Putting movies on harddrives for use on a projector?

[chrono1081]

When I get back home I plan on getting a projector system for my "cinema room" in my house. However, I was wondering if what I am about to do is feasable:

Instead of having to root through movies all the time (since every time I open my movie cabinets my movies go missing) I wanted to rip them all onto a hard drive so the computer attached to my projector could just play them. Heres my question:

-What would the best format be to rip these so they are the closest quality to their original dvd? (I tried google but come up with a million different answers)

-I don't read of many people doing this...and that makes me think this may be a dumb idea (although I could see no downsides except for space but with over 20TB to play with I have plenty of that ) I have about 2,000 movies so I am sure not all will fit on there but a majority would be nice.

Anyone do anything similar? These are standard dvds not blu ray.

 

[edesignuk]

I just want to know more about your 20TB to play with. What do you have to give you all that storage!?

 

[chrono1081]

I buy these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332017

And then I buy 5 1tB drives to put in them. i have 4 total that used to house camera raw files from my photography days but I am converting them for this movie project.

When you read the newegg reviews people will complain about the case (some people) but I have never had any problems with mine *knock on wood*. I really like them, they are cheap, and they have a normal power plug (not that crappy pin system most external cases use.) They are eSata and USB 2.0 (so my eeePC can access them).

 

[mrwizardno2]

I don't have near as many movies as you do, but I have about 450 DVD's or so. I've been ripping the mpeg stream straight off the disc and storing it in its native format. I've only got about 120 of them ripped so far... it's a fair bit of work to make sure they rip and play correctly. Quicktime won't play them, but VLC and a lot of other stuff will. I think this works well, most movies are about 4 gigs or so, some are almost double that... but average for me is around 5 gigs each. If you were going to rip all of them, you'd probably have to transcode them to something a little more efficient, but I like the look of mpeg vs seeing them recompressed using yet another codec.

 

[Consultant]

Plenty of people do it.

For a DVD of 2 hours, a 1.3gb file would work fine, if you want more, you could probably go for a 2gb file.

MacTheRipper to rip, HandBrake or VisualHub to convert.

If you do it in mp4 format of right bit rate, you can use FrontRow on your computer that is connected to the projector.

 

[motulist]

Let's just do the math.

2000 movies * ~6 GB per uncompressed movie = 12,000 GB required.

1 tera byte ~ 1000 GB * 20 = 20,000 GB available.

According to my math you should be able to rip the video files directly off all 2000 DVDs without recompressing them and they should all fit easily on your storage drives. 20,000 - 12,000 = 8,000 GB left even after all movies are stored on your drives.

 

[huntercr]

I buy these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332017

And then I buy 5 1tB drives to put in them. i have 4 total that used to house camera raw files from my photography days but I am converting them for this movie project.

When you read the newegg reviews people will complain about the case (some people) but I have never had any problems with mine *knock on wood*. I really like them, they are cheap, and they have a normal power plug (not that crappy pin system most external cases use.) They are eSata and USB 2.0 (so my eeePC can access them).

Since it seem you're not hardware RAID5ing these, please tell me you're backing these up or using OSX's software RAID mirroring for these. The thought of 20 spindles with 1TB each of data on them makes me huddle up in a corner and cry.

Especially after you got to all the trouble of ripping your 2000 movies, you are going to be REALLY mad if it fails and you have to re-rip a couple hundred of them.

 

[chrono1081]

Thank you for the suggestions guys As for converting them to be playable by my mac without compressing them what type of format/settings would I use? I have quicktime pro, visualhub (although this doesn't really work for me), handbrake, mac the ripper, and dvd 2 oneX. (I'm willing to buy any software I need, I saw someone mention VLC)

Sorry for the dumb questions but googling is leading to frustration :/ I really don't know much about video formats.

As for backups I will be having a seperate set of drives for backups. Once I fill these up Ill see what new drives I have to buy. This sounds expensive but after having to replace movies that were stolen as well as movies people borrowed I decided it was time to create a big backup.

 

[MrLatte23]

Try H.264

It may take some testing but the QuickTime h.264 codec offers pretty decent results for the file sizes produced. If space is not an issue 8 or 10-bit uncompressed or ProRes. The last three aren't distribution codecs as h.264 is but they do look great. You'll need to have Final Cut Studio 2 to get ProRes.

 

[motulist]

for converting them to be playable by my mac without compressing them what type of format/settings would I use?

Just use MacTheRipper. There are no settings because the whole point is you aren't doing anything to the video file, you're merely just copying the video file directly off the DVD and onto your hard drive. This will copy the VIDEO_TS folder which contains the DVD's video files directly off the DVD and put them on your hard disk. The only options are easy enough to figure out, such as wehther or not you want to include all the chapters, all the extra features, all the alternate language tracks, etc.

 

[Mbalmer]

Here is the best way to do it man!

Rip using mac the ripper, save them to your hard drives in full, especially with that much room. Create an alias of the HDs that you have them on then put the aliases in the movies folder of the computer you are using. Then use front row to play them. Apple in the last year finally has updated front row for AC3 and dolby digital 5.1 and the ability to play video-ts folders.
I use a mac mini with digital optical to my reciever and DVI to my bigscreen. I have 8 teragigs of nothing but full length archived dvds. The little white remote works great but many of the new learning remotes will support it. Its by far the best way to do it. I have tried everything, media central, drive in, and a few other video ts launchers and front row is now by far the best. And the way its laid out I bet it will act as an ATV before to long.
GOOD LUCK and have fun, its an awesome setup!!!!!!!!! JEFF

 

[chrono1081]

Thank you guys for all the replies I think I am going to go the video_ts/front row route. I tried the h.246 last night with handbrake but handbrake kept closing right as the file would finish and freeze the mac. Not sure if thats a normal problem or not but since Front Row can read the video files its perfect Thank you guys for all of the suggestions!