RE: [OT] Terabytes [was IDE]

[Mark Hallows <markhallows@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks Phil

I am gonna do some research now on the specs etc so I don't ask too many
daft questions later on i.e. "what is Hollywood +", "What's
an X Card" etc
etc..

Thanks again

Mark H.

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Harris [mailto:phil@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 09 December 2003 21:02
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] [OT] Terabytes [was IDE]



> The box shown is only an 8 bay.. Excuse my ignorance but how do you
get 16
> drives in an 8 bay.

8 drives in the PC case - 8 drives in the external firewire enclosure.

> + are you using serial ide,

No ... "normal" ATA133.

> if so how good is it ?

Haven't got anything SATA yet...

> Do you have a spec sheet on your movie server ?

Hmmm ... 550w Q-Tec PSU, Asus K7VT2 motherboard, Athlon XP2400+ processor,
512Mb DDR RAM, Highpoint RocketRAID 404 controller, 40Gb "boot"
drive, DVD
ROM, 8 x 160Gb ATA133 5400rpm drives, ATI Radeon 9000 AGP graphics (main
GUI
display), Nvidia GForce 5200 FX PCI graphics card (secondary GUI display
and
TV output), firewire card (Belkin I think).

The "hardware" spec has changed recently as my old motherboard
packed in so
I transferred over the mobo (plus graphics cards) from my "main"
PC so I'm
now having to use this "Movie Server" as my main domestic PC -
not much of a
hassle to be honest as I mainly use my lappy anyway and only use that
machine for a bit of PhotoShop and Premiere every now and again.

> What is the quality like ?

The ISOs are full DVD bitrate "bit for bit" copies (minus region
coding, RCE
and macrovision) so playback quality is dependent on the playback hardware.
I often use the lappy to play back movies via wireless LAN and I'm trying
to
get a nice (read *PROPERLY* user friendly) front end and player made using
the VIA EPIA boards and Hollywood Plus / XCard hardware decoders - the
XCard
has a *VERY* good video output stage and can give either composite, s-video
or component video output (unfortunately the composite and s-video output
on
the EPIA board itself sucks otherwise that would have been a very simple
solution).

> How are you getting your movies to the screen/amp/speakers ?

Network attached DVD "player" - trying to use the Hollywood Plus
/ XCard for
the video output and that card also gives a digital bitstream output for an
AV amp (or analogue stereo output to go into a normal stereo amp or TV
SCART
input). I have someone who understand the demon beast that is Linux looking
at using either Freevo or MythTV for a front end (Freevo can be compiled to
use the H+ card as a GUI output) - he also reckons that it should be
possible to network boot the player if it otherwise works so no hard disc
and no need for fans ... so a quiet player! :-D

> I am certain to have lots more questions.... :-)

Fairy nuff ... there's a couple of people doing something similar on here -
Graham Howe for a start. I'm sure we'll all be willing to bore the arse off
you with our crap.

Phil



UKHA 2004: 15th and 16th May 2004

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