What to do with my DVD collection?

I'm just beginning this process myself. I bought a PS3 a few months ago, and my ReadyNAS Pioneer arrived last week. I've been playing around with DVDFab, converting my DVDs to mp4's using the built-in PS3 setting. A 4GB disc compresses to a little over 1GB in under two hours, and I can't tell the difference.

I've been going through this decision process myself. Check out this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1098808

The formats your playback device supports will largely govern your decisions, but it seems the consensus is to rip to ISO and if you can keep that for future flexibility, but you can also reauthor the ISO to pair down to just the main movie and main audio tracks.....

I use DVD Shrink. Seems pretty simple to me.

Here is what I've found in my quest for the same thing . . .

I believe the PS3 can play *.VOB files, but it's fatal flaw is the file size limit of Fat32 which you need to format the drive with. You will go down the headache road with the PS3 unless your network and PC can handle streaming with TVersity. Again, another headache. I just want to rip/store/play my DVDs. Simple, that's it. The Xbox has an arbitrary limit of 4Gb unless it's a WMV file, so forget that too. I have no interest in spending 12+ hours encoding each movie on my slow PC.

There are onlly two devices I could find that were affordable and could do what I want. One was the Western Digital WD TV HD and the Popcorn Hour A-110. I bought a Popcorn Hour A-110 and a 500Gb HDD. I should have bought a 1.0Tb HDD, but I can upgrade later. With the hard drive from Newegg, it came out to about $300 after shipping which isn't cheap, but I can live with it.

I almost built a HTPC, but I didn't want the hassle. I just want to use it and not think about it.

The PCH will play anything, including VOB files and I'm pretty sure ISO files. A VOB file is the same thing basically and I always rip my DVDs to *.VOB files (no good reason). The PCH will also support anything I download which is a huge plus for me. I absolutely hate converting downloaded content to play on compatable devices.

I won't go on a rant about all the things the PCH can do, you can find out for yourself, but stream Playon from your PC and you can get all kinds of GOOD online content with it too.

Here is my process:

- Pop my DVD into the computer.
- Re-author the disk, removing everything but the main audio and video track
- Rip it to the hard drive as a VOB file (you will probably need to buy/install AnyDVD by Slysoft)
- Upload to PCH
- Done (takes abotu 15-20 minutes to rip the DVD and another 10-15 minutes to transfer the file)

I will actually compress some of the movies I put less priority on (using MeGUI, H264/AAC). My fiance won't know the difference if I compress Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants DVD to 1.5gb. But action and epic movies stay mostly uncompressed. Hard drive space is cheap.

Sounds like I was a bit off from what you were going for (streaming via PS3), but hopefully it helps anyway.

On another note, I forgot to add . . . I think if you want to embed a thumbnail image into your movies, you need to encode them into an MP4 file. I may be wrong, but I don't know if there's another way to do that. For me, I look at everything in list view so I don't bother with that noise.

Slabshaft: if you don't mind, can you walk through what's rest in terms of actually selecting and playing a movie, universal remote, etc.? i'm new to this, and it'd be helpful to know what the wife's user experience, for example, would be.

also, how about music files?

Guys, I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but there's a lot of misinformation in your posts here. I notice most of you have 50 posts or under, which is not necessarily an indication of anything...but in this case, most of you seem like admitted newbies, and hence this thread reads a little like the blind leading the blind.

I really can't tell you everything there is to know about ripping, streaming, streaming to PS3...encoding, remuxing, etc...that would take more time than I have. I just thought I would take the time to point out some of you are really on the wrong track and should do some more research before you give up and head down the wrong road.

OK, one quick example...BWise, the "modding" that you have to do for PS3 to play .ISO rips is referred to as "transcoding"; it's software, not any kind of hardware mod, and it's done at the server, not the PS3. So it doesn't void or alter the PS3 to any degree.

Like I said guys, I'm not trying to be discouraging; quite the opposite...streaming is great, but there are lots of ways to skin this cat, and I would really read and research and try to learn my stuff before you head too far down one path or another.

Good luck,
CD

I too have just begun this process of ripping, storing and streaming. I use dvdshrink to rip movies and keep the main audio and uncompressed video tracks and store them on a Linksys NAS200. I have everything hard wired, no wireless except the laptop which does the ripping and sending to the NAS. My PS3 freezes with some of the movie files, I have not figured out why. Maybe someone can shed some light on this. Recently got an old Xbox and I am in the process of moding it to have XBMC on it. The xbox and xbmx I believe has limitations with Hi Def movie files meaning they can't be played, I am ok with that. Its a cheap alternative for me to play my stored/ripped dvd movies, music and pictures right now until I can afford a Popcorn Hour machine. So does the Xbox with XBMC have a limit of 4gb movie files? Thanks in advance.

If a stated fact is incorrect, correct it. No need for the asinine comments about post counts. Would you rather we all posted 1000 times and come back with the same statements? Would they be valid then? If your opinions differ from those posted, then please, add your opinions about the subject matter.


The rest is cake. The reason I bought one over building a HTPC is the ease of use and my fiance can use it without complaint. The menu system is just categorized by folders that you navigate (i.e. Music/Movies/Pictures). You navigate through the folders and select the file you want to play, it's pretty intuitive. As for the universal remote, I don't own one yet for some reason so I couldn't tell you, but it is supposed to be able to work with them. The Harmony is supposedly compatible and it's about the most popular one out there, but I doubt it has presets for the PCH. You'd probably have to program it old school by pointing the two remotes at each other and doing the "learn" function. The unit does come with a remote though.

Well, as I already said in the post, I don't have time to correct everything I see that looks suspect, and I don't have time (or consider myself an unquestionable authority on the subject) to give a lesson on how to rip, store, stream, encode, remux, and playback to PS3 or otherwise.

I just saw some things that were incorrect, really didn't want a newbie to give up for the wrong reasons, and suggested that they dig a little further. I did everything I could to say I wasn't trying to be critical, including admitting that post-count meant nothing, but I guess some people can't help but misconstrue.

CD

I personally use an Elektron EHP-606 to play my DVD collection. I rip all my DVDs and then use DVDReMake to remove the FBI warnings, previews, and extras I don't want. After doing so I make an .ISO file of the VIDEO_TS directory. I then store the single .ISO file on my Elektron. It has full menu support - so really it is just like playing the DVD on a standard DVD player.

However, be aware that all NMTs (such as the Elektron) currently do not play Blu-Ray backups.

That limit only applies to the built in hard drive since it is Fat32.
The movies/files you have on your Linksys Nas can be any size. I have all mine on a D-Link Nas and stream to the Xbox w/XBMC and it works flawlessly.

I'm using my PS3 with the PS3MediaServer program. Hardwired network connection to my computer. I rip the dvds with DVDfab to a single vob, then convert with VOB2MPG. The movies play perfectly with Dolby Digital. I wish I could get cover art instead of a random shot from the dvd, but I'm sure that will come. Anybody getting DVD cover art with the PS3. I've tried Tversity, windows media, PS3server, twonky. Can't get the dvd covers though.

Thanks Dan for the info.

After days of trying to figure out why I can't play my ripped dvd's or mp3's flawlessly, I have come to find out that my Linksys NAS200 can't stream properly onto the PS3, XBOX with XBMC or PC. What a shame! Has anyone had any success with a NAS like mine? Do I have to get a better one? Sorry for the off topic comments/questions. Thanks.

I encoded my DVDs into mp4 format using Nero Recode. The settings I used were: AVC ps3 format, disable resize, best quality, video bitrate of 2.9M/s, audio was set to high volume low complexity 192k (5.1 channel audio if available, if not then stereo).
I can now watch these videos on my Acer mini-pc directly, or stream them to the ps3 using Nero MediaHome.

As for storage, as I quickly ran out of room on my mini-pc, I ended up with a Thecus NAS and a Synology NAS to hold all my contents. They are mounted onto my mini-pc as shared drives and I still use Nero MediaHome to steam them as 1 collection to the PS3.

i searched and searched and the only viable thing for me was, since i was getting a PS3 which will work very will damn near streaming anything, was to go with Tversity. It's very easy to setup. If the PS3 doesn't play a particular file it'll transcode it (computer side) and stream it to the PS3. It also does pics and music which is a plus but doesn't use too much.

ATM i'm in the process of ripping all my dvd's again(well over 300 ) to a Raid 5 cluster of 3x1TB hard drives, i figure that'll do for a couple years then i'll upgrade to bigger lol.

I'm using DVDshrink as already mentioned in here, and doing the same process. I re-author the DVD and only burn the Video into ONE(default splits to multiple) .vob file and stream perfectly to the PS3. The .VOB files don't need transcoded so there's no CPU been taken up really, however if i download a "preview" sometimes those do need to be transcoded so it'll take up most of my CPU but doesn't matter it's almost specifically a steaming machine.



The only hard part is ripping each DVD, there's no great process for this. A single dvd doesn't take long 4-10 mins but it's a pain in the ass to sit there and keep replacing them. This was the only decently cheap way to stream. If Tversity ends up sucking or stops working with the PS3 there's loads more steaming software, just i like this one for now.


EDIT:

Nice i just looked up those NAS devices. I looked into NAS systems as we have a Badass SAN at work but of course for home user way out of my price range. May i ask which models and how much you paid for them? i ended up going cheap route (motherboard raid 5) since i don't plan to keep my setup forever, just a few years. As I'm sure we'll have crazy HD sizes very soon.

I'm using a simple solution until I get a HP MediaSmart Server (EX485) and a Popcorn Hour A-110. Probably going to run some Cat 5 cable as well to go to hard wired.

Anyhow - I have ripped a good portion of my standard DVDs to external USB HDDs (750 GB and 320 GB) formatted in FAT32. Downside is the <4gb limit.

I bought a D-Link 8 port powered USB hub and plugged it into my PS# USB port. Then plugged in the external HDDs. Not elegant, but simple and flawless (AND eliminates all of the networking/streaming hassle). Also have music and pics on the 320.

If you check out the Playstation 3 Forum there is a thread dedicated to PS3 Media Server and in there they explain how to do DVD cover art. I'll explain it here but you should check out that topic if you havent already as there is a ton of useful info there.

Anyway, here's how you get DVD cover art streamed to your PS3 using PS3 Media Server. If you have single VOBs then when you download the cover art you need to rename the file xxxxxx.vob.cover.jpg Replace the X's with the movie title that you're downloading the cover art for. It needs to be spelled the exact same as the VOB movie file you have on your computer. For example, I have a movie titled The 40 Year Old Virgin in my MOVIES folder. So, I downloaded the DVD cover from Amazon and named it The 40 Year Old Virgin.VOB.cover.jpg and placed it in the same folder as the movie file. Do this and next time you fire up your media server and browse your movies it will look nice and clean with your DVD cover art showing instead of stills from the movie file.

Just for clarification's sake, here is my folder structure C:/Videos/Movies

I have both the VOB movies files AND the cover art files stores in the MOVIES folder

Another side note: This will work for all files, not just vobs. If you had an AVI file then you would name it The 40 Year Old Virgin.avi.cover.jpg

Hope this helps!

Hey Ray,

I just purchased an EX485 and thought I would share that I entered promo code SV0708 and it gave me 15% off. If you haven't bought one yet then you should definitely try this. I bought mine this past Friday, so hopefully it'll still work for you.

I bought a EHP-606 before, it gets very good function with nmt. dvd collection can be easily done by EHP-606.

Would MetaX work for the Cover Art on a PS3? Works like a charm for cover art streaming to an Apple TV, but have not tested on PS3 yet.

http://www.kerstetter.net/page53/page53.html