This is kind of a future project that I've been pondering for the last week or two. Ever since getting my apple tv 6 months ago I have been just in love with it. It has basically replaced my comcast box, the only stations I still watch are discovery HD and MHD but besides that I have all my favorite TV show seasons, Movies, and concerts. After filling up my 500gb WD external I started thinking future storage and what I would want to build
Storage
Obviously I need alot of storage probably 5 1TB disks in a Raid 5 array for 4tb of storage (HD is the future and that takes up a lot of space). This is pretty easy to do
Blu-ray/DVD automatic ripping
This would be awesome since the server box would run headless it would be awesome to be able to insert a dvd or blu ray disk (handbrake update?) and have it automatically ripped, converted and tagged. So I could just buy a new dvd go downstairs pop the disk in the machine then two hours later or so have the movie file ready to go on the apple tv's.
I assume you could make some automator script for this but tagging might hard but you could do it via screen sharing.
TV Tuners
Ever since DVR's have populated homes there has been kind of a downfall at least for me. If I record a show on my basement tv then start watching it but then say some one wants to play ps3 down there but I want to finish my show since its only on this dvr box. What if you could have all your recorded shows available at every tv. In the media box I would love to have dual tuners in it so I can access the server via screen sharing tell it to record a show and then convert it and tag it so then it will be available on all my apple tv. I'm sure eyeTV can do most of this from recording and converting but the only problem would be editing out commercials which is not a necessity (current DVRs can't do it automatically I dont think) but it would be nice.
OS
Since it's apple hardware I would love to make it all apple software because it makes it easier for it all to work together. I know windows server 2008 looks very exciting but there are compatibility issues maybe, and linux is pretty much out for the fact that I want it to be and itunes music and video server and ripping and converting dvds i believe are difficult (I really have no idea) to do in linux. So that basically leaves osx but since I dont want to buy a mac pro $$$$ I'll probably want to use OSx86 (please dont flame me with your ethical beliefs)
What do you guys think any ideas for improvement, the project is still along ways down the road probably once I get half way done through college. I think building a computer that could do all of this is a very ambitious idea, and would be awesome for a unified home media library.
Storage
Obviously I need alot of storage probably 5 1TB disks in a Raid 5 array for 4tb of storage (HD is the future and that takes up a lot of space). This is pretty easy to do
Blu-ray/DVD automatic ripping
This would be awesome since the server box would run headless it would be awesome to be able to insert a dvd or blu ray disk (handbrake update?) and have it automatically ripped, converted and tagged. So I could just buy a new dvd go downstairs pop the disk in the machine then two hours later or so have the movie file ready to go on the apple tv's.
I assume you could make some automator script for this but tagging might hard but you could do it via screen sharing.
TV Tuners
Ever since DVR's have populated homes there has been kind of a downfall at least for me. If I record a show on my basement tv then start watching it but then say some one wants to play ps3 down there but I want to finish my show since its only on this dvr box. What if you could have all your recorded shows available at every tv. In the media box I would love to have dual tuners in it so I can access the server via screen sharing tell it to record a show and then convert it and tag it so then it will be available on all my apple tv. I'm sure eyeTV can do most of this from recording and converting but the only problem would be editing out commercials which is not a necessity (current DVRs can't do it automatically I dont think) but it would be nice.
OS
Since it's apple hardware I would love to make it all apple software because it makes it easier for it all to work together. I know windows server 2008 looks very exciting but there are compatibility issues maybe, and linux is pretty much out for the fact that I want it to be and itunes music and video server and ripping and converting dvds i believe are difficult (I really have no idea) to do in linux. So that basically leaves osx but since I dont want to buy a mac pro $$$$ I'll probably want to use OSx86 (please dont flame me with your ethical beliefs)
What do you guys think any ideas for improvement, the project is still along ways down the road probably once I get half way done through college. I think building a computer that could do all of this is a very ambitious idea, and would be awesome for a unified home media library.