The combination of dvdshrink and vlc has brought my dream of my dvd server to life ... it excites me enough to make me put my terribly rusty C pants on and submit a patch for the win32 version, which says a lot Of course now I need to upgrade to gigabit ethernet and buy about 900GB of storage to load all my DVD's

...buy about 900GB of storage to load all my DVD's...

Aw, come'on, go for the terabyte! Disk is cheap! You can never have too much space!

If you can wait a few months, Paul could probably give you a good price on laptop drives!

Just out of curiosity (since I was looking at the VLC solution myself), would you really need Gig-E?

I figure the average bitrate on a DVD shouldn't even fill a dedicated 100Mbps line. Or is my math really that bad?

Either way, when you're ready, this is the best I've been able to find for storage.... (drool)

Linksys apparently has a device that will stream DVDs over 802.11g

Ya, just been reading that on /.

I don't know though. I've a pair of slick black E² server cabinets in the basement that I picked up from work when they were clearing out raised floor space. I'd like to use them for something, and I've always wanted to put everything together (movie, music, etc.) on the network. Ok, and yes, I want the readout from "df -h" to have a "T" at the end.

There's a prog for Win-tendos called myHTPC that seems pretty good, but it's still in the "early" stages. VLC actually let me stream a DVD dump over 802.11b, believe it or not. Wasn't smooth, but it did it.

Nothing against Linksys, I just can't see paying them for proprietary gear when I could put something similar together with parts that are lying around (for the most part).

Yeah, I don't actually ... VLC lists DVD as 6-9Mbit/s for a stream. I wonder what streaming HDTV would require.

I wonder what streaming HDTV would require.

Well, if the guys on the mythtv discussion lists are to be believed. Serious hikes in CPU power are required to do HD properly. So I can only imagine you're looking at a fast network and storage as well.

Gig-E is not needed to stream even multiple DVDs simultaneously over a home network, but it sure would make backups and moving the huge images around between ripper/server much better.

Cheers

So I can only imagine you're looking at a fast network and storage as well.

Good point. But I still think amount, not speed of, storage is the big problem.Looking into this for the past couple of months has let me to a pretty gruesome conclusion: Storage is not gonna be cheap. If you were to go with the storage unit I linked earlier (since it's one of the highest density unit's I've found) and filled it with 300GB drives, you'd be paying about $1.24/GB for storage, or about $12.40/DVD on average.

After that, things like a Dual Xeon to push the data back and forth seems like pocket change.

Nothing against Linksys, I just can't see paying them for proprietary gear when I could put something similar together with parts that are lying around (for the most part).

Reason 1: it's probably quieter than a PC (no fan, etc.)

Reason 2: your argument is the same as arguments made against the empeg. Maybe (big maybe) this Linksys product "just works" as well as the empeg does.

Reason 1: it's probably quieter than a PC (no fan, etc.)

This fails to take into account that anyone considering spending the time and money to do what we're talking about here would probably either:

A - Take pains to make the system used for this VERY quiet (ie. water cooled, no fan, etc.)

B - Not have the PC in the same room.

I'd be more likely to go with (B).

Reason 2: your argument is the same as arguments made against the empeg. Maybe (big maybe) this Linksys product "just works" as well as the empeg does.

I couldn't disagree more. I love my empeg. I wouldn't give it up, ever. Unless it was for a Mark3. But I don't think it's fair to say it "just works". It does what it's supposed to, generally without a problem. But there's a learning curve. And there's posts about "How do I..." all the time. It needs (and allows) tweaking, which I would wager is what a lot of us love so much about it.

I'm not making an argument against the Linksys unit. I have some Linksys gear myself, and it's never let me down. But it doesn't sound like it's for me. I would rather have a media system that I can customize and modify. Make it do what I want.

Just like the empeg.

Storage wise, I am looking at a Raidcore SATA Raid controller. Tom's Hardware did a review of it, and it looks amazing. $350 is the estimate price point for an 8 port board, and Linux support will be out by Q1 of this year.

I may start doing DVD archiving when I get it, and I will look into transcoding them into MPEG4 at least, to save space.

VERY nice!

I thought about doing MPEG4, but my goal is to get the actual DVD online, rather than just the movie itself (I'm a sucker for "behind the scenes" special feature stuff). If I go to MPEG4, I lose the menu system.

I realize I could just transcode the individual featurettes as well, but.... <shrug>

That is a hell of a good price though.

With QuickTime or MP4 you can (theoretically at least, there's no great way to do it just yet) replicate all the menus and tracks in a MPEG-4...

Now THAT would be a solution!

I recently bought a KiSS DP-508 DiVx player to do pretty much the same thing.

http://www.kiss-technology.com/

I'm currently test ripping a whole bunch of DVD onto my server upstairs, DP-508 plugs into the TV and streams movies over 802.11g with no problems so far. It'll also streams mp3s, pictures and is a dvd player.

They're meant to be releasing a small form factor unit with built in 802.11g and then I'll put one in most rooms.

Changed my life about as much as TiVo and there's a pretty active developer community coming out with cool add ons - accessing imdb from the TV is pretty cool!

And SWMBO worked it out without any prompting

Phil

I'm looking at the DP-500 for my setup as my Pioneer DVD player is getting a bit long in the tooth. Can you tell me whether the Webradio functions work straight through a router to the Web, or do you need the PC on for those as well?

I am sure a load of this sort of products will be announced at CES, but these look well supported for updates etc. Any other foibles to look out for?

Cheers!

Nick

Yes, the WebRadio works straight through your 'net connection, no reliance on the PC at all. Same goes for CDDB and the hacks to add weather forecasts and IMDB access.

Biggest complaint with them seems to be poor subtitle support and ff/rw of Divx is erratic to say the least, but not a big show stopper, for me at least. Check out the ez-link PC software replacement it adds loads of stuff not available in the standard server software.

And the latest (2.8.0) firmware update that came out was rubbish for the 508, so I rolled back to the previous one. Seems to have fixed a lot of bugs in the other players though.

Phil

Thanks

Sounds like I've spent the rest of my January pay when it comes! I'm not worried about the subtitles and can live with the erratic FF/REW.

I see there is a multi-region hack onthe scan.co.uk website - do you know if that works with all the new firmware updates, or just one specific one?

Cheers

Nick

I believe that it patches whatever firmware you have running, but haven't tried it yet. Now that I've finally finished filing my tax return (hurrah!) I should get a chance to try it this week.
Will let you know what happens...
Phil

Morning

I was having a look around the web before I bought the DP-500 and there seems to be a wide ranging view of the audio and sound quality - from abysmal to very good!!

How do you find it?

Nick

I've got no complaints with it, but I'm not using it with the highest quality hifi in the world. Using the SP/DIF out into a Sony AV amp and KEF2005 speakers but the whole forum is stuffed full of people who either don't really know what they are talking about or just moan about everything for the fun of it Not sure which category I fit into yet...

I had my first crash on it last night playing an mp3, but re-encoded the file and all was well, so not sure what happened.

If you're anywhere near London you're more than welcome to pop over and have a play before making a decision.

Phil

Thanks for the offer - unfortunately I have just moved from Essex back to the Midlands.

I know what you mean! I think I know my audio/video level - I have an Onkyo AV amp and KEF 2005s as well with a Yamaha sub. I am medium discerning - I would probably notice the difference if I jumped up a level in equipment, but wouldn't necessarily find it value for money for me. I guess the audio out of the digital should be pretty good for me through my system. As long as the video quality (specifically for DVD) is good too, I'm happy. It appears to have gone for all possible video output formats including progressive scan, which I am hoping is a good indication of decent quality! Not very scientific or even probably very accurate, but hey! It is into a 29-inch 4:3 telly (S-video or RGB) - one day the 42-inch Plasma/LCD/etc.... (dream on!)

It will replace a 6(ish) yr old Pioneer DV-515 which is probably outclassed by the cheapest CyberHome nowadays!

Nick

At work, we use these units http://www.nexsan.com/products/products/ataboy2/ataboy2.html
as well as
http://www.nexsan.com/products/products/atabeast/atabeast.html
They both use ATA drives with a dedicated ATA controller PER DRIVE, so performance is pretty darned good.
Admittedly this may be more than your average home user would need, but these things are already in use for video archives.

Just thought I would mention that a new version of dvdshrink just came out; 3.1.2...it appears to be a minor upgrade except for the fact that it will now do the burning for you as well, which worked very well on both of my dvdrs. dvdshrink.org is down but you can get it from www.doom9.net.

I had a minor issue with 3.1.2 displaying an error message (Copy Protection error...incorrect function) until I turned off "Burn with Nero" in the Preferences menu.