RE: Should I re-rip all my movies??!!

[Paul Gordon <paul_gordon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This really is quite a timely topic, as I'm taking delivery of my
shiny new
QNAP 15TB NAS tomorrow... :-)  (TS-559 Pro II if you're interested, with 5
x
3TB drives).... This is intended to replace - and allow me to decommission
my current Win7 based media centre PC which currently holds my 600-odd DVDs
all ripped as VIDEO_TS folders, which I play via My Movies installed on the
same box... They all have the main movie ripped only, with DD (AC3)
soundtrack, no subtitles, no menus, no additional languages etc.

I'm *really* attracted to the simplicity & the gorgeous UI of the Apple
TV,
but from what I've read so far, there really doesn't seem to be any truly
satisfactory way of getting it to play my existing media. I read a series
of
articles yesterday about re-encoding to either MKV or MK4, and the various
capabilities of each format, and from my understanding, MKV has a couple of
significant drawbacks over MK4, and even MK4 isn't perfect in some aspects,
such that *neither* of them would replicate the exact functionality that I
get now... (at least not without a fair degree of faffing about, and
faffing
about is not something I really want to be doing these days... - I want
something that "just works")

So, on that basis, I'm pretty much of the opinion that I do not want to,
and
shall not go through the palaver of re-encoding all my existing rips, and I
will seek the next best alternative after the Apple TV... - the most
important considerations being:

Plays VIDEO_TS natively, with full support for DD5.1
Attractive UI
Ease of use
Reliability

I've previous experience of XBMC on the original XBOX (still have a couple
of softmodded ones), but I'm *really* not keen on using anything which is
based on either a full PC (too much power consumption, too long startup
times), or on Windows (too damn unreliable)... I know there are reasonably
low power PC's available... (I have one of those Acer Aspire thingies, and
a
Dell Zino HD mini-PC), and I believe there's an XMBC Live CD, and a version
to run on Apple TV (which I'm going to investigate further)... - but even
so, I'd still much prefer a playback device that is a dedicated purpose
box,
that does ONE thing only, and does it very well, that is solid state,
fanless, very low power, simple remote, and is plug in & go (much like
Apple
TV if only it supported my media!)

As the new backend is arriving tomorrow, and It will only take me a week or
two to install, configure & copy all the media to it, the need to now
sort
out the replacement front end is becoming ever more pressing!

Paul G.


-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
John Benfield
Sent: 03 November 2011 21:14
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Should I re-rip all my movies??!!

I suspect you will get a number of answers here.

I believe there are two formats that are worth considering - .mkv
seems to be the most popular. It can hold multiple audio and subtitle
tracks and can be played by Plex, XMBC and many others players. On the
audio side, it can hold both DD and DTS which may be an advantage to
you.

The other options (for me anyway) is .m4v, this allows me to have a
single rip of a DVD that will play on Plex and my various
iPad/iPods/iPhones around the house. m4v is a simpler format if you
like and cannot handle DTS and it's too good at subtitles eiher. I use
Handbrake for all my conversions, for m4v I use the AppleTV2 option
which puts a stero audio track on track 1 and the full DD5.1 on track
2 allowing the file to played most placed. I also hardcode any
subtitle (again that's not to everyones liking).

There is very little to chose between the two for file sizes, but if
you do re-encode all of your ISO/videos_ts you will reduce your disk
usage by about 70%.

For batch processing of existing ripped DVD's i just use handbrake and
manually load each disk into the program. This lets me check the
options that have been selected and to be frank, spending 2 mins
checking against the 1.5 hr encoding (i've a slow desktop) I can't be
bother to automate it.

On 3 November 2011 19:49, noeley1983pilot <noel@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> So as plex rumbles on, apple tv sits in the corner slightly unloved
and i
head towards needing more SWMBO friendly options for movies etc around the
house I find myself wondering if I should re-encode all my movies?
>
> My understanding is that all the cool plex clients on samsung tv/bd
players, lg tv's etc etc all transcode the content meaning they won't play
dvd rips from isos/video ts folders.
>
> Is this still the case??
>
>
> My entire collection of around 500 films are iso's or video ts
folders.....so what should I do?
>
> As they're all ripped already I assume there's some reasonable
handbrake/visual hub equivalents out there that could just be left to churn
through all the films over what would probably take a month or so to
complete with me just selecting the title to rip etc now and again.
>
> But what to rip to?!?!
>
> Figured you all on this list were by far the best group of people to
ask
so looking forwards to all the thoughts!!
>
> Thanks all
>
> Noel
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>


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