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| Registered: February 19, 2009 |  Posts: 13 |
| | Posted: | | | | Hi Guys, I have finally written my Ultimate HTPC guide and i thought you'd like to take a look. I used DVDP and LoadDVD with Jims help to achieve the desired result. Take a look here |
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| Registered: March 18, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | Gasp .... there are no words. I just love scrolling thru the pics. Dreamland.  BTW thanks for mentioning my little plugin LoadDVD (and big brother LoadDVD Pro). Glad I could help. | | | Thanks for your support.
Free Plugins available here.
Advanced plugins available here.
Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
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| Registered: March 19, 2007 | | Reputation: |  Posts: 6,018 |
| | Posted: | | | | Looks mighty impressive. Way over my head though...  |
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| Registered: December 14, 2010 |  Posts: 90 |
| | Posted: | | | | I have some difficulties with reading of your setup - hard to stop salivating!  | | | | Last edited: by Ranavalone |
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| Registered: May 19, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 6,730 |
| | Posted: | | | | Impressive! I would expect thermic problems with the close stacked HDDs though. My choice for the HDDs would have been WDs RE4 series. They are designed for 24/7 use and are guaranteed to last at least 5 years. | | | It all seems so stupid, it makes me want to give up!
But why should I give up, when it all seems so stupid?
Registrant since 05/22/2003 |
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| Registered: May 19, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 5,917 |
| | Posted: | | | | Nice setup you've got there.
I did something similar but went with UnRAID because it allowed me to mix-n-match different drives & speeds and still allowed redundancy via a parity drive. Each drive contains it's own file system so if two drives fail, I only lose what's on those drives instead of everything in a traditional RAID.
I currently have eleven drives in the server for a total of 17.53 TB of space (1x32GB, 7x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x3TB, plus 1 3TB parity drive and 1 500GB cache drive). I've filled up 58% of it with 202 DVDs, 350 BluRays, and 21 TV series. I have room for nine more drives when needed.
I use AnyDVD HD to rip and MakeMKV to create a MKV file and strip out everything but the main movie, the English HD soundtrack, and forced subtitles. The MKV file is lossless.
For my front end, I used to use Boxee but their lack of support for home servers and home PC's had me looking elsewhere - and I found XBMC which is beautiful and powerful. Using MediaFire, I create the custom NFO info files and use the DVDProfiler Loop plugin to update it with info from DVDP. |
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| Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Dr. Killpatient: Quote:
... Using MediaFire, I create the custom NFO info files and use the DVDProfiler Loop plugin to update it with info from DVDP. Nice job. And thanks for mentioning my little DVDProfileLoop tool. I'm proud of it, and I'm glad it helped you. @Lewis_Prothero, good suggestion, but awfully pricey. But I agree that janullrich is perhaps pushing the reliability envelope. Since Highpoint (which I also use in my RAID setup) supports hot spares, in fact I do use enterprise drives in that role. That way, if a drive crashes, you have reduced risk of an error during the rebuild process - everybody's RAID 5 nightmare, cause then you lose the whole cluster. The Highpoint hot spare kicks in instantly with no loss of data (and the cluster doesn't get flagged as critical). Then a day or two later, the new drive is fully integrated. It's that 1 - 2 day window during rebuild that is so risky, and makes it worth the price of an RE4 or equivalent. | | | Thanks for your support.
Free Plugins available here.
Advanced plugins available here.
Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
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| Registered: February 19, 2009 | | Posts: 13 |
| | Posted: | | | | @mediadoggThanks Jim and thanks for your help, I couldnt have done it without your help. @Lewis_ProtheroHi, as many people have mentioned this I have updated my thread here with regards to heat/temp. In summary the whole system runs cool. @Dr. KillpatientThanks. When I was looking into Software/Hardware for RAID I was massively impressed by the features that software RAID offered (like you say Mix n match and more efficient redundancy etc) but i was put off by my lack of experience and knowledge and i struggled to find any comprehensive guides, hence the reason i went with hardware which i am extremely familiar with. With regards to ripping blurays (and even dvds) to MKV I am very interested in this. Is it definitely lossless? What type of file sizes are you getting in comparison to full uncompressed? Does the rip take longer? Gaz | | | | Last edited: by janullrich |
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| Registered: May 19, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 5,917 |
| | Posted: | | | | MakeMKV (currently free while it's in beta status) is pretty quick to process, even stripping out features such as extra audio and subtitle tracks. Around a minute for a DVD and averaging 5-7 minutes for a Blu-Ray. If you only have one hard drive, it will likely take more than twice as long - I highly recommend having the source (rip) & destination locations on different drives.
It's a lossless byte-for-byte copy, no compression. MakeMKV also includes logic which negates the need for AnyDVD but I personally prefer to use it. You can convert from disc to folder or from folder to folder. | | | | Last edited: by Dr. Killpatient |
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| Registered: June 17, 2012 |  Posts: 2 |
| | Posted: | | | | Great system.
Are yo uplaying DVD's direct from the system or is is as a NAS?
If it is a NAS do you need such a good video card? |
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| Registered: March 16, 2007 | | Posts: 278 |
| | Posted: | | | | I've ripped my entire collection (Blu-Ray, DVD, and HD-DVD) to two DroboPro devices, stored in ISO format, and I use the NetGear NeoTV 550 for playback over the network (1GB wireless LAN). The Drobos are attached to a WHS 2011 server.
The only downside is that the NeoTV doesn't recognize the HD-DVD disc format, so those titles have also been converted to MKV using PavTube Blu-Ray converter. |
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| Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 5,734 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Leiterfluid: Quote:
I use the NetGear NeoTV 550 for playback over the network (1GB wireless LAN) Nice for the price, with B-rD menu support and DTS HD passthrough. | | | | Don't confuse while the film is playing with when the film is played. [Ken Cole, DVD Profiler Architect] |
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| Registered: May 19, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 5,917 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Leiterfluid: Quote:
The only downside is that the NeoTV doesn't recognize the HD-DVD disc format, so those titles have also been converted to MKV using PavTube Blu-Ray converter. I had issues with PavTube & audio sync over long movies where the audio gets more and more out-of-sync the farther in the movie you go. Did you notice any such problems? | | | | Last edited: by Dr. Killpatient |
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| Registered: March 16, 2007 | | Posts: 278 |
| | Posted: | | | | Not that I've noticed so far, but I've only ripped a handful of movies. |
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| Registered: May 27, 2007 | | Posts: 691 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting dee1959jay: Quote:
Looks mighty impressive. Way over my head though... way over my head too (not to speak about the budget). | | | | Unfortunately, I can't use DVDprofiler at the moment due to lack of a Windows computer. |
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| Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Dr. Killpatient: Quote:
Quoting Leiterfluid:
Quote:
The only downside is that the NeoTV doesn't recognize the HD-DVD disc format, so those titles have also been converted to MKV using PavTube Blu-Ray converter.
I had issues with PavTube & audio sync over long movies where the audio gets more and more out-of-sync the farther in the movie you go. Did you notice any such problems? Sounds like your sync is out by just a small amount. Have you tried Avidemux? It is free and relatively fast. For the formats it supports, it does a good job at re-synching audio. I've used it to correct some problems when I make my own home-made recordings using Arcsoft TME. | | | Thanks for your support.
Free Plugins available here.
Advanced plugins available here.
Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
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