# Help/Mac and HT



## rubbersoul (Nov 12, 2007)

I hope someone can advise me in a step by step method.
I would like to store my blu-ray disc and dvd's as well as cd's in a media storage server using the iMac. 
I have all of my cd's in iTunes. I will be buying an iPad and I want to be able to bring up a list of my cd's onto the iPad and make my selections and volume controlling from the iPad.
I intend to use the ipad as a universal remote for my HT room. I will being using a piece of hardware called Re' that connects to the iPad and purchase the Re' app from the Apple store which I will be enables me to have all of my remotes on the iPad along with macros.
I was wondering what I would have to do to be able to download blu-rays and dvd's storing them in an external hard rive and be able to use my iPad for selection of movies as with my cd collection.
I know that Apple has iTunes match that enables you to rent or buy movies and store them in the cloud but I do not know if that application could be used to store my own personnel collection.

Thanks for the help
Frank


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## fschris (Oct 31, 2009)

i know nothing about macs and what they can do. however one program you should look into is called makemkv.


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## rubbersoul (Nov 12, 2007)

Thanks. I will


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## timg (Nov 19, 2007)

Use MakeMKV for ripping your BluRays and other media (Handbrake for DVDs).

Use Plex for playback and as a media server. It's incredibly powerful and works with a wide variety of clients (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, WP8, Roku, etc.). It will play almost anything. It's based on XBMC code, but has significant changes.

Tim


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## 8086 (Aug 4, 2009)

I might suggest using bootcamp along with one of the many great linux media center distros which can run along side any version of OSX.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-great-linux-media-cente-distributions-transform-tv/


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## rubbersoul (Nov 12, 2007)

Thanks for all of your suggestions:sn:


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## Sevenfeet (Feb 2, 2009)

Reading this thread I think I have more questions than answers. First if all, is the Mac going to be the primary mode for viewing your content or is it going to be a TV and your Mac will be serving it through some kind of media device (Apple TV, PS3, Oppo BDP-103, etc)?

One thing that you will need regardless is a lot of storage. Blu-Rays take up a serious amount of space, even ripped and stored as MKVs. I'd look at some of the storage arrays out there. I like the Drobos for flexibility although they take a back seat in performance (which isn't all that necessary for a media server).

Next, will you be consuming some of that content on your iPad? If so there are a number of iPad apps that communicate with your Mac or PC media server and can re-encode most any videos including MKVs on the fly to your iPad or iPhone. Of the four major examples (Air Video, StreamToMe, Air PlayIt HD and Media Center), I like the polish in StreamToMe the best (but they all work and aren't expensive to try any or all of them.


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