Hello there . Inevitably we all come down to the decision of backing up our music and movie collections so that we do not have to worry about "death and decay" (or in my case, five-finger discounts from the brothers). I'm trying to work on a backup process that is neat, tidy, cheap, and most of all full. I've been doing some research on the process of backing up DVD's for a little bit now, and while I'm no expert with all the format types and styles, I'm a little blown away by the wide variety of choices people use to back up their collections. Everyone has their own preference, so I'll label what I've decided I want to start with and I was hoping some others might be able to give their opinions on the matter. I've come to find that when it comes to digital media, I always wind up looking here first, so it's probably the best place to turn to anyhow. Just to start, my main goal is to keep the entire dvd intact, unedited, and neat. This easily points to a .iso format, which is just an image of a DVD. Simple enough, and VLC can play them with no difficulty. But before I start on the journey of turning my DVD collection into .iso's, I had a few questions... 1) Is it possible to shrink them, without losing any FEATURES (not quality). I have a sub-par entertainment system at the moment, save the PS3 for blu-ray playing (but no HDMI or HDTV to watch it on) so I already know my quality is not exactly going to be gleam and glisten. However, I know that somewhere down the road (it's already happened once) my sister is going to want to access these random extra features on her harry potter dvd that I backed up years ago, and I'd like for that to be possible. If it's not (most shrinkers ask you to cut off certain parts, leave only the main movie, etc.), then that's ok, as everyone is saying... storage space is cheap nowadays. But if it is possible to retain all the information but make the size smaller, that'd be really nice. 2) Streaming. Always a killer. I understand that .iso is not really a viable method to stream, I can be sad, but live with that. Here's where I'm confused (and this might be out of this forum's realm and into the xbmc world). VLC can read/play ISO's. As well, a program known as XBMC (XBox Media Center) can also read/play ISO. The difference between the two is, the XBMC is installed on.. an XBox. Implying that i do not have the iso on it, yet it can still read/play the file. Now, from everywhere I've read, this should not be possible. ISO's really require the user to be on the machine that the ISO is loaded on to mount and play. Does XBMC take the movie and mount it on the XBox? Or on the computer it's self. *IF* it can mount it on the computer and simply stream over the results, is this also possible with VLC? Finally, if THAT is possible, is it then possible to access these .iso files from anywhere and play them like XBMC/VLC can? (I believe the right question is, can I set up remote access to the .iso files [be it FTP, Media Server, etc.] and access them/play them from anywhere? I know Media Servers say no to .iso, but if it were possible, my next question would obviously be how or where do I look for opening access to my media... 3) I'm sure this could possibly be made a little simpler with a HTPC (I actually just started reading into this yesterday). As such, I'm not too familiar with how they work, their main purpose, and if it would be feesable to turn my old desktop (i'll be upgrading it................. eventually) into a HTPC to accomplish my goals over trying to use the old Xbox for that very same purpose. ---- As it is, I'm going with the .iso route, as XBMC on the XBox recognizes the files, allows me to access everything that a DVD has to offer, and does it relatively well (really wish I had a fancy TV). I'm just trying to find out what the video guru's here would consider to be the next step (or a detour step.. "save yourself the trouble!"). Thank you
This method will let you back up your DVD's, DVD Shrink will compress them (maybe around 70% should be good quality, less on computer and ImgBurn create's an iso. That's an old guide, DVDFabHDDecrypter now : http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/334154 FixVTS is easy and fast, just don't let it delete the file until you're sure you have a new one. IsoBuster will open iso's too and is free, open file, click on VIDEO_TS and save where you want. Know nothing on PS3, X box, etc.
I don't use ISO's for movies so can't vouch as to whether ISO's work via XBMC. Obviously XBMC will play media whether it's local on an xbox hard drive or on a pc, and you just share the relevant folders containing the media to be played. My main pc has all the movies and music for XBMC use, and i just have a few select folders shared so that all the xboxes around the house can play the media. Recently XBMC has been ported to Windows (and a few other OSes), it's known as Atlantis (version 8.10). You can try out XBMC for Windows - http://xbmc.org/download/ - it takes all of 2 minutes to install and the only thing i've had to configure is the default region ie UK, the Weather page and an SMB network source. So far i've run the XBMC Live CD, worked very well indeed, and have installed XBMC on a couple of pc's so far; am very, very impressed. Have yet to install it on all my other pc's and have now updated all my xboxes to the Atlantis version from Auto Installer Deluxe 4.40 (XBMC on AID 4.40 is updated to 2008-12-07 (which is the first SVN Build after the Atlantis Final))
I've seen you post in quite a few of the topics I've read on the matter, it's nice to see you reply . I actually believe it was one of your posts that convinced me that ... screw it if I can't really stream it far, having 2 of the 3 options I want is gold, and odds are in the end I'll be able to set it up so that I can access the files anywhere. Locally speaking, I know I can play the .ISO through VLC as well, but my question would be how to access them... I think my answer would be, not VLC, but XBMC for windows (and MAC, in my case). I haven't tried the windows client, and that might just be my answer, though I bet VLC probably has the same functionality locally. Just curious, is there any possible way to take it a step further and access the files for streaming outside of the local network? Or would my best bet (and what I decided I would do yesterday) be to set up a FTP server and just d/l the file from a far when I really want to watch it?
Hehe, no problem. Not sure i can fully answer what you're after though. Apologies for missing part of your post where you'd stated you've used ISO's thru XBMC, netbooks are great and everything but sometimes it's hard to take in all the info on a small screen As to movies, i only ever do movie only mode, and even then i don't keep the movie files on hard drives for long once i've burnt to DVD. For episodic discs i just do full disc mode and run the files thru DVD Rebuilder to keep the quality as good as possible. But again, i don't keep those on hard drives for long once burnt. All i keep 'online' ie on hard drives for watching via pc's/xboxes are DVD Concerts, MP3's and loads of AVI movies. I have converted a fair few DVD's to AVI using AutoGK, and that's the program i've personally found to be the best (obviously everybody's best is subjective). Anyways, any DVD's i convert, i choose 1400MB as the best (for me) compromise between quality and size. I have all movies on DVD somewhere anyway but for quick and easy adhoc viewing i'm happy enough with the quality of AVI's i've either 'acquired' or converted myself, which are instantly accessible via XBMC. I can't face converting many more DVD's to AVI though, there's way too many of them As to the question of watching/accessing movies from afar, how far is 'afar' ?. An FTP server is obviously a great way to store things and access from anywhere, the downside is securing them from intruders (public FTP sites get hammered to buggery by potential intruders), plus file access would probably be slow due to the size of the files - just think how long it takes to download Linux ISO's or the like via the internet, a 700MB ISO can take an age even from a big, well known company with a monster HTTP or FTP connection. I can't speak for PS3's as i don't have one. I do have a couple (unmodded) xbox 360's and have watched the odd movie clip thru a 360. Not impressed really, partly down to the codecs that MS provide (i don't trust MS with the codecs, i think they just like to find out what media files we all play!), plus i won't use a 360 for non-game playing as i'm already paranoid that even light game playing will ultimately result in the infamous RROD
Pretty much what I gatherd in the end: Sreaming video is tough business, just stick to local networks. And if that's the case, then .iso and XBMC/VLC is my way to go I plan on keeping everything in digital copy, as while a HDD can fail, I have a better chance of it not when it's not moving at all, and my DVD's are already half missing XD. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep lookin into what I can find, but I think i've got everything settled for now. PErhaps one day a media server will allow streaming of .iso, but.. we'll see.
Yeah hard drives are great and everything, but they still fail. The other day i lost 250GB of tunes due to a loose SATA cable, how badly designed are they!. Luckily i have a backup hard drive of every hard drive (15 drives on main pc so far) and was able to reformat and recover all the tunes. I certainly wouldn't be amused re-ripping even a dozen albums never mind 250GB worth
Still shocked that so many months later, I'm still trying to look into it, and still coming up empty handed. I just got a new HDTV and I'm trying to find the best way to get the most use out of it. I'm just not sure with so many options available, the best for playing DVDs the way I want it still is XBMC. Amazing...
I've spent the last few weeks ripping a couple hundred of my favourite DVD's back to the main PC for converting to 1400MB AVI's (XviD) via AutoGK to live permanently on the PC for XBMC viewing. 'Favourite' is subjective though as every time i go thru my DVD binders looking for certain movies to convert i always fall upon more that i'd forgotten about. I've manage to show restraint and have finally wittled down the list to the last couple dozen movies i want to convert and apart from the odd movie i think of to convert along the way, i'm not doing any more mass converting if i can help it. I had two PC's on constantly for days, chomping thru the movies, luckily AutoGK has a batch mode. XBMC is still my first choice for watching stuff, in fact i'm watching all the X-Files DVD's thru from the beginning (again) via the one xbox, just hope i don't wear it's dvd drive out. One day i'll get around to ripping all X-Files and Battlestar Galactica seasons to the PC, whenever i can buy another hard drive and USB2.0 enclosure (i only keep stuff like boxsets in enclosures, don't need stuff like that internal to the PC). Battlestar would be easy as they'd all been thru DVD Rebuilder before but my X-Files boxsets are all the originals, don't fancy running all those thru Rebuilder in a hurry
I'm starting to think that i'll use my external HDD as a true "back up" utility and i might break down and start ripping some of the .iso into .avi for streaming to the PS3/360. It just seems like it's the thing to do. Then if anyone is desperate enough to want to watch the movie in french, i'll turn on the good ol xbox and enjoy the full dvd on occasion.
