# Theater in development...can I do this?



## kelmoney (Oct 1, 2012)

The basement is slowly coming along but I'm still working on configuring the theater. I have a couple questions and I'm not even sure what I want is possible. Am I able to sit on my couch with the ipad, pull up a list of my blu rays or dvds, select a certain movie and it start to play on the home theater? I'm very uneducated about Home theater pc's and not sure what it would take to accomplish this or if it is even possible. I thought maybe if I had a mini mac and ripped the movies to it I would be able to control it from the ipad. Do you loose movie quality by ripping movies? Should I look into a blu ray changer and would I still be able to control it from the ipad. I want to integrate all home theater control to the ipad which appears I should be able to do but not sure about movie control and quality of movies stored on a hard drive. I hope this makes sense.


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

High quality digital formats of movies are comparable to Blu-Ray Disc, such as MKV or ISO files. If you have a software program on the PC were the digital movies are, and there is a compatible application to install on your Ipad that controls the application you should be able to do this. For example Cyberlink has software that detects your movies, music, and photos on your pc, they also have an app for tablets (andriod and most likely Apple). Other variables you will encounter are the equipment you use. Such as wireless streaming or hard ethernet connection. This will effect the quality of picture and sound presented. Best sound would be achieved by running audio from the pc through a receiver. Also if you can connect the video to the receiver also ....you only need to connect one HDMI out from the reciever to the display (projector or TV).


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## jimbodude (Jul 26, 2011)

DVDs and BluRays are already digital formats, so it is possible to recreate them exactly. It's just a matter of storage space and having the legal rights and technical capabilities to do so. That's a touchy subject, so you likely will not get much guidance here.

There are also DVD and BluRay changers available for PCs, but they are generally prohibitively expensive and often complex to get working. Probably not worth your time - just put the disc in manually.

Assuming you have a digital on-disk library, there are plenty of applications to get it on to your TV. My favorite right now is XBMC. MythTV has a decent videos plug-in as well. There are also your "for-profit" solutions, such as Windows MCE or any of the media-focused hard drives that have movie players. I like XBMC's interface, metadata management, and general appearance far more than any solution I have seen. It is also quite easy to configure compared to just about everything else. Added bonus is that it runs on many platforms and doesn't cost any money, so it is easy to try it out and see if you like it.

Currently, I'm using XBMC on a Raspberry Pi - essentially a $40 computer - and sourcing all the media over a regular network file system. It is probably the cheapest, but most used, component in my system today. More details in the RPi thread specifically:
http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...rs/62902-raspberry-pi-xbmc.html#axzz2E7TIIOCU


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

If you are set on Mac Mini + iPad, you can use something like handbrake to rip your movies into an iTunes-friendly format. There is an iOS app (Remote) which allows you to control your iTunes library from an iPad. I believe it works for music as well as movies.


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## floatpave (Dec 10, 2012)

Peter Loeser said:


> If you are set on Mac Mini + iPad, you can use something like handbrake to rip your movies into an iTunes-friendly format. There is an iOS app (Remote) which allows you to control your iTunes library from an iPad. I believe it works for music as well as movies.


I am with you. iTunes by default supports mp4 or m4v files. Handbrake is great and very user friendly. Funnily enough I've been using it quite a bit this week to rip dvds movies into .mp4 and put them on my iPhone.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.


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## The_Beerswine (Apr 23, 2012)

Myself I've done something simular where I have ripped all my CD's and DVD's as well as all my ol VHS stuff too, before it degrades into non exsistance.
It's nice and handy and when friends are around , the tops start popin off of them brown bottles it's a whole lot easyer to find something to put on rather than diging around the shelf trying to see what you're lookin for.
I have an old dell box where 9TB of storage is kept and from there it's networked into the rest of the house.
In the living room I have an ol' Gateway media centre PC with remotes and wireless mouse and keyboard for editing stuff. and it does the tivo thing too so I don't have to endure comecials.

It all looks good on an 50" plasma screen.
And for the stuff I really like the ps3 will do the bluray stuff but you can't beat the convience of it all.
Also on a final note I have a 1w stereo FM X-mitter and ch14 TV X-mitter + various portible sound-TV systems around the whole property for when the weather is too nice to be inside.:sn:


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## mayhem13 (Feb 2, 2008)

A big +1 on the suggestion for using Handbrake to store your movies and music. I use it exclusively for my library of over 400 sd DVDs, nearly 60 BDs and over 2500 CDs. I use a PC server instead of a Mac mini and the Apple TV as the interface......all controlled from either an IPad, iTouch or our iPhones. We have four Apple TVs throughout the house so our video library is available in every room with a display. Works like a charm....all the time. 

You'll need a BD rom drive, software to 'rip' the disc and remove copywrighted protection, and software to encode the ripped file to iTunes friendly MP4 format. I use a neat tagging program called MetaX for Cover art, cast and crew, chapter names, etc. If your collection is large, you'll need suitable HDD space....IMO a PC solution wins over Mac in this area as well as BlueRay support.


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

To answer your question, yes, all this can be done on PC. Im not a mac user... Im using DVD FAB to rip all my BluRays without degradation... I playback all movies, audio with JRIVER MEDIA.... I can control JRIVER with my ANDROID app called GIZMO ....which can also remotely access my pc media - very cool on the go....Im not sure if GIZMO comes in IOS form but I would be shocked if it didnt.... My Pioneer also can be controlled by an app but my CONTROL4 universal system does amuch better job for that..Im working on controlling my PC entirely with CONTROL4 and its looking like I will have to go with IPAD to accomplish this...


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