My Massive DVD Conversion Project

[MrMister111]

Thanks for the info all you Handbrake fans lol!...the conversion software I have in place and am generally happy getting the average dvd down to a 850mb mp4 format file.

Its really just the storage hardware that interested me. Is TC any better or more reliable than any other data storage hardware?...I am toying with buying a macbook pro....so it would be a happy Apple family then.

Can TC interface with a TV to play films?....do you load itunes onto the TC?..is it just a blank disc that you need to format?

Can I ask what the conversion software you use is pleas? and what setting you use for it?

I also am in this conundrum, but also want the flles to play on my PS3, so I want a file that plays on PS3, Apple TV (maybe (3GS).

I've been using Handbrake as suggested by others, but am willing to pay for decent Mac software that will convert DVDs/Video files to.

At the moment I've also found some Windows software (run in boot camp) called DVD Catalyst, it seems really good so far.

At the moment I have my Apple Tv with ATVFlash installed on it so allows access to NAs etc, I bought a 1Tb NAS and can now stream to my Apple TV and PS3 easily, and copy to iPhone 3GS if required

cheers

 

[MowingDevil]

Hi, I downloaded Ripit and used it to rip a couple of DVDs. All very easy, and play nicely on the MBP but they take up loads of space (6gig each!) Is this standard for ISOs?

Cheers.

Obviously you're doing the "rip" function, Try the "compress" option and you'll get something in the 1.5gb range and won't be able to tell the difference.

 

[brentsg]

How? You can install Windows Home Server to make it just like the HP one. There are thousands of cases available, I just provided one example and it's ATX form factor. There are even Mini-ITX cases with 6 bays which are smaller than those HP boxes. Please provide some justification for your post

The HP EX:
-Simple and off the shelf
-A lot of really nice value-add software
-Very small, quiet, and easy to tuck away out of the way
-Expandable if needed to 8 drives, plus more if you don't mind USB (overkill for most)
-Pre-configured to work with Macs and provide proper Time Machine support

Your suggestion:
-Not simple and off the shelf (yea some may enjoy that aspect)
-None of the value add software, so you're left to cobble it together
-Not at all small, and possibly not quiet, so not easy to tuck out of the way (you were talking of 8 bays, etc.. you've now changed that)
-Possibly a challenge to configure for Time Machine support
-I have absolutely no idea why you'd want Blu-ray on it

To me the real benefit of the HP solution is size, simplicity, flexibility, and the out of the box Mac support. Sure you can get the flexibility with a home-built device but an 8 bay Blu-ray toting tower really doesn't seem to be what HP had in mind. I paid around $450 so I definitely don't view it as overpriced.

 

[Hellhammer]

The HP EX:
-Simple and off the shelf
-A lot of really nice value-add software
-Very small, quiet, and easy to tuck away out of the way
-Expandable if needed to 8 drives, plus more if you don't mind USB (overkill for most)
-Pre-configured to work with Macs and provide proper Time Machine support

Your suggestion:
-Not simple and off the shelf (yea some may enjoy that aspect)
-None of the value add software, so you're left to cobble it together
-Not at all small, and possibly not quiet, so not easy to tuck out of the way (you were talking of 8 bays, etc.. you've now changed that)
-Possibly a challenge to configure for Time Machine support
-I have absolutely no idea why you'd want Blu-ray on it

1. If you have your thumb in the middle of your palm, it may not be easy.

2. You call OEM software good? LOL! There are a lot better alternatives available for FREE

3. You have no idea what you are talking about... Unless you chooser bad parts and make it big and noisy, it won't be. There are thousands of options

4. Same as #1

5. Just your opinion

You get a lot more if you do it yourself. More power (for e.g. encoding), more HD space, EVERYTHING! It may take you couple of hours more to set it up but does it matter? I can do that HP one for something like 300$. It's not bad if you're handless with computers but if you know something about them, you will never buy an OEM PC again.

Of course this is just my opinion and what I would do. That HP one ain't bad but you could just get more by doing it yourself

 

[DoFoT9]

I'm sorry brent but I agree with hell. From my experience the pre built are terrible. Cheap parts, dodgey builds, over priced, bad warranty. The list goes on..

Custom built is noisy?? Oh God. I don't know where to start!

Forgive my vague reply - am on mobile.

 

[brentsg]

1. If you have your thumb in the middle of your palm, it may not be easy.

2. You call OEM software good? LOL! There are a lot better alternatives available for FREE

3. You have no idea what you are talking about... Unless you chooser bad parts and make it big and noisy, it won't be. There are thousands of options

4. Same as #1

5. Just your opinion

You get a lot more if you do it yourself. More power (for e.g. encoding), more HD space, EVERYTHING! It may take you couple of hours more to set it up but does it matter? I can do that HP one for something like 300$. It's not bad if you're handless with computers but if you know something about them, you will never buy an OEM PC again.

Of course this is just my opinion and what I would do. That HP one ain't bad but you could just get more by doing it yourself

1. I understand when anyone on the internet has a different opinion you're supposed to automatically assume that they are an incompetent moron but please..

2. Yes I like HP's OEM software for my EX495. Have you used one? It's quite well done.

3. I know exactly what I'm talking about. And I said "possibly not quiet". The larger you build and the cheaper you go, the increased potential for noise.

5. All this is just your opinion too, and most importantly a different preference. But I think the most important thing is that you are changing the debate. Initially you said that you could build an 8 bay beast with Blu-ray for that. I said that's a different animal, and I think it is. But now you're talking about going small, etc. Yes of course you could try to mimic what HP has done with the EX series but that is not the point that I disagreed with.

I understand that some people ENJOY building and maintaining PCs. Also some feel the need to in order to save money. I completely disagree regarding never buying OEM if you know what you're doing. The last OEM desktop I owned was a P133 and I only bought that because I had a PC fail while I was finishing my graduate thesis. Even today I'll build my own for a desktop, but for a storage solution like this it makes no sense for most people. If you get your rocks off building it, great. I get it.. that used to be me. But today I've got 10 other things I should be doing so it's just another chore, and my time is now worth too much. I think most people either fall into this category, or the one that just wants to plug it in and have it work.

Anyways this is all getting away from the initial point and into a bunch of other stuff.

 

[brentsg]

I'm sorry brent but I agree with hell. From my experience the pre built are terrible. Cheap parts, dodgey builds, over priced, bad warranty. The list goes on..

Custom built is noisy?? Oh God. I don't know where to start!

Have you used the HP EX series or are you talking about OEMs in general?

And I didn't say custom built is noisy. I said "-Not at all small, and possibly not quiet, so not easy to tuck out of the way (you were talking of 8 bays, etc.. you've now changed that)".

You will be hard pressed to build an 8 bay home server that is as quiet as my EX495 because it's simply dead quiet.

 

[DoFoT9]

wow brent. You have a lot of misinformation to spread there...

The bigger you go the cheaper? The noisier? Wow. I'm sorry but that is just so so wrong. a pre built machine will never beat a custom build in price and quality and Blaaa Blaa.

Also, you call hell's reply opinion, yet all you do is post opinion back? Hell's post is more factual then yours.

No offense intended.

 

[Hellhammer]

2. Yes I like HP's OEM software for my EX495. Have you used one? It's quite well done.

OEM crapware has never been good

3. I know exactly what I'm talking about. And I said "possibly not quiet". The larger you build and the cheaper you go, the increased potential for noise.

Wrong. Size has nothing to do with the noise, or well, the bigger it is, the quieter it is as there is more air to flow. Stock coolers are very quiet nowadays. I build them for living so please, don't flood this crap

5. All this is just your opinion too, and most importantly a different preference. But I think the most important thing is that you are changing the debate. Initially you said that you could build an 8 bay beast with Blu-ray for that. I said that's a different animal, and I think it is. But now you're talking about going small, etc. Yes of course you could try to mimic what HP has done with the EX series but that is not the point that I disagreed with.

My only point is to build your own. What's in it is up to you. You said that 8-bay would be bigger so I provided another option which would be smaller than that HP. I don't think the size even matters if it's a headless server. The thing is that by building it your on your own, you can get everything you want. As balamw said, he would like to have Blu-Ray and by building your own, he could. You are missing the whole point by arguing that it's noisy and big and if it's not exactly as that HP one, it's not in same category. As long as the price is about the same, they are in the same category

I understand that some people ENJOY building and maintaining PCs. Also some feel the need to in order to save money. I completely disagree regarding never buying OEM if you know what you're doing. The last OEM desktop I owned was a P133 and I only bought that because I had a PC fail while I was finishing my graduate thesis. Even today I'll build my own for a desktop, but for a storage solution like this it makes no sense for most people. If you get your rocks off building it, great. I get it.. that used to be me. But today I've got 10 other things I should be doing so it's just another chore, and my time is now worth too much. I think most people either fall into this category, or the one that just wants to plug it in and have it work.

Server is just a PC desktop with server software (if needed), there is no difference. That's why I really don't get your point.

 

[Hellhammer]

Have you used the HP EX series or are you talking about OEMs in general?

And I didn't say custom built is noisy. I said "-Not at all small, and possibly not quiet, so not easy to tuck out of the way (you were talking of 8 bays, etc.. you've now changed that)".

You will be hard pressed to build an 8 bay home server that is as quiet as my EX495 because it's simply dead quiet.

Don't make yourself a clown... I've built hundreds of computers with that 8-bay case (Fractal Design Define R2). Most of them have been with high-end components which are a lot noisier than the parts you need for server but it still doesn't make any noise. It's one of the most silent cases I've seen. You are really out of your territory now. If you can't provide any proof that all custom PCs are big and noisy, please don't spread that crap then.

The only reason to buy an OEM desktop is if you can't build your own.

 

[TheDrift-]

Some thoughts...

First you'll want to choose a codec. You want something that will play on all devices. h.264 is usually the best choice.

Then you want to do some tests with bitrates. Do some rips and see how they look. Do you plan to watch on HDTV? That can expose bad SD encoded content to be unwatchable.

Then, you'll have an idea of how much space you need.

Personally, I'd transcode as near original as possible. In fact, ISO image is ideal if your player can support it. If not, maybe look into different players. Once you do this huge task, it would really suck to have to redo it. It easy to transcode from a ripped image, but quality suffers transcoding from a transcoded file, and digging up that original and redoing it is a PITA.

I'm guessing you can add additional storage via the TC USB port, so you can do that. It would just suck having multiple volumes to deal with vs building a JBOD RAID.

This was my soultion rip as an ISO I used a crappy 10 year old PC (didnt mind if the drive died etc) It would rip a DVD to ISO in 8-10 mins.

I just re-named the .ISO to .AVI and exported to my NAS and then streamed to my PS3 and Xboxs works fine.

The only slight down side is that the files can be quite large 3/5gb for a movie, but my NAS is a decent size (and I can always daisy chain extra storage to it, or increase the HDD's)

 

[CWallace]

I've been ripping my DVD collection using Handbrake's pre-defined AppleTV setting.

I'm at 1.21TB of finished product at the moment, composed of about 3000 items (almost all TV series episodes, the majority <30 minutes).

In AppleTV format, The Secret of Nimh is 1.22GB and in iPhone format it's 425MB.

 

[psingh01]

Get a 2tb drive. I'd use Mac the ripper to rip about 50 discs. Then handbrake to queue up the encoding. When you're done delete the Ripped DVD folders and repeat with the next 50. Get a DVD rom that can read very fast or the ripping part will take too long. In the encoding phase just knave it on over night or if you have a spare pc then just let it go until it's done. It doesn't have to be a fast computer.

 

[rshillshooter81]

Converted TONS

I've currently converted 576 dvds of which 152 of them are blu-ray.

On the Mac i've had the easiest time converting my regular dvd's /w subtitles using Handbrake. I use an automater script to add all of the info for the dvd ( actors ect ) and the correct dvd (poster) image then load it into my itunes for all movies regardless of which pc I use to convert/encode them.

Blu-ray obviously has to be done on a PC because lack of hardware support for a blu-ray drive with a Mac compared to a PC (Sata/EIDE bluray for a pc vs USB/Firewire+ external + drive for mac).

For this I use either MakeMKV or DVDfab7. I found it best to make them into MKV's then reconvert them with Handbrake where DVDfab7 has the ability to take a bluray to appletv the quality isn't very good.

I setup my itunes on my 27" imac and it's library is pointed to a 8TB nas device which is a far far better solution than some of the others here have mentioned and the cost is better if not the same.

One downfall to doing this is it takes forever to scroll through the movies on my AppleTV's.

 

[brentsg]

Also, you call hell's reply opinion, yet all you do is post opinion back? Hell's post is more factual then yours.

No offense intended.

Dude I said we were both offering opinions. But the one that you guys are running with is flawed in that YOU HAVE NO FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PRODUCT THAT YOU ARE COMPARING TO.

How can his post, or yours be "factual" when you are providing a critique when you have never used the product?

 

[Hellhammer]

Dude I said we were both offering opinions. But the one that you guys are running with is flawed in that YOU HAVE NO FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PRODUCT THAT YOU ARE COMPARING TO.

How can his post, or yours be "factual" when you are providing a critique when you have never used the product?

It's nothing more than a normal PC with server software and some fancy looking OEM crapware. It's a computer built from same components you can get from any shop. It does exactly the same thing as custom PC would do, nothing more.

 

[rshillshooter81]

I've been ripping my DVD collection using Handbrake's pre-defined AppleTV setting.

I'm at 1.21TB of finished product at the moment, composed of about 3000 items (almost all TV series episodes, the majority <30 minutes).

In AppleTV format, The Secret of Nimh is 1.22GB and in iPhone format it's 425MB.

This is what I use also, however, do you notice in general when you rip things and play then through your AppleTV the volume is very quite unless it is music playing which is very loud. The setting you would use in handbrake to adjust this doesn't have much change on it.

I find that quite annoying.

 

[brentsg]

OEM crapware has never been good

There is no OEM crapware on the HP EX series. My friend just bought an HP desktop. Yes, it's full of crapware. The EX is a completely different case. I am not sure why you feel the need to comment on this when it's nothing but an assumption. The packaged software works perfectly and there's no need to piece it together.

And on everything else, geez... If you guys cannot see that a tiny pre-packaged server that's ready to roll out of the box is a product with a different target audience than an 8 bay home built server then the discussion is pointless. Yes they serve the same function, but it's a different animal.

But anyways if you build PCs for a living then you are never going to agree that for some, something like an HP is simply the right call. You have way too much invested in the alternative model.

Anyways this is all off topic so I won't comment any further. Peace.

 

[Hellhammer]

There is no OEM crapware on the HP EX series. My friend just bought an HP desktop. Yes, it's full of crapware. The EX is a completely different case. I am not sure why you feel the need to comment on this when it's nothing but an assumption.

And on everything else, geez... If you guys cannot see that a tiny pre-packaged server that's ready to roll out of the box is a product with a different target audience than an 8 bay home built server then the discussion is pointless. Yes they serve the same function, but it's a different animal.

But anyways if you build PCs for a living then you are never going to agree that for some, something like an HP is simply the right call. You have way too much invested in the alternative model.

What does the crapware include then? I've never faced OEM software that wasn't crap. Yes, they can be used and the UI might look pretty but often Windows has the same features, let alone 3rd party apps with unlimited customization. Tell me what the software does. Maybe it has been improved, you never know.

Anyway, you obviously think the HP MediaSmart is unbeatable because of its ultimate crapware. OEM software just isn't revolutionary. They do their job, no doubt on that but alternatives around the net have so many things they don't. It's not bad, but for the same money, you could just get more. HP is the right call if you aren't handy with computers, but if you are and have built PCs before, you shouldn't even consider that HP

I'm sure your happy with yours but it just wouldn't be my choice.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I've currently converted 576 dvds of which 152 of them are blu-ray.
- - -
One downfall to doing this is it takes forever to scroll through the movies on my AppleTV's.

If the "forever" is because of the NAS, this won't help much. However, if you have a list of 576 movies in your TV movie folder, you might consider grouping them by putting the same tag in a "show" field. For example, if you have the 6 Star Wars movies, if you'll put "Star Wars" in the "show" field, you'll create a "Star Wars" folder as a single line in your TV movie list, with the 6 movies inside of it.

Do the same with all of your other series/franchise movies (Indiana Jones, LOTR, Star Trek, etc) and long lists get pretty manageable.

With a child, we had lots of animations in our list, so we tagged them all as "animation" in the "show" field and that really cut our long list down.

Maybe this will help you?

 

[DoFoT9]

Dude I said we were both offering opinions. But the one that you guys are running with is flawed in that YOU HAVE NO FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PRODUCT THAT YOU ARE COMPARING TO.

How can his post, or yours be "factual" when you are providing a critique when you have never used the product?

dude. both hellhammer and i deal with repairing computers, custom built and pre-built. dont just assume that you know me, because you dont.

my experience with HP is a TERRIBLE one! a dead motherboard, with a computer still in warranty, "oh no sorry the warranty doesnt cover that part of the failure".

i have ATTEMPTED to use HPs recovery partition on no fewer then 10 machines, all failed. after this point i simply gave up and now i just completely reinstall the OS from scratch.

build quality, longevity, price (a big one), individual parts quality (which is completely different from build quality mind you, and an entire other subject), warranties/customer support and the bundled HP software that comes with every HP has turned me off for life.

i can think of NO instance where a HP computer will be better then any pre-built computer, unless ur an old lady and can be influenced by the crap that the retail stores give you haha

to the OP: using MacThe Ripper to import everything onto a HDD is the best idea. then use hand brake to batch convert everything its the way i do it! so good.

 

[CubusX]

Help

Can anyone point me useful information on how to use this pogram to back up my DVD's?

I have no idea how to use it.

Thanks.

 

[McGiord]

Can anyone point me useful information on how to use this pogram to back up my DVD's?

I have no idea how to use it.

Thanks.

What program?

 

[DoFoT9]

Can anyone point me useful information on how to use this pogram to back up my DVD's?

I have no idea how to use it.

Thanks.

what program?........

if its MacThe Ripper - put your DVD in, and press Go. very easy.

 

[CWallace]

This is what I use also, however, do you notice in general when you rip things and play then through your AppleTV the volume is very quite unless it is music playing which is very loud. The setting you would use in handbrake to adjust this doesn't have much change on it.

I find that quite annoying.

I have yet to get an AppleTV (and now I'm waiting with the rumors), but yes, just comparing the sound of the converted file from the original DVD, the converted file does seem a good bit quieter on my iMac 27".