The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

My collection is all in one room, somebody wants one its a matter of a minute to watch wherever what room, everything you just explained as I said before most people do not understand nor even want to.

Many people can use a pc but won't understand your set up, because you have gotten so savvy and don't forget you were raised with pc's, many people have not, plus the fact your more savvy than most anyway when it comes to pc's, I still even know many youngsters are not even close to your knowledge and never will be, your method of explaining things is another language to most people, you seen to forget what is simple to you is not to them, I can get into construction work, auto mechanics and make your head spin if I were to explain things like you do, most people can't even understand the manual booklets on how to set those things up your talking about, it's mostly get a friend that does, or a friend of a friend or hire somebody, I see it happen all the time.

And about wireless routers, or networking especially, oh man, now thats really over peoples heads, you wanna talk about problematic I'm not even gonna go there, and today most people have 40 inch set or above, there not gonna watch movies on some 32 or lower inch set pc screen as a lot of you guys do, I would love to have the kind of set up like your talking about, it's still to far fitched for me some day maybe I will, as far as now dvd's are just fine and easy to use plus don't forget the fact they will outlast all your HDD especially if you use good media and take good care of it, as far as bluray, no thanks don't want it, seen it, anything under 40 inch is a waste, can't hardly see any difference, and my eye sight is still great.

I will never argue about your pc knowledge, I will just listen, read and learn, you got me there and always will, on practicality it's vise versa.

 

omegaman7 : It took me 2 days to move my movies on to a 2T HDD
75% were 700meg the rest 1.4 gig

 

Then it's their loss I guess. Not understanding something that can make your life easier is I suppose a common situation.

I have set things up for several people who have no computer knowledge whatsoever, I've had to guide them through it, but I got there, including teaching my 80 year old grandfather from scratch. Because he's willing to make an effort, it wasn't actually a monumental task to do. Left to his own devices, he's been quite willing to learn things about the PC and over the course of a few years has become quite proficient.

Not trying to lord over people with my PC knowledge at all, I have no right to, there are plenty of people in these threads know far more than I do, as a result of their heightened experience. Remember I have only owned a PC for 11 years, and only been using them for about 12.
You have to remember though, I'm explaining things quickly because this is a forum post. If I was there in the room with you or your family or whatever, I'd progress through things a lot slower and procedurally, assuming people don't refuse to learn, you can make their lives a lot easier ultimately, by teaching them the more basic side of computing.

I think it's fair to say that understanding a manual for something is often much more difficult than understanding the product itself

Read my post again Fred, I did say we use a 42" HDTV. Don't be so quick to dismiss what I'm saying you overlook the details that explain the reasons for what I'm saying.

On practicality then you know everything and we're not allowed to argue? :S
I'm not taking offense at that, just hoping it's not what you really meant.

In terms of actually copying stuff over and backing it up, typically it's about 40-70MB/s transfer rate to a hard drive, 8 to 14 hours, so yeah, two days if you don't run the PC all day. Burning 426 single layer discs at 20x or Burning 223 dual layer discs at 12x (and most people seem to prefer using lower speeds to preserve burn integrity!) is going to take almost twice as long, as even 20x DVD speed is only 27.7MB/s, and then you have to lead in, lead out and change discs!

 

Hey Sammy, I can refute every one of those, but I'm not going to, because no matter what I say your not getting it, so why go on, I'm also old enough to say you win, years ago I would go on and on with you till you gave up lol.

You and yours the minority have your ways, myself and others the majority have ours, thats not a cut on you from my standpoint, actually I'm elated to have people like you around, I admire smarts big time which you have to the max, I also admire commin sense, that comes with time and age mostly.

In closing I surrender, you win big guy.

 

Not trying to win anything, nor do I really expect to change people's ways, I'm just trying to get people to understand using PCs and hard disks for video really isn't that big a deal. People seem to get the idea I argue with people until they're forced to concede even though they don't agree, it's not what I intend, I'm just trying to get people to understand the facts of the matter, is all

 

Sam, this may have been overlooked, so I'll say it again. How long do you thing an industry -Rom disc will last? Well...the discs I use (Taiyo Yuden), are rumored to be used by the industry. And given I've had a 100% success rate with them, I don't think I have a problem here. My oldest discs are 5 yrs old, and Taiyo Yuden discs are of even higher quality. And verbatim boasts Lifetime warranties. They even have a medical grade disc.
Longevity is definitely all in how they're stored and burned though too. Burning beyond the discs threshold is not advised. Error/Failure rates are too high, resulting in very few devices that can read them. Add a scratch or two, and its screwed. I'm no expert when it comes to burning, but I have been doing it a while.

That said, I also see the value in a networked/shared hard drive array. Highly convenient. I just hope your Hard drives don't quit on you. That would be truly unfortunate. This coming from a guy that better luck with dvds/cds than hard drives.

I would never split HD films across dvds. I burn HD to Dual layer dvds. And ONLY ONLY ONLY good ones. E.g. Ironman, Lord of the Rings, Etc. Only movies worth my money and having backups of. Though lord of the rings would probably suffer a bit much even on Dual layer. I'll probably wait to back that one up to BD disc. Which I won't trust for a few more years yet.

 

Home recordable discs will never be the same as those used by the industry as they are not recorded by the same process.

 

Very curious. I found the page 518 cookie in my browser, and it directed me to page one the first time, then the second time I got here. It must be because sam posted. Very weird... Thought I'd throw that tip in there

The home recording process will suffice

 

Well eventually I'm going to physically backup the drives. Should have been done long ago, but I didn't have the money to do it. Either way, having fully backed up drives costs less than discs and the cases, and you still need the PC anyway, since HD MKVs stored on DVDs aren't going to be readable by DVD players.
9GB being the limit for an HD film is a bit small for me. It works for 85 minute films, but even stuff that's 110-120 minutes really cannot be done at that bitrate in 1080p, it has to be 720p, and that's barely sufficient. 170 minute films really need to be at least 10GB even at 720p, so DVDs simply don't do the job. It's excessive, but The Godfather trilogy I got was 89GB for the three films, or 10 DVD+R DLs!

 

Yah, the dual layer dvds are still ridiculously expensive. I thought when BD media began eaking its way onto the scene, they would come down significantly. Apparently not. No matter. Dual layer media is less trustworthy than single layer discs. Though I've had 100% success with verbatim Dual layers. Adding another layer to a disc, is throwing another risk into the equation if you ask me. So I laugh about companies like Ritek producing 10 layer Blu Ray discs. That's just too risky...

If I had to, I would probably trust hard drives over Blu Ray media at present. Bd is still too new :S

 

Fred you are making an easy task artificially difficult in your brain. I pull up my movie collection on a 56" TV using the HDMI input, connected by a 20 foot cable to a computer in a totally different room. Thats my example of watching these movies on something bigger than a computer monitor. Here is an easy way to share files between any Windows machines.
1. You really need no special settings on a router. Wireless or wired just make sure it works and allows all PC's to at least access the internet.
2.insure all PC's can access the home network (every computer in the house has their own unique name, all have same workgroup name). Google this step, as it is so slightly different between Windoze OS's. After this step you should be able to find your other machines when you open the network icon in windows explorer, but not access them yet
3. Select the file or folder you want to share. RIGHT CLICK then select properties from the list. Select sharing tab, then select share.

This should be enough to get two Windows machines with the same OS sharing with each other.
If they have 2 DIFFERENT OS

4.While you have the properties window open from step 3, select the security tab.
Choose EDIT group or user name permissions. Select ADD and type in the name "everyone" (no quotes). Ok that, and you should see the group "everyone" in the permissions list. Select APPLY

Your machines should talk to each other now regardless of OS. Hopefully I didn't miss a step as it's been awhile since I've needed to do this.

 

I've not had a verbatim dual layer disc fail, but I've messed up the burning procedure once or twice.
Lol, if you've never had any problems with dual layer discs, on what grounds do you call them less trustworthy?

Deadrum: I'm glad there is at least one other person here who understands what I'm talking about! lol

 

Because a second layer throws a risk into the equation. The chance to fail/stutter. I've had bad burns with another brand. While I haven't had a bad burn with verbatim, I feel the risk there. Perhaps i'm simply being silly. :S

 

I totally understand personal preference, and taking a few extra steps/minutes to stay inside your comfort zone. But to hear "this is over my head" or "you damn kids and yer new-fangled computaton devices" when the answer can be readily found on Google and really is a 4 step process... My point is not to prove my way is better, just that if I can do a 4 step process anyone can.

 

Oman7,
The truth is, Verbatim's "Lifetime" warranty is more smoke and mirrors than a real warranty. Verbatim will only replace defective DVDs, one for one. They will not give you a replacement batch like TY will. You have to send every bad one into them. With Yudens, when I had that bad batch, they confirmed that they were genuine, and sent me (the very next day) about 60 new ones. I didn't have to ship anything!

Russ

 

Eh, I like them both almost equally. Verbatim is incredible. Provided you get the genuine MCC 003's/004's. A few of my oldest verbs have heavy scratches, and are still readable(Single layer). Since their climate is very controlled, it won't surprise me when they play 20yrs down the road. I'd bet my life on it I'm not saying Verbs are better. TY has been in the game a bit longer after all But I trust them both equally

 

After careful consideration, I would approach the problem this way! I will stick with the 500GB drives, because none of the larger drives seem to have as much reliability as the 500s have. I would purchase a 5.25 bay Docking mount for 3.25" Sata drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198036&Tpk=renovable 5.25" sata dock

Gina gave me a program that I can use to store my movies on Sata drives. I would number the drives as I gradually fill one up and move on to another. The program holds a master list, so you go to the program and you can search by name, Actors and so on. When you find what you are looking for it tells you what number drive it's on. You plug that drive into the docking bay and you are ready to go. If I loan a DVD to someone and it get's damaged, or I accidentally drop and damage one, I'll simply put the drive with that particular movie on it into the docking bay, and burn me a new one.

In my opinion, it's a far more secure method than any other form of backup.

Russ

 

500GB drives really aren't very cost effective. In the UK at least the WD5001AALS drives are £45.63 each. I can buy a WD20EARS for £84.40, so I can just buy duplicates of each 2TB drive to have full redundancy, and still end up paying less than when using the 500GB drives without redundancy (£84.40 per terabyte versus £91.26)

 

Yah, i'd rather go larger drives with redundancy as well. Wd honors their warranties. If it fails in 3 - 5 yrs, at least I have a backup drive, and they'll send me a new one

None of my 3 WD1001Fals are backed up :S and they all are at 66% capacity... The FALS drives seem pretty reliable to me russ.

 

Wow that was a rather long discussion on backups. Anyway I was doing some backups earlier today using the FASS drives for the first time and sam was right, they are incredibly loud. I could here it from six feet away over soft music ('phones) despite the noise from my main rig which is closer :\ However I do not regret buying them, still a great purchase.