[rlu929s]

I'm thinking about taking a good chunk or all of my DVD's and ripping them to a drive. I'm not really sure how to do this so I'm looking here for help. Hopefully this is the right forum.


I'll list what I have so far.

Computer Equipment:

My main desktop has 2 250GB drives. Would prefer not to have them stored here as I use this pretty heavily.


I have one of the 1st Intel Mac Mini's with an 80GB drive as my 2nd PC in my office.


I have 2 320GB custom External Drives.


I currently have a G wireless network in my house although I understand you'll want a N network for streaming right? I use a Linksys Router


That's basically the backbone of my network and here are my 3 viewing areas and the equipment connected to my network. Everything must be wifi as I can't run wires.

Movie Room: (Would be nice but not important as all the disc are in the movie room)

Sony PS3

Wii

Living Room: (Most important that I want to stream to)

LG 390 Bluray player with netflix streaming and ability to stream from a server. Has a wireless N card in it.

Bedroom: (Not Important At All for streaming)

Original Xbox


That what I have and I'm not sure if that's enough to get going?


I realize I'll probably need to get a N router and in theory should be able to stream to my LG player already.


What are you using to rip the movies and what is the suggested method for setting it up? Do you store them to a external drive attached to a PC?

 

[candre23]

Wireless G is fine for DVD rips as long as all your devices have good reception from the router. N only becomes necessary for very high bitrate HD rips.


So yes, you could start out with the hardware you have right now. I'm assuming you want to store your movies on the two external 320GB drives? Just plug them into your desktop and share them. You'll need to use a transcoder like PS3 Media Server to get your PS3 to play most video files.


As for software, everybody has their own preferences. I rip DVDs with DVD Decrypter and compress with Handbrake . I find 1800kbps h.264 MKV rips are indistinguishable from the original DVD and only take up about 1.5GB per 90 min movie.