Using Ripit and mac mini for home theater

[azdunerat]

Ok so I am running a mac mini as my office desktop and think it would be even better as a htpc. I am looking at purchasing another one in a couple of months to add as the centerpiece of my 42" 480p Panasonic plasma hometheater. So this is my plan I already have a C2D mini connected to a AEBS and will be adding a LaCie 2bigtriple 2TB external HD to house my 100 or so DVD titles. I want to be able to stream the content to the htpc downstairs across the house. If the mini hasnt been upgraded by then I will either add another AEBS bridge to connect the mini via gigabit for N compatibility(my thoughts are that it will make my home network rock solid) or add a USB N adapter.

Now I am VERY VERY NEW TO MAC AND THIS ENTIRE RIPPING THING. So far I have downloaded Ripit and it seems to make perfect exact copies of the movies to my HDD, however streaming 6-7 gigs of info has my woried for bandwidth and load times. So I need some info. Will this work or do I need to add a second program to compress the files and make them more manageable. I really do not want to sacrafice quality at all so I have enjoyed Ripit making mirrored copies. Any and all help is much appreciated, I used this site a lot prior to buying my Mac set up and value the knowledge that seems to be overflowing from your posts.

Aaron

 

[millar876]

you could just download Handbreak. It's a great app for ripping and you can cue titles to rip aswell. and its free. It can rip to a multitude of formats. if you have only got the 480p system in your post you shouldnt realy need to use settings higher than "H264 video @ 2000kbps with Anamorphic set to strict and with Passthrough AC3 audio" that should shrink your DVDs down to a smaller sise without losing much (any noticable on a 480P TV) Quality and preserve full surround sound.

Just store them on the external and put an alias in your movie folder and you can work in front rowwith no problems

 

[azdunerat]

So do I need to worry about handbrake if I just want to keep the uncompressed files on the external HD for streaming purposes? Can a N network bandwidth handle that kind of data for smooth playback?

 

[jcschlic]

Yes, I keep all my Handbrake rips on an external and stream them to my Apple TV. (served by my Macbook C2D via Itunes)

 

[MacKinvan]

What are you doing to connect the audio? Is there something specific for this that you are doing. I want to do the same thing as soon as they introduce a new mac mini.

 

[azdunerat]

I am running the audio out to my hometheater system. I know some monitors have programable audio inputs that can be tethered to the HDMI input.

 

[dlegend]

can you use Ripit to make copies (backups) of DVDs? I.E. I want to take a DVD I own and back it up on another DVD. I'd like to keep everything intact (menus, extras, etc.) and put it on a single layer DVD (I understand there will be some quality lose).

Thanks.

 

[azdunerat]

Ripit places an image exact copy on your harddrive. You then use another program like handbrake to compress them to save you a lot of disk space.

 

[Yvan256]

Handbrake doesn't compress files to MPEG-2, which is required to burn a smaller-sized DVD.

 

[liquidtrend]

you do not want to lose clarity, but you will not get the full potential out of dvi/vga output right? i suppose with 480p you shouldnt have much to worry about.

if you have the hard drive space, then ripit is great.
as for streaming...you are most likely going to see a problem streaming 6-8gb files wirelessly.

youd have a much better chance just going ahead and compressing it with handbreak as everyone else is saying.

if you are only using this for movies...why not just use an appletv? you can then hack around so the usb input can store an external drive for the mass storage.

 

[azdunerat]

well I considered the apple tv but then started thinking, why not spend an extra 200 and have a full operating system that I can use downstairs. Yeah it might be a bit of overkill but hell I dont want to regret not spending the money later. I am condsidering the apple TV for the bedroom though.