I just finished building a dedicated home theatre. Six months of my life and a pile of money, but so worth it. My 300 or so DVDs are currently in a Sony 400 disc player...the player itself if good, but the interface/software is absolutely HORRIBLE. OK, so I want a Keleidoscope, but don't have an extra 20k laying around. Can I build my own? I have built my own PCs in the past, but am really a novice compared to most others in this forum. Is there a guide out there for me? I am not afraid to learn, but what I have read so far is intimidating the hell out of me! I just want a nice PC that will hold maybe 1000 movies and will play them at equivalent quality to the DVD (video and sound). I wouldn't even mind if I only copied the movie and one sound format, sacrificing the other DVD features. I will spend the money needed to do it right. Thanks, Sorry the post was so long. Ron
Are you planning to build an HTPC that'll hold 300 DVD Movies? You would need at least 3TB of space to hold the full amount, plus a little more. For example, (300 DVD Movies)*(8GB/Movie) = 2400GB = 2.4TB I would suggest at minimum a 7800GTX video card, and 2GB of ram. I would also recommend an AMD x2 4800. These things will help keep the system usage low, and smoothness great.
why not just convert the videos to xvid with ac3 sound. I have built a vod server this way, it keeps aspect ratio and dvd quality with its native surround sound and 1 movie only takes up 1.5 gigs check www vcdhelp com for guides on converting the videos this way
btw if you are building a htpc server you don't need the massive requirements that liquid is suggesting (am2 7800gt) you don't want a screaming machine out at your tv. MASSIVE MACHINES REQUIRE MASSIVE COOLING. MASSIVE COOLING = MORE NOISE. The one exception to that is if you are going to go the water cooling route. If not then you will want an older machine that can be cooled easier without alot of noise, if you are just watching and not recording you could get away with a 500mhz machine. Trust me the last thing you want when watching a movie is to hear all those fans spinning, ruining your movie experience. BTW for just viewing movies I have used as low as a pentium 350mhz running geexbox bootable linux multimedia cd without any stutter or other problems
