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TV/DVD assistance please!

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AndesSMF (Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 01:50Post
OK, this is what I am trying to accomplish.

Copy entire DVD library to 1.5 TB drive
Play DVDs from hard drive into TV
Be able to record from TV to computer

Thoughs and ideas are appreciated.
Einstein said two things were infinite; the universe, and stupidity. He wasn't sure about the first, but he was certain about the second.
CO777ER (Database Editor & Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 01:53Post
Best DVD rip software is handbrake. It works well for iPods/iPhones as well.

What video card connection do you have on the PC? HDMI? Displayport? DVI?

Record from TV to Comp: look for a TV tuner card. I got one at fry's last year for 75$. It made it possible to watch TV on my monitor as well, thus eliminating a TV from my dorm room and giving me some more space.
AndesSMF (Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 04:51Post
CO777ER wrote:What video card connection do you have on the PC? HDMI? Displayport? DVI?

Different types, but I am not certain as to what or how I can get the connection done from the hard drive to the computer, as I would love to have some level of remote control.
CO777ER wrote:Record from TV to Comp: look for a TV tuner card.

I have one, though my computer ceased to like it.
Einstein said two things were infinite; the universe, and stupidity. He wasn't sure about the first, but he was certain about the second.
CO777ER (Database Editor & Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 05:58Post
AndesSMF wrote:
CO777ER wrote:What video card connection do you have on the PC? HDMI? Displayport? DVI?

Different types, but I am not certain as to what or how I can get the connection done from the hard drive to the computer, as I would love to have some level of remote control.
CO777ER wrote:Record from TV to Comp: look for a TV tuner card.

I have one, though my computer ceased to like it.


What kind is it? You might need to re-install the drivers.
AndesSMF (Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 06:03Post
I tried it, and it failed. I started using hulu.com
Einstein said two things were infinite; the universe, and stupidity. He wasn't sure about the first, but he was certain about the second.
CO777ER (Database Editor & Founding Member) 18 Nov 09, 06:21Post
1. Does your PC recognize the card
2. What make/model is it?
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 18 Nov 09, 09:47Post
You might want to Google for "tv hdd enclosure" or "dvr hdd enclosure".

Personally, I've just finished ripping all my DVDs (bar about 15 that won't work) to MP4. I'm not interested in recording TV (I sometimes watch something on BBC iPlayer but that's about it), and I don't need the capacity you do, so I went for one of these. I only ordered it on Monday, so haven't got it yet.

To rip/transcode the DVDs, I use DVD Decrypter to rip them to my hard drive, then Handbrake to turn them into MP4s. I've written this up somewhere on here before, but my procedure's changed; I'll look it out later and post a link.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
lobster68w (Founding Member) 19 Nov 09, 22:40Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:You might want to Google for "tv hdd enclosure" or "dvr hdd enclosure".

Personally, I've just finished ripping all my DVDs (bar about 15 that won't work) to MP4. I'm not interested in recording TV (I sometimes watch something on BBC iPlayer but that's about it), and I don't need the capacity you do, so I went for one of these. I only ordered it on Monday, so haven't got it yet.

To rip/transcode the DVDs, I use DVD Decrypter to rip them to my hard drive, then Handbrake to turn them into MP4s. I've written this up somewhere on here before, but my procedure's changed; I'll look it out later and post a link.



Let us know what you are doing now. I'm very interested.

So far, I have DVD Shrink, Handbrake, AnyDVD, and DVD Clone, but haven't really figured out how to get them ripped to my HD to MP4 yet.
Down with this sort of thing!
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 19 Nov 09, 23:30Post
Basically, it seems to be a two-stage process - and even if it doesn't have to be, that's probably the most efficient use of your time. Get a stack of DVDs ripped onto your hard disk while you're doing other things at the machine, and then batch 'em all up for conversion to MP4 overnight.

Here's my amended procedure: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1908&p=22281#p22281
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
lobster68w (Founding Member) 20 Nov 09, 09:04Post
Well, so far I ripped the Butterfly Effect to my HD using DVD Shrink. Now I'm in the process of (hopefully) ripping it to MP4 using Handbrake. Looks like it will take about an hour and a half though. {grumpy} I'm hoping it all works out!! I'd love to be able to slowly backup all my DVD's onto my HD!
Down with this sort of thing!
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 20 Nov 09, 11:22Post
Hope that works out {thumbsup}

This might sound a bit stupid when you're converting DVD to MP4, but if you're doing a lot of these, get yourself a cake or two of blank DVDs and back up the MP4s onto DVD. You'll get four or five onto a disc, maybe even six if they're all short. By the time you're done, you'll have invested a lot of time in this process, and if the worst should happen to your hard disk... {boxed}

I also found a strange thing, namely that running Firefox seemed to make the transcoding go faster, like, 100% faster. As it turned out, what's actually happening is a bug in Firefox that often causes it to eat an entire CPU's worth of processor time when closed; on my 2-core laptop, that robs Handbrake of half the power of the machine. The giveaway is closing FF and hearing the fan kick in and stay running; have to Ctrl-Alt-Del into Task Mangler and kill the firefox.exe process manually.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
lobster68w (Founding Member) 20 Nov 09, 21:16Post
It worked! :))

Now, I just have to get a good batch ready and do a bunch at a time some night.

The FF thing is interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!
Down with this sort of thing!
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 20 Nov 09, 21:50Post
lobster68w wrote:It worked! :))

Now, I just have to get a good batch ready and do a bunch at a time some night.

The FF thing is interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!

Excellent :)

Just to make sure we're clear on the Firefox thing: It's not that having FF open makes HB go faster, rather that closing it can cause HB to go slower. If you've closed FF before kicking off the batch job (and I would, given how much RAM it eats), go into Task Manager and make sure it's really dead.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 24 Nov 09, 00:08Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:I went for one of these. I only ordered it on Monday, so haven't got it yet.

Update: I have it. The blurb on ebay said it took an IDE disk, but when I opened it up there were SATA cables installed. IDE cables were loose in the box.

So I bought a 500GB SATA disk. XP can see it via USB, so I copied a wad of movies over. But the gadget itself claims it can't see the disk.

I guess the next step is to buy a small IDE HDD to test with...
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 24 Nov 09, 21:38Post
Update 2: Ripped the 80GB IDE disk out of my old PC, and the thing can see it fine.

The box it came in says it supports IDE and SATA disks up to 500GB. So the question now is, does it not like the first disk because it's SATA or because it's 500GB?

Mind you, I should have been suspicious when I realised they'd included a magnetic screwdriver to install the disk with. {facepalm}

As far as I can tell, all the cables are OK - and if they weren't, XP wouldn't have been able to read the disk anyway. It may just need a firmware update, but with it being a no-name Chinese cheapie I haven't got a chance in hell of finding firmware.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
Boris (Founding Member) 24 Nov 09, 22:30Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:Update 2: Ripped the 80GB IDE disk out of my old PC, and the thing can see it fine.

The box it came in says it supports IDE and SATA disks up to 500GB. So the question now is, does it not like the first disk because it's SATA or because it's 500GB?

Mind you, I should have been suspicious when I realised they'd included a magnetic screwdriver to install the disk with. {facepalm}

As far as I can tell, all the cables are OK - and if they weren't, XP wouldn't have been able to read the disk anyway. It may just need a firmware update, but with it being a no-name Chinese cheapie I haven't got a chance in hell of finding firmware.


The link you provided to E-bay says:

# Support up to 500GB HDD Hard Disk
# Support PATA/IDE HDD, do not support SATA


Could the cables have been PATA, not SATA??? Just curious, I have no idea...

Good luck with the gadget...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers...
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 25 Nov 09, 00:30Post
Boris wrote:The link you provided to E-bay says:

# Support up to 500GB HDD Hard Disk
# Support PATA/IDE HDD, do not support SATA


Could the cables have been PATA, not SATA??? Just curious, I have no idea...

Good luck with the gadget...

Yeah...

The box it comes in says SATA or IDE, and the cables actually say SATA on them. Figured the people who made the damn thing would know more about it than someone selling it...

Looks like I'm buying an IDE drive and throwing the SATA one on Ebay.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
ShyFlyer (Founding Member) 25 Nov 09, 00:37Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:it being a no-name Chinese cheapie

That right there explains so much.
Make Orwell fiction again.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 04 Dec 09, 23:26Post
Stumbled across this by chance, and I'm having a lot of fun with it: XBMC

Just pointed it at my movies directory, and it went off and downloaded all the cover art, descriptions, etc... That's about all I need, but it seens to be able to handle TV too, which I think is what Andes was looking for.

I think I'm going to be getting a small PC (mini-ITX) and running this on it.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
 

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