We currently have a cabinet in our tv room that houses all of our DVDs and old VHS tapes. Frankly, we are tired of moving our DVDs (mostly) to our DVD player, where they tend to gather until someone gets sick of it and puts the stack of DVDs back in their cases. The DVDs are subject to getting scratched, etc.

What I am looking for is a simple, easy-to-use off-the-shelf hard drive system to archive my DVDs that can play through our TV or PJ (in component or HDMI) where I can store all of my DVDs, and move the physical DVDs down to the basement. It would be ideal if the box itself had a DVD player that would rip the DVDs--but it that does not exist, then I guess I can use my computer to do so.

I have tried to do some targetted searching of this concept, but I am frankly a bit confused by what I have read--and most of the media drives tend to have a ton more features than I really need.

Anyone suggest something?

Have you thought about just using a PC connected to a the TV with the movies ripped to the hard drive? Give geexbox a try http://geexbox.org/en/index.html. It runs off of a CD so you can try it out on your existing PC without needing to install anything new and you might find it to be exactly what you are looking for. This is basically what I'm using with all my DVD's ripped to a NAS in the basement.

I had thought ubout htpc, but I am hoping to get something I can sit with my other components that is easily accessible (especially by the wife). Ease of use and accessibility is essential, which is why I want an off-the-shelf box with a very easy UI.

Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Steve:

I was in your exact same position. We even stopped watching some of our favorite DVDs because finding them was such a hassle.

I purchased a TViX 4100 and ripped all my DVD to 2 750GB hard drives. I am very happy with the results.

Hope this helps;

MMK

A simple, off-the-shelf integrated consumer product just isn't likely to happen. The problem isn't the technology: archiving (ripping) DVDs is illegal in the US, no matter how stupid & illogical we all think that is. Any major manufacturer who explicitly incorporates such a feature would be taking a huge risk.

For the forseeable future, you're going to be "rolling your own" system out of PCs, 3rd-party ripping programs, media catalog/playback software and/or hardware playback devices.

For me, I've got a 4.5 TB storage server (running UnRAID) in the basement containing all my photos, music, and movies. I have small media-center PCs in the living room, home theater, and bedroom to play back that content on local TVs. Currently using Vista Media Center with the MyMovies add-in.

Can my wife, daughter, (and even in-laws) use this system to watch movies? Absolutely. Can they rip & add new content themselves? No way - that's still too kludgey & fragile.

Thanks, jimre, for the response.

I am not looking for anything fancy--just something that will store and playback my DVD files--but I want to maintain the quality of DVD as I have a projector with a very large screen and do not want to see compression artifacts, etc.

So far, the following media servers seem to fit the bill:

Tvix 4000/4100: A bit expensive, but appears to do what I need it to do. Anyone comment on the UI? I understand you can go in and replace file names with jpegs of DVD covers. This could be useful.

Popcorn Hour: 'Tis a mystery to me about this machine. I think it does what I need it to do, but the website is anything but helpful. It's almost like you REALLY have to know what you are talking about and be "in the know" regarding this machine. And it doesn't appear that it's shipping for a while anyway.

TVisto: This is on the cheaper side, which has its appeal. For my application, simply storing and playing back DVDs and other video, this could be the real champion. I'm a little concerned about the component out issue. It requires a special cable? What's that about?

Anyone have any thoughts?

sageTV extender? (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=952886)

still have to rip your dvds, but for playback it looks to be nice

Have you checked out newegg? They sell the component video cable as well as there are many reviews on this product. I am doing research on this product as well, there is the tvisto pro that comes with a VGA cable and does 1024 by 768. It allso takes sata HH and actually looks more interesting then the Tvisto. But I haven't much info on these products other then the reviews I read on the newegg web site. I will call newegg tomorrow to see what they have to say.