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brianus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 17, 2005
401
0
Hi, I recently bought a 750GB miniStack (firewire HDD) and was thinkin' bout loading my DVD collection on there.. but I have a problem; obviously just ripping them all as-is would be a colossal waste of space (at 4-8 GB per disc, I'm already running out of room!) plus I'm not sure if VIDEO_TS directories can be shared/played back via UPnP, should I ever choose to go that route. On the other hand, if I just convert them all to .avis with HandBrake, then I've got a bunch of chapterless, menuless, subtitleless files; where's the sense in that?

I've read on some websites that there are alternative container formats that may support at least some DVD features, but I can't decide what to use. I've never seen an AVI with chapters or subs but wikipedia says it supports them (with no evidence to back that up); I've heard Matroska is supposed to support menus, but is is that really a viable format that would be worth putting the effort into? And MP4, OGG, MOV -- where do they fit in?

What do most folks with movie libraries on their computers use? Which format would be better, why, and what programs can be used to encode/play it?

Maybe I just haven't found the right guide yet, but as of now, I'm lost, and my VIDEO_TS directory collection is starting to make short work of that Seagate. Any advice would be appreciated...
 
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