive 500gig (I haven't tried that with a 1 tb yet). It takes about
> 15minutes per disc to do the transfer. Here is a link
> http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-htpc-digital-
devices/5363-ps3-video-server-media-server-preliminary-setup-tests.html
> Read the thread all the way through to see how it progressed.
> I now have a media jukebox hooked up to my HTS. All my CDs are being
> transferred to Hard drive and eventually all my favorite movies.
Very interesting. I have a nephew who is heavy into video stuff (and
computers) and when I ran this by him last week, he also had the
suggestion of using a PS for the player.
Since I know absolutely zippola about game systems, that will take some
more research.
Do I understand you to have yours hooked up to an actual server (possibly
multiple drives) on a network connection, or to a single hard drive
plugged into a usb port?
I found videohelp.com which has some good stuff, but the comments on a lot
of the gear leads me to believe that the home video server concept may
still be on the half baked side.
Plus there is the problem that a lot of them require a PC running a
particular software apt which I can't do since I don't use Windows.
>I am not a video geek - programming is my turf -
>but I have some fairly high level hardware and I can definitely tell the
>inferior difference even without a side by side comparison. Are you
>talking about a specialty video output card, rather than the usual
>computer type?
Any good card. I'm presuming you're using something like Windows Media
Player to generate the video; I'm not sure windows Media Player does
any upconverting, much less how good it is. I use 'mplayer' on
linux which provides 1920x1200 upconverted (1080p) through my DVI
connection to the TV (1080p LCD) from standard def VOB's. The DVI
connection ensures that there is no quality loss due to D->A->D
transitions.
> Well building a myth tv set up would be more work than I would want to
> do.
> Do you have a friend with a windows pc? You need it to format the hard
> drive and to rip and transfer the DVDs
>
>
No. I have plenty of Linux tools to rip/play/combine/split DVDs. The
only problem is that the Linux doesn't have a tool of the quality of
Dvdshrink yet. K9Copy (and a couple of others) does about the same job but
it isn't as slick as Shrink.
For whatever reason I could never make XP format a drive with a partition
larger than about 140gb, but the same XP will use a 750gb partion that is
mapped to a Linux box just fine. ??? Beats me, but my Windows expertise
ended with NT year ago.
> The PS3 is it's own very powerfully computer The PS3 has it's own Hard
> drive also but I like to have my HD separate so I can move it around to
> different computers to transfer files. The PS3 has a built in network
> port as well as a wireless port. Mine links up to my network via the
> wireless and one of my computers has video files that can be accessed
> from the PS3 although you don't have to . Just use the
Ok, I will have to explore the PS2/3. I can get my hands on one of those
easy.
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:57:22 +0000, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Any good card. I'm presuming you're using something like Windows Media
> Player to generate the video; I'm not sure windows Media Player does
> any upconverting, much less how good it is. I use 'mplayer' on
> linux which provides 1920x1200 upconverted (1080p) through my DVI
> connection to the TV (1080p LCD) from standard def VOB's. The DVI
> connection ensures that there is no quality loss due to D->A->D
> transitions.
>
No. I am a Linux geek since the 90s. Don't do Windows at all. I use
Totem for my video, which of course is just a shell over the Linux
utilities. So far, I get great video to my 21 inch WS monitor, but really
lousy output to my larger LCD Tv. I assume that it is a problem with the
Nvidia binary drivers.
What Video card are you using and which driver? And just for grins, which
distro and kernel?
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:47:28 -0500, DanB <dbxxxxxxx@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I do that using my Playstation 3 as a media server. I have an external
>> usb drive 500gig (I haven't tried that with a 1 tb yet). It takes about
>> 15minutes per disc to do the transfer. Here is a link
>> http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-htpc-digital-
>devices/5363-ps3-video-server-media-server-preliminary-setup-tests.html
>> Read the thread all the way through to see how it progressed.
>> I now have a media jukebox hooked up to my HTS. All my CDs are being
>> transferred to Hard drive and eventually all my favorite movies.
>
>Very interesting. I have a nephew who is heavy into video stuff (and
>computers) and when I ran this by him last week, he also had the
>suggestion of using a PS for the player.
>
>Since I know absolutely zippola about game systems, that will take some
>more research.
>
>Do I understand you to have yours hooked up to an actual server (possibly
>multiple drives) on a network connection, or to a single hard drive
>plugged into a usb port?
I have the Hard drive hooked up to the PS3 via the PS3's usb port.
>
>I found videohelp.com which has some good stuff, but the comments on a lot
>of the gear leads me to believe that the home video server concept may
>still be on the half baked side.
>
>Plus there is the problem that a lot of them require a PC running a
>particular software apt which I can't do since I don't use Windows.
>
Well building a myth tv set up would be more work than I would want to
do.
Do you have a friend with a windows pc? You need it to format the
hard drive and to rip and transfer the DVDs
>Dan
The PS3 is it's own very powerfully computer The PS3 has it's own
Hard drive also but I like to have my HD separate so I can move it
around to different computers to transfer files. The PS3 has a built
in network port as well as a wireless port. Mine links up to my
network via the wireless and one of my computers has video files that
can be accessed from the PS3 although you don't have to . Just use the
PS3 with your home
DVD Server ideas? 
Linear Mode
