How Organized Are Your Movies? - Screenshots!

[jasonnorm]

Storage:

1 TB of Raid-0 Storage for Movies (2x 500GB GTech G-Drives) connected via FW-800
600 GB of single drive storage for TV Shows and Music connected via FW-800 (daisy chained through Raid)

Contents:

305 Movies (VisualHub - GoNuts setting)
23 TV Shows (279 items) - Combination of iTunes purchases and DVD rips using HandBrake
Music - 562 Artists, 1,373 Albums, 18,462 songs

 

[jensepollense]

jeeez
thats a lot of movies/songs/tv shows haha

 

[weldon]

305 Movies (VisualHub - GoNuts setting)
23 TV Shows (279 items) - Combination of iTunes purchases and DVD rips using HandBrake
Music - 562 Artists, 1,373 Albums, 18,462 songs

Why did you use VisualHub for the movies and HandBrake for the TV shows? I'm wondering if you get better picture quality from one or the other or if HandBrake is better for discs that have multiple episodes.

 

[jasonnorm]

I find that VisualHub does give better picture quality so I use that whenever I can. For TV shows and some movies (with odd aspect ratios) I use HandBrake as it allows for easier ripping of episodic DVD's as well as better control over the aspect ratio for those odd movies.

 

[weldon]

I find that VisualHub does give better picture quality so I use that whenever I can. For TV shows and some movies (with odd aspect ratios) I use HandBrake as it allows for easier ripping of episodic DVD's as well as better control over the aspect ratio for those odd movies.

Thanks. I appreciate hearing about your experiences and when you choose to use one program over the other. I've been debating buying VisualHub for a few months now and I also like Handbrake so I appreciate hearing that there valid reasons to use both programs.

 

[xsedrinam]

Up through 700 were numbered through '98 (then lost interest). Catalogued in a Guide and sorted (1)alphabetically, (2)genre and (3)actors. I need to redo it, come to think of it, especially with all the newly acquired DVDs since then. And passing all the VHS tapes to DVD will take me the rest of my days.

 

[DoFoT9]

Storage:

1 TB of Raid-0 Storage for Movies (2x 500GB GTech G-Drives) connected via FW-800
600 GB of single drive storage for TV Shows and Music connected via FW-800 (daisy chained through Raid)

Contents:

305 Movies (VisualHub - GoNuts setting)
23 TV Shows (279 items) - Combination of iTunes purchases and DVD rips using HandBrake
Music - 562 Artists, 1,373 Albums, 18,462 songs

Mission Impossible III only goes for 10seconds

that is quite a collection there!!! thats amazing. what quality/bit rate/res/everything else do you encode at? with both handbrake and the visual hub setting?

very very nice collection there!!!

 

[phoxrenvatio]

i'm more worried about getting more good movies to watch than organizing them, though i'm slowly workin' on it... my biggest thing is keepin' series together... (221 total, LOTR is two files each still, but i don't care)

 

[nicoska]

Hi all,
I have a problem with MetaX when i try to edit a larger 4GB mp4.
How do you add tag to a file larger than 4GB ?
Thanks

Nico

 

[CKtoph]

The settings I use are... AppleTV, "Go Nuts"

Then under advanced, I constrain the file size to 4290 MB. This will yield a final size just under the magical 4 gigs, which keeps iTunes happy. Typical DVD rips never get that large (except for extra long movies like LOTR), but the hi-def mkvs look better for me when I make them as large as possible while still allowing tagging in iTunes (you can't add artwork to files larger than 4GB). Sometimes under audio, I specify a bitrate of 160, and manually choose "stereo," simply because those are the published limitations of tv.

If your main concern is picture quality, check the two-pass option. I never choose it, but keep in mind this obviously doubles the encode time.

 

[iTeen]

mines fairly organized, not to many movies thou.

 

[thrasherlife]

anyone know of a good tagging program similar to MetaX for windows? My TV is hooked up to an old PC so I can't run MetaX on it

 

[mopar003]

yup i do all the time.

not just movies, but tv episodes. it helps to waste time on the bus or something. i only rip my movies at 256kbps, or 512kbps. to save space. i dont need the quality on such a small screen

I use my iPod more as a vault. I store the movies on it (about 60 or so) for the kids and then hook the iPod up as an input device for the car. Instant movie collection for the DVD system in the mini van.

Also, a good source for movie covers is www.cdcovers.cc

 

[ucflyboy]

Those using Handbrake, what settings would be optimal for 50" plasma? I've also found that v 0.7.1 of Handbrake will rip some dvd's the newest version will not. I had a hard time finding but I could tell you how. Thanks all.

 

[annaj]

audio format?

Hey guys,

I've got a few .mkv files that are 1080p ripped from bluray discs that play in VLC, but in quicktime they play video (with perian), but no audio.
The audio is DTS (AC3, I think, which would explain why it's not playing in quicktime). Do I have to go and convert the whole file using visualhub? That takes sooooo long on my computer 5+ hours!

Is there some way of just converting the audio,
or extracting, converting, and combining audio/video?
Or is that going to take just as long, and possibly result in un-synced audio?

I know this isn't the right thread to ask,
but I wasn't actually out looking for an answer until I found this thread.
I'm really anal about organizing my computer, and this makes me really want to get my media into itunes to be able to use front row!

Thanks
Anna

 

[wmealer]

Hey guys,

I've got a few .mkv files that are 1080p ripped from bluray discs that play in VLC, but in quicktime they play video (with perian), but no audio.
The audio is DTS (AC3, I think, which would explain why it's not playing in quicktime). Do I have to go and convert the whole file using visualhub? That takes sooooo long on my computer 5+ hours!

Is there some way of just converting the audio,
or extracting, converting, and combining audio/video?
Or is that going to take just as long, and possibly result in un-synced audio?

I know this isn't the right thread to ask,
but I wasn't actually out looking for an answer until I found this thread.
I'm really anal about organizing my computer, and this makes me really want to get my media into itunes to be able to use front row!

Thanks
Anna

Anna, you don't mention tv, but I'll go ahead and assume you're trying to watch your files that way. Unfortunately tv can't even begin to handle 1080p. If that's the case then your files will definitely have to be re-encoded down to 720p.

Reading your post again, I realize you may just want to watch .mkv files via FrontRow on your Mac. You may find the answer you need in the thread ".mkv revisited." Several ideas in there...

 

[xXriderXx7]

This is the culmination of hours of ripping:

 

[annaj]

Anna, you don't mention tv, but I'll go ahead and assume you're trying to watch your files that way. Unfortunately tv can't even begin to handle 1080p. If that's the case then your files will definitely have to be re-encoded down to 720p.

Reading your post again, I realize you may just want to watch .mkv files via FrontRow on your Mac. You may find the answer you need in the thread ".mkv revisited." Several ideas in there...

Thanks for responding!
You were right the second time - I'm just trying to watch using front row. I've got my macbook that I carry around with me everywhere.
After reading this thread, I got really excited at the prospect of watching HD through front row and actually did end up searching the forums for info after my post. I found the 'mkv revisited' thread and read through it. From the sounds of it, It is just too much trouble to change the audio on its own.
Last night I set my first HD file to encode - took almost 500 minutes, but it's a beauty!

Anyone care to share what hardware specs they are using to encode to .mp4, and how long it usually takes? I'm curious to know if mine's a normal time, and how much a faster machine would speed it up. I have a macbook 2.16GHz intel core 2 duo with 2GB ram. I used visualhub to encode an .mkv with DTS using the MP4 "standard" setting, limiting the file size to 4GB.

Thanks so much to everyone who has posted on this thread,
you've got me really excited about setting up my system to use it to it's full advantage. If this thread is still here down the line, I'll come back and post better screenshots, these are pretty lame. There's only 1 sad little HD file in there!

Anna

 

[FleurDuMal]

All moved onto my Macbooks newly installed 250GB hard drive (previously on an external Lacie drive):

-97 movies
-213 television episodes.

All encoded from DVD at either iPhone/iTouch preset settings on Handbrake or 1250kbs video + 192kbs audio (trying to re-encode my movies for iTouch/iPhone compatibility).

 

[savar]

Howsa bout pm'ing me those "sources" so you can share the appletv love? I thought about hooking up my xbox drive to my vista pc and find someway to rip it and then transfer it to my mac but that seems like alot of work when you can just pop the disc in, i just hate all the fan noise.

I heard a rumor that the Xbox drive is actually recognized in Mac OS X, but you can't do anything with it because DVD Player.app doesn't support HD.

Still I imagine there's an open source ripping app for HD DVD, right?

 

[mac2thefuture]

All moved onto my Macbooks newly installed 250GB hard drive (previously on an external Lacie drive):

-97 movies
-213 television episodes.

All encoded from DVD at either iPhone/iTouch preset settings on Handbrake or 1250kbs video + 192kbs audio (trying to re-encode my movies for iTouch/iPhone compatibility).

OK, please tell me how bundle TV series within a specific folder...looks nice and neat.

 

[annaj]

OK, please tell me how bundle TV series within a specific folder...looks nice and neat.

If you're talking about his first picture there - that's just a feature in iTunes,
he's got all the info in the meta date (show title and episode number) and then just sort it by show - it will but all the videos with that tv series name together, and then even sort it by episode number.

 

[je1ani]

Your guys movies can't be looking THAT great if you can tag them and put them in iTunes. My smallest 720p video file is Lion King at 3.86GB and encoding to MP4 only increases the size. my smallest 1080p is 8.71gb so i'd imagine you'd suffer a huge quality blow.

 

[NightStorm]

Your guys movies can't be looking THAT great if you can tag them and put them in iTunes. My smallest 720p video file is Lion King at 3.86GB and encoding to MP4 only increases the size. my smallest 1080p is 8.71gb so i'd imagine you'd suffer a huge quality blow.

What bitrate are your files?

 

[Krevnik]

Your guys movies can't be looking THAT great if you can tag them and put them in iTunes. My smallest 720p video file is Lion King at 3.86GB and encoding to MP4 only increases the size. my smallest 1080p is 8.71gb so i'd imagine you'd suffer a huge quality blow.

Well, most of the movies in my collection are all 480p (DVD) resolution. I have a couple that are 720p, but getting a good 720p encode under 4GB is really, really tough.

At this point I am just ignoring HD encodes and sticking with 480p encodes.