# Storing DVD on network



## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

What's anyone doing to store their DVD's on a server to access/stream them over a network? As of now, I can put a DVD in my "server" in my room, and then watch it over the network in the living room, but if I want to watch another DVD, I have to get off my bum, walk to my room, and swap out DVD's. What I would like to do, is compile my DVD collection (or a portion of it) onto a server, and be able to watch these videos anytime I wish.

I know that Windows Media Center will open/play .ISO's, but programatically, it still hangs a bit, and I'm trying to get around this, by saving as something along the lines of an MPEG... Key thing is, I need to maintain all of my A/V. Any help or thoughts are welcome! raying:


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

This seems like an interesting project. Seems like I've read about this somewhere, but my mind escapes me as usual. I bet someone knows though.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Fairusewizard will save as divx/xvid at high quality and with ac3.


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

You can rip the DVD's to the hard drive in their file format. Then dropping the .IFO file on Windows Media Player gets it to play. That way you don't have to mount ISO's as a drive letter. 

Just hang a bunch of external USB 2.0 or Firewire hard drives off of your server. The kits to make a drive external are down to $25 or so. You could get almost 80 standard def DVD's on a 500 GB drive. Plus you could swap drives in and out as needed -- but a lot less frequently than optical DVD's.


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## Otto (May 18, 2006)

You can find programs that will decrypt DVDs to your hard drive (e.g., Google for "DVD Decrypter" or "DVD Gold").

There are a variety of programs that can be used for playback. I user PowerDVD (by Cyberlink). Also are TheaterTek and WinDVD. 

Have fun!


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

eugovector said:


> Fairusewizard will save as divx/xvid at high quality and with ac3.


DIVX/XVID has a wealth of options on playback! Nice...



bobgpsr said:


> You can rip the DVD's to the hard drive in their file format. Then dropping the .IFO file on Windows Media Player gets it to play. That way you don't have to mount ISO's as a drive letter.


This could be a nice method, if I can figure it out programatically, how to either Open the .IFO or send it via command line (yuck!).

Thanks! :jiggy:


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2007)

Here's how I'm doing it, I use Anydvd and Clonedvd by Slysoft to rip the dvd (it produces an iso image of the movie with menus in it's original quality without protection). That is stored on my server, I then use the MyMovies (www.mymovies.name) plugin to MCE to manage my collection. It's a slick interface that will sort your movies a million different ways, show you the cover, you click it and then you can watch the movie or get info. I currently have to MCE's accessing the server this way and it works flawlessly. Hope that helps.


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

I'm writing the user interface myself. I prefer no menus either, but most rippers I've seen allow stripping of everything but the main movie into an ISO... I'm still not 100% sure on the ISO vs (whatever ripping the DVD straight to the HDD is called) vs DIVX format war in my brain... I think I'm just gonna have to play around with each, and see.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

thekl0wn said:


> I'm writing the user interface myself. I prefer no menus either, but most rippers I've seen allow stripping of everything but the main movie into an ISO... I'm still not 100% sure on the ISO vs (whatever ripping the DVD straight to the HDD is called) vs DIVX format war in my brain... I think I'm just gonna have to play around with each, and see.


If you can play the straight ISOs or VOBs, that is best, but the simplicity of DIVX is nice. In your first post, you said you had problems with ISO, which is why I recommended fairusewizard. Also nice for reducing bandwidth for streaming concerns if you are wireless G or B.


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

Just playing around with an embedded WMP object, it was having intermittent issues with ISO's. It may very well be how it was implemented... I don't know. I haven't re-visited the test application for quite some time now. Guess it's something I should check in on!


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

eugovector said:


> Fairusewizard will save as divx/xvid at high quality and with ac3.


That's exactly what I've been looking for. I own a lot of movies (300?) So much so that the movie shelf is overflowing. I could store them as ISOs, but even with cheap disk space, that's a lot, so I need compression, and I haven't found something reliable which can do it and keep my AC3.


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

Bah, I'm still not sure it is what I want. 

I guess I'm one of the few who really likes DVD extra features, behind the scenes, etc. I haven't downloaded the demo version yet (which limits the space of what you rip to 700MB), but from the screenshots, it looks like it is 'just the movie'.

I guess I need to go back to making a box with a dedicated and compressed file system. CPU speeds on the file server can decrypt it fast enough so I shouldn't ever notice.


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

DVD's will not compress much as they are already mostly compressed (video with MPEG2, audio with DD 5.1 (AC3) ).


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## TedT (May 20, 2006)

Media Center (2005 and Vista) will directly play ripped DVD's from a hard drive. Also, you can store an image of the movie cover art and it will show up as an image in Media Centers when you are looking at movie titles. The trick is to turn on the DVD Library function in media Center - ths is normally used for multi disc DVD changers which is why it is off if you don't have a changer, but it will treat your hard drive library as a DVD changer once you edit the Registry. Just do a internet search for "play VOB files Media Center" and you should find some help - here is what I have used:

Enable "My DVDs" - Media Center has a new DVD gallery with cover art and descriptions called My DVDs. Do you want to enable My DVDs? This setting is only available in Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and later.
•	Registry key - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings 
•	Registry value - ShowGallery 
•	Registry value data type - REG_SZ 
•	Registry value data - Gallery = enable My DVDs; Play = do not enable My DVDs
•	Create a DVD directory and place your movies there - use Media Center functions to monitor that drive location for new files.

After ripping, I put the files from each DVD in it's own folder. Media center will display any image you put in the folder with the name "FOLDER.JPG" as the cover art. So download some cover art from Amazon or where ever, and rename it "FOLDER.JPG" and put it into that movie's folder and it will show up in Media Player along with the movie title.

By the way, DVDfabHDdecrypter is free and works great for ripping (google search it).
Hope this helps,
TedT


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

Okay, I'm in the middle of running an experiment. I'm taking an .ISO and using 7zip to compress it using the 'maximum' compression (there's one higher compression setting, but it uses more RAM than I have w/out swap).

This isn't exactly fair because any compressed file system won't be using something this fancy, but will give an idea of the potential for compressions.

I'm still vacillating on the whole divx thing because since I own the movie I could always dig it out of the closet if I did want to see special features?


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

Sonnie said:


> This seems like an interesting project. Seems like I've read about this somewhere, but my mind escapes me as usual. I bet someone knows though.


You might have been thinking of a commercial high-end project that does all this work for you: http://www.kaleidescape.com/products/

These are really good guys, and they're backed by some bigwigs who actually don't like swapping DVDs everytime they want to watch a movie they own (just like us simple folk). 

IIRC, they have been pushing all kinds of lawsuits against the MPAA which has been interefering with their products.


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

toecheese said:


> Bah, I'm still not sure it is what I want.
> 
> I guess I'm one of the few who really likes DVD extra features, behind the scenes, etc. I haven't downloaded the demo version yet (which limits the space of what you rip to 700MB), but from the screenshots, it looks like it is 'just the movie'.
> 
> I guess I need to go back to making a box with a dedicated and compressed file system. CPU speeds on the file server can decrypt it fast enough so I shouldn't ever notice.


While my little experiment with just compressing an .ISO is going (it'll take more than two hours to finish), I've been googling and came across this:

http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/114/59/

The free program (I'm always wary of these) does compression down to 1.x Gig and preserves all menus... I'll give it a try since my HTPC is being used for the kids right now as I was dissatisfied with the performance of it for watching OTA HDTV.


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

Okay. You were right. My .ISO started out as 4.5 Gig. After massive computing cycles (2 gigahertz for two hours, maxxed at 100%) -far higher than any compressed file system, the result was ... drumroll... 4.2 Gig. Nothing to write home about- but worthy of writing here: a compressed file system won't improve DVDs you store in .ISO format.

On the RatDVD front- very interesting. It turns out that the program is the real deal- but that 'Rat?' did it as a test before his commercial program (Flux?) came out. Flux is used for online distribution of DVDs, and comes with DRM, but it preserves the menus and such.

I haven't tried it yet but will give it a try when I'm back from out of town.


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## toecheese (May 3, 2006)

Okay, the RatDVD worked! It took a 5G ISO down to 1.3, preserved the AC3, menus, special features, etc. 

You'd think XVID or someone else would have a bundle which did what RatDVD does, but none do it in one step like it does. I haven't plugged the HTPC back up yet, but it looks pretty good!


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## mutation (Oct 5, 2007)

I use mythtv, it has an iso rip util built in, and plays strait from iso's


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## eridiorya (Sep 20, 2007)

I just finished building my HTPC and ripped a movie to an iso file. I used VLC media player to play the iso file and it looked great. I don't know if this answers your question or not because I'm still learning as well.


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## Danny (May 3, 2006)

Google DVDShrink rips straight to .vob files with selectable (or no) compression then just open it with something like win DVD or Power DVD and watch away


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

Danny said:


> Google DVDShrink rips straight to .vob files with selectable (or no) compression then just open it with something like win DVD or Power DVD and watch away


I've used this before, but it seems that DVDShrink won't allow non-compression if the output files are over the standard 4.X gig DVD size... Meaning if it's a 3-hour movie, it's going to compress it to under 5 gig, when storage really isn't the issue. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. :huh:


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

In shrink, you need to select "custom compression ratio", or something like that, and then move the slider all the way to 100%. Really though, you should be using ripit4me or dvd decrypter if you want vobs.


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## Scuba Diver (Sep 28, 2007)

I am new to the PC to TV thing. Are you using a wireless Router? If so how to you get if from the router to the TV?


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## Otto (May 18, 2006)

You have to physically plug the PC into the TV to get video to it. Similarly, you also have to plug the audio signal into the receiver.

My system happens to be hardwired on a 100 Mb backbone, but wireless should work to stream SD-DVD (assuming your data (DVDs) are stored on a server). If it gets glitchy, I'd recommend switching to a wired network. Either way, the method used to get data from the server to the PC is independent of how you'll send the audio and video to their respective devices.

Good luck!


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## Fincave (Apr 20, 2006)

thekl0wn said:


> I've used this before, but it seems that DVDShrink won't allow non-compression if the output files are over the standard 4.X gig DVD size... Meaning if it's a 3-hour movie, it's going to compress it to under 5 gig, when storage really isn't the issue. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. :huh:


Using Shrink you can try EDIT-PREFERENCES- and from the pulldown you have three options: DVD-5(4.7gb), DVD-9 (8.5 gb) or Custom which should let you specify any size. Hope this helps.


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## Danny (May 3, 2006)

I've never had a problem, try the above first then if it doesn't work go (after putting in a DVD) highlight it all - compression - no compression. That should work i did this from memory so it may be a bit off


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## bob1029 (Feb 26, 2007)

Another possibility would be to decrypt your dvd to an iso image as mentioned before, then use daemon tools to mount it for playback. DTools allows for simple command-line interface, and you get to preserve your menu structure.


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

Fincave said:


> Using Shrink you can try EDIT-PREFERENCES- and from the pulldown you have three options: DVD-5(4.7gb), DVD-9 (8.5 gb) or Custom which should let you specify any size. Hope this helps.


Yeah, I didn't think about it before I posted on that.



bob1029 said:


> Another possibility would be to decrypt your dvd to an iso image as mentioned before, then use daemon tools to mount it for playback. DTools allows for simple command-line interface, and you get to preserve your menu structure.


Hopefully, there won't be any menu structure to deal with!

Just an update... I've done some testing with this, and the method I like is decrypting them to raw DVD files into a directory for each DVD, and then passing the .IFO file into WMP's URL programatically, and it chugs right along playing. Where I was running into issues at before was in the codecs being free/trials... Nothing played! :teeth:

As for now, the plan is to store them (losslessly) on the server, with all menus, subtitles, and extra audio formats stripped in a folder for each DVD, and basically build a menuing application for them to play on something I write, or simply command line them into another player.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

thekl0wn said:


> I've used this before, but it seems that DVDShrink won't allow non-compression if the output files are over the standard 4.X gig DVD size... Meaning if it's a 3-hour movie, it's going to compress it to under 5 gig, when storage really isn't the issue. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. :huh:


I took a slightly different approach from an HTPC, but I am archiving to an external USB drive so I have some experience in that area...

First one thing to note is if you buy an external USB drive, they are preformatted in FAT32. That ensures the highest compatibility with various computer systems. The downfall is there is a 4GIG file size limitation with FAT. You will need to do one of two things, either reformat to NTFS, or compress to 4GB in size IF you are using one continuous VOB or file per movie. If you are using the individual VOBs and streaming from a play list, you should be fine with the drive as is.

I use Shrink. It is the easiest and so far the fastest that I personally have used. I admit I haven't used everything out there, but I have tested a few different programs.

[img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l190/wbassett/HTS/PS3MediaServerSetup/DVDShrink_DiscSettings.jpg[/img]


In Shrink you can select either 'Custom' or DVD-9. DVD-9 will give you the exact size of a dual layer standard definition DVD. No compression will take place with this setting. If you have a need for bigger disc space settings, then use custom.



I have a 320GB USB My Book that I am using to archive things too. It has worked out fantastic and I plan on setting up several drives with 'genre' themes. Right now the one I have is a 'Spy' genre and I have all 22 Bond flicks (There are 22 if you include Never Say Never), Season One of 24, The Bourne Identity, and Supremacy, Enemy of the State, True Lies, xXx, MI 1-3, and I still have 140GB free on the drive.

Video quality is DVD and upconverts to a very nice picture. Of course everything depends on how good the source was to begin with, but I am extremely happy with everything.




I personally really like this method of consolidating my DVD collection into easy to manage 'volumes'. Sometimes I get in a marathon mood and want to watch things continously and it's nice to be able to just click on what I want without ever having to get up to swap discs. I want to stress though... own the disc!

I haven't done anything in High Def. For those I just put the disc in.


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## thekl0wn (Jul 5, 2007)

The TV shows are the main thing I LOVE about having everything on a network... I want to be able to sit down and pull up Stargate season 1, and emerge 2 weeks later after the final episode of season 10 and say that I never had to change a DVD! :bigsmile:


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