# Help out a Noob with Beginning to End Concept for Hard Drive Movie Solution



## RealtorEHS (Dec 2, 2013)

I'm Cut and Pasting this from my welcome page....

I've tried a few searches and I can't seem to put a finger on what I'm truly looking for? I would like to set up an 8 or 12 terra byte home movie set up. I have in the neighborhood of 3000 movies still in their jewel cases. I would love to figure out the best way to rip them to say... 4 terabyte WD MyBook drives so that I can access them through my wireless network in the house. I'm interested in other users solutions to this kind of problem. I am a Mac user exclusively. We have 3 large samsung led flat screens, 2 I phones, 2 iPads and 1 24 inch I Mac. I already run a roku box on one of my tv's ?.... Thoughts on where to begin? I'm aware that I will have months of work ahead of me just scanning the movies but The space they are taking up in my storage room and Garage in boxes is unacceptable and it makes it impossible to really enjoy them. I'm looking for hardware solutions in addition to organizational, format and recall software options. Thanks in advance for your patients and thoughts.

P.S. My Family Room system consists of a Lexicon MC-1 2 Adcom amps, Denon DVD and 7 speakers.. 6 Polk including the Sub and Center Channel, 2 back channel in wall by NilesAudio.

Read more: http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...-peoples-republik-maryland.html#ixzz2mQzy7l8L


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

I just installed one of these, which runs PLEX, in my #1 client million dollar residence.... all movies photos music files and such can be streamed to or viewed on any idevice. PC. smart HDTV. DLNA device. ROKU, HTPC ... and it also has many many other uses including back up storage from any connected device .....we are in the process now of transferring all his media to this unit which is a sophisticated NAS....out of the box it took me all of 30 minutes to have it up and ready to initialize the disc space...
Personally I much prefer DVD FAB to rip movies as it pretty much converts BLURAYS or DVDz to any and all formats
read the reviews then look at the live demo @ http://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/app_packages#multimedia

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS412/dp/B007JLE84C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1386210171&sr=8-2&keywords=synology+12tb

Hope this gives you some directionlddude:


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

NOTE ! PLEX will only run on the + models ie DS412+


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## RealtorEHS (Dec 2, 2013)

Fabulous suggestion... Thanks for the lead...


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

keep us posted on your decision :wave:


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## Andre (Feb 15, 2010)

Its my retirement project since it takes so long.

Use a program called Handbrake to put your DVDs on HDs. Then use XMBC as the interface on a HTPC. Except to build the HTPC everything is free except for your time.


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

One of the reasons we went with the SYNOLOGY unit is its quite tedious and time consuming to build a PC/NAS and get it setup ...thats when you know exactly what you want and know how to go about it....its definately not recommended as a novice project....

The DS412+ took me only 1/2 hr to get the drives in and begin the initialization of the RAID configuration....
Were it not for the ice storm in TX today :waiting: I would have been there transferring everything to the NAS...Once there all media on it becomes accessible from almost any current device....and thats only 1 of the many services it can perform.... making it a very cost effective solution :T
I will post more once we have it setup running PLEX.


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## Andre (Feb 15, 2010)

On the Synology system how long does it take to compress a DVD to MP4/MKV and store it to the HD? That is what is taking me SOOOOoooooo long. A move will take me approx 15min each plus the time in going through the files to remove all the options (other languages...etc) to save space. If you have a collection of old stuff (I have the 6 Million Dollar man on dvd) it takes a bit of playing with the settings of handbrake to make it convert nicely, as it was never ment to be watched on a 70" 16x9


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

Andre said:


> On the Synology system how long does it take to compress a DVD to MP4/MKV and store it to the HD? That is what is taking me SOOOOoooooo long. A move will take me approx 15min each plus the time in going through the files to remove all the options (other languages...etc) to save space. If you have a collection of old stuff (I have the 6 Million Dollar man on dvd) it takes a bit of playing with the settings of handbrake to make it convert nicely, as it was never ment to be watched on a 70" 16x9


I've been using DVD FAB to rip because it can convert or compress to any format so I dont have to use 2 or 3 programs to get what I want....the only down side is the cost but it does work flawlessly. The unfortunate side of movies backup as a whole is the time....Even on some of the fastest machines its going to take some time...
I usually make a uncompressed copy of my blu rays and it takes 1.5-2 hrs :hissyfit: depending on the length of the film...
I'm now in the habit of starting a disc before i go to bed....Its just going to take alot of time if you have many movies so time management will help you avoid some of the tediousness... I can only suggest an equipment upgrade if its taking more than 2 hrs ... If your PC is very old I would suggest a rebuild especially if your going to be ripping 100+ movies or 50+ blurays.... a slow CPU / Hard drive / BluRay reader are going to kill your ripping enthusiasm...
As for the SYNOLOGY unit it is only a storage device though it does run its own OS... I really haven't been able to make any comment on it as I set it up at my clients home and haven't been back since because of the weather... I should be back there this week - waiting on his new EMOTIVA amp to show up... so I will post more on using the NAS after we get some media on it .....:whistling:


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## Andre (Feb 15, 2010)

Looking at the interface for both Sym and XMBC, I find the XBMC one has more wow (I am a fan of Aeon and Transparency) http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Skin_screenshots

I built a computer specifically for XMBC (about $650 including 4TB of storage) on it I have just Windows and handbrake. I get the cover art from sites such as http://www.thetvdb.com/

I really stopped doing it a several months ago for lack of time and I am also waiting for something (I will explain) at the time blu rays didn't convert well so I waited for XMBC to "evolve". The other is the interface between the HTPC (which I would keep in the basement with my routers xetra. To move video from their to around the house I want to use a compact PC such as the Asus Eee but again I am wait for one that has a bluray player and gigabite wireless (802.11ac)

But all this is mute when I win the lottery and just get the Kaleidescape system..


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

Tonight before the Cowboy game (loozerz) I got 90 percent of the clients media transferred over to the SYNOLOGY (about 150 movies of different formats and several hundered albums from iTUNES)...It was extremely easy using the GUI of the Synology unit...
Once transferred I installed the PLEX SERVER add on and had the Library synced .... and within a few minutes we had PLEX downloaded @ $4.99 ea / running on 3 iPADS, 2 iPHONES, and the HTPC (free for Windows) browsing and playing media.. it was almost too easy :scratch:
Now we will all be ripping various media, mostly blurays, to the SYNOLOGY for storage and playback.... I dont know what to say about it other than IT JUST WORKS like it's supposed to and - I wont be building any more NAS boxes :blink:
Ive actually installed 1 KALEIDESCAPE (and early model) and 2 of the MOSAEX servers in the past.. The MOZAEX are basically worthless now. The KALEIDESCAPES , while they are a fantastic piece of equipment , even back in 2003 were and are still EXTREMELY expensive and if you have ever built your own NAS server you know how frustrating and time consuming that can be .....:teeth:
The SYNOLOGY DS 412+ (a total cost of $1138 including 4x 3TB drives)all together took me about 4 hrs to install up and running PLEX SERVER to 5 smart devices and a HTPC.... and 30 minutes of that was the initial wait for a tech support call to inquire about how to set up PLEX and transfer movies to the unit... Tech support was very helpful and friendly I might add :T


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

SYNOLOGY update : I finished transferring all the clients movies to the SYNOLOGY DS412+....
So far I am extremely impressed with this piece of equipment...

Likes
1. Very easy to setup - less than 45 minutes to have it up and ready to initialize the RAID ARRAY - 
2. easily accessible from all computers and smart devices on the home network both wired and wireless
3. Runs PLEX MEDIA SERVER so that all movies / photos / music are available to any iPAD, iPHONE, PC and the ROKU we setup for the master bed hdtv....
4 I have DVDFAB setup on the MEDIA room HTPC to rip Blurays/DVD's straight to the movie folder on the SYNOLOGY - this is through the network which includes a 24 port LUXEN switch as the main hub .... the SYNOLOGY is connected to the LUXEN..... 
5. The HTPC also runs JRIVER and XBMC and the SYNOLOGY is accessible to them as well though there is no specific app on the SYNOLOGY for them...
6. Tech support for SYNOLOGY has been speedy and very friendly 
7. Is expandable (if we ever need more than 12 tb :gulp
8 Performance over the network thus far is excellent as far as transferring files to and ripping files to the SYNOLOGY ... ripping THE MATRIX bluray to .mkv format to the SYNOLOGY about 1hr 10 min....
9. The OS of the unit is very well laid out in an attractive web browser interface and easy to use though I required a brief 30 minute tech support session - free - to setup the PLEX SERVER app....
10 . ROKU 3 media player runs PLEX so the units synced in a matter of minutes ...
Dislikes
1. Apple tv does not support PLEX so none of the 3 we have setup in this house can access the movies - though SYNOLOGY does run as an iTUNES SERVER but as of yet I have not tried to access the movie database with iTUNES SERVER... this is not really the fault of SYNOLOGY and future support may be an option...
2 Though the SYNOLOGY DS412+ is not cheap at $1499 it does have its own OS and has farrr more capabilities than Im setting it up for.... so you could argue that the cost is offset by its extreme versatility


Obviously time will tell if the unit continues to be reliable which is very important...some users reported defective units and I did consider this heavily before we made a decision but as of now, 3 weeks in, Ive had absolutely no issues with it and would highly recommend it to all considering a serious NAS 

More to come:T

ps I am a HT Professional installer but no association with SYNOLOGY corp at all....:nono:


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

RTS100x5 said:


> The DS412+ took me only 1/2 hr to get the drives in and begin the initialization of the RAID configuration....


True, but it takes DAYS for the Synology to format and check the drives. I have an 1812+ that I use to archive TV shows. With a mix of 2 & 3 TB drives in all 8 bays it took almost a week to have it up and running. I have a 413 with all 3TB drives in it also, and it took about 3 days.

Now, I love the Synology NAS setup - truly a great system. But, be aware that it takes time and is not something you can have up and fully running in an hour or so.


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