Best Mac Mini Home Theater setup...?

[wangchunggti337]

I have my Mac Mini hooked up to a 32" LCD and use it for music, movies, and occasional internet browsing. I sometimes use it as my DVD player and was thinking it would be nice to add a big external hard drive and somehow have all my media instantly available. Is there a way to easily do this?

I was thinking of using mactheripper and downloading a program that allows play of video_ts files from FrontRow. However, I feel there has to be a better option...

Thoughts on this would be appreciated, such as how to get my DVDs saved (is this legal?), what program to play them with, what size/brand hard drive to use?

Thanks!

 

[Transporteur]

I highly recommend Plex over FrontRow or any other HTPC application. It really is the you can get.

You will, however, have some difficulties with your video_ts files (as you certainly have a lot of them), so I advise you to re-encode them with HandBrake and make it a single file (.mkv or .m4v) which you can name according to the movie then.

For future DVD rips, just use HandBrake as well, it will rip your DVDs straight to .mkv or .m4v.

 

[wangchunggti337]

Thanks for the tip, Plex looks very cool. And iPhone support is definitely a plus.

Any suggestions on what settings to use on ripping with HB? I want to make sure I retain quality and possibly use the same file to put movies on my iPhone/iPod?

 

[ThinIce]

I like Plex as well. I use MakeMKV to rip my DVD's and Blu Ray disc's. I store the files on an external HD and view the movies with Plex. It works great. Another great thing about Plex is that if you have multiple Mac's on your local network, Plex will play the movies on the external HD on another mac. I rip and store on an iMac and play back on a mac mini that is connected my my HDTV.

I have also used Ripit and Handbrake. They are great programs also.

 

[From A Buick 8]

When it comes to ripping DVD's about the best solution is MTR (can rip about anything). Next would be ripit or handbrake (with VLC).

My work path has been rip about ten to my HDD, then do them as a batch in HB. Use the high profile preset and you will end up with a movie only file that is about 2g (on average)

 

[rgarjr]

Plex ftw. The only app that I run on my mini.