Blu Rays without the physical media

[Kruz]

What is the best way to arrange a system so I can purchase bluray movies, copy the file to a hard drive of some sort and then watch them on my tv?

I like the idea of digital media but after doing some reading I learned that itunes picture and sound quality is not at blu ray levels yet. The down side is I don't want a blu ray player and a ton of discs.

Ideally I would like the hard drive in the utility room behind my media room (where I plan to have all my source equipment). The issue I'm not sure about is streaming such large files (I have had issues with this with my laptop in the past). I am going to start a wiring project soon so it will be possible to send wires from the media room directly to the tv.

I currently have a samsung 8 series plasma smart tv.

Appreciate all the help.

 

[itschris]

I just went through this recently and I've posted about my HTPC build. It's certainly an option. You need to decide exactly what you want from your solution. If you're looking for true bd quality and want the HD codecs, you can pretty much forget iTunes or AppleTV.

What do you want for an interface...fancy eye candy or just something to launch the files? There's just a ton of options from small OpenElec boxes to full blown HTPCs that do it all. There's some other options like WD Live and ROKU, but it will really depend on what you really want whe you're done.

 

[TLS Guy]

What is the best way to arrange a system so I can purchase bluray movies, copy the file to a hard drive of some sort and then watch them on my tv?

I like the idea of digital media but after doing some reading I learned that itunes picture and sound quality is not at blu ray levels yet. The down side is I don't want a blu ray player and a ton of discs.

Ideally I would like the hard drive in the utility room behind my media room (where I plan to have all my source equipment). The issue I'm not sure about is streaming such large files (I have had issues with this with my laptop in the past). I am going to start a wiring project soon so it will be possible to send wires from the media room directly to the tv.

I currently have a samsung 8 series plasma smart tv.

Appreciate all the help.

There is such a huge amount of data on a BD, I don't think it is worth ripping BDs to hard drive. Remember you need to store it and have reliable backup. I have an HTCP with lots of storage, but I store few BDs on it. My advice is get a BD player and find a place to store the discs. You will save yourself a lot of headaches. Unless you are prepared to sacrifice quality with a lot of compression use discs.

 

[Kruz]

At the end of the day I want to take the best of blu ray discs (picture and sound) and the best of digital media (no physical disc and ease of picking and changing files) and put them together. I want to buy used blu ray discs, rip the files to some kind of hard drive and then play them on my tv (I don't need a fancy interface). My problem is I don't know how to go from ripping the file to playing it on my tv easily. I was hoping for advice on things to look into for that.

I just went through this recently and I've posted about my HTPC build. It's certainly an option. You need to decide exactly what you want from your solution. If you're looking for true bd quality and want the HD codecs, you can pretty much forget iTunes or AppleTV.

What do you want for an interface...fancy eye candy or just something to launch the files? There's just a ton of options from small OpenElec boxes to full blown HTPCs that do it all. There's some other options like WD Live and ROKU, but it will really depend on what you really want whe you're done.

 

[Kruz]

I did a bit of research on that and figure 10 GB on avg per movie so if I get 2 tB or even 4 TB that should be more than plenty. I really don't want a ton of discs and have to go into my utility room to put in a new disc every time I want to watch a movie. Just my preference.

There is such a huge amount of data on a BD, I don't think it is worth ripping BDs to hard drive. Remember you need to store it and have reliable backup. I have an HTCP with lots of storage, but I store few BDs on it. My advice is get a BD player and find a place to store the discs. You will save yourself a lot of headaches. Unless you are prepared to sacrifice quality with a lot of compression use discs.

 

[panteragstk]

I did a bit of research on that and figure 10 GB on avg per movie so if I get 2 tB or even 4 TB that should be more than plenty. I really don't want a ton of discs and have to go into my utility room to put in a new disc every time I want to watch a movie. Just my preference.

For full quality blu-rays it is quite a bit more than 10gb per movie. The smallest BD I have is ~15gb with the largest being around 35gb. That is the movie only with all the extra audio tracks ripped out.

You have to have some sort of interface to organize the movies. I have over 1000 and trying to navigate through that without some sort of organization is horrible. As stated above there are lots of options. WDTV is one of the simplest and it does more than locally stored content. There are also Dune and Popcorn Hour devices that can even play the menus from BD's.

A quick google search will tell you how to easily rip the discs and structure them how you want. Dvd fab and anydvd are two of the big ones.

 

[itschris]

Panteragstk is right. 10gig is wishful thinking. I use MakeMKV and strip everything out except the lossless track and the movie itself and my files average about 24 gig.

Either way, storage is pretty cheap... all things being equal. Getting the hi-def audio is really the detrmining factor on what you do. There are plenty of solutions that leave that part out, but fewer to leave it in. Also, you're going to need a wired setup to do what you want. You can stream the hd audio. You'll need HDMI to do it effectively.

Read through these links. As a group we just collectively went through all this and beat it to death. There's actually a ton of very good info and answers to questions you wouldn't think to ask.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-servers/86946-my-htpc-build-have-questions.html

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-servers/88705-htpc-build-part-1-stuff.html

 

[Kruz]

Wow that is a lot of great information to go over. I wasn't aware of the Plex issue with hi-def audio (after doing some more reading last night I was leaning towards a NAS with Plex installed on it).

Could you do me a favor and expand a little on the sounds issues with Plex? The reason I like it is I can use the Plex ap on my samsung tv and have it wired from a NAS.

 

[Kruz]

Yeah you're right. I'm going to work with an avg 25 gig for my calculations. If I was to get a 2 bay NAS with 2 4TBs that would be roughly 320 movies. Which would be good for me for a while. If I were to need more room I could always look at an expansion unit.

Panteragstk is right. 10gig is wishful thinking. I use MakeMKV and strip everything out except the lossless track and the movie itself and my files average about 24 gig.

Either way, storage is pretty cheap... all things being equal. Getting the hi-def audio is really the detrmining factor on what you do. There are plenty of solutions that leave that part out, but fewer to leave it in. Also, you're going to need a wired setup to do what you want. You can stream the hd audio. You'll need HDMI to do it effectively.

Read through these links. As a group we just collectively went through all this and beat it to death. There's actually a ton of very good info and answers to questions you wouldn't think to ask.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-servers/86946-my-htpc-build-have-questions.html

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-servers/88705-htpc-build-part-1-stuff.html

 

[itschris]

Wow that is a lot of great information to go over. I wasn't aware of the Plex issue with hi-def audio (after doing some more reading last night I was leaning towards a NAS with Plex installed on it).

Could you do me a favor and expand a little on the sounds issues with Plex? The reason I like it is I can use the Plex ap on my samsung tv and have it wired from a NAS.

This is my understanding of PLEX and HD audio... There's a new beta version called PLEX HT (Home Theater). From what I've read, it can bitstream HD Audio to a capable receiver over HDMI from a Windows machine. It no longer supports ISO file playback, so MKV is going to be your best bet.

You need Plex Pass to get the version, but I hear it's still very buggy. Try XBMC. It's a somewhat of a chore to setup depending how much you want to customize it, but it'll do everything you want. Most of my issues where running with OpenElec. I knew nothing about it so it was a challenge for me. I'm not the most patient person on the planet and have limited time so there were times I was quite frustrated. I documented most of the issues and fixes as I went along in the 4 threads I created on my build.

 

[Kruz]

Thank you for this. After reading this and doing some more research tt seems HD audio will be my biggest hurdle if I don't want to build a full on dedicated computer for this (which I don't).

Would a Dune or popcorn player coupled with a NAS solve all my issues? I think I could do both of those for under $1k.

This is my understanding of PLEX and HD audio... There's a new beta version called PLEX HT (Home Theater). From what I've read, it can bitstream HD Audio to a capable receiver over HDMI from a Windows machine. It no longer supports ISO file playback, so MKV is going to be your best bet.

You need Plex Pass to get the version, but I hear it's still very buggy. Try XBMC. It's a somewhat of a chore to setup depending how much you want to customize it, but it'll do everything you want. Most of my issues where running with OpenElec. I knew nothing about it so it was a challenge for me. I'm not the most patient person on the planet and have limited time so there were times I was quite frustrated. I documented most of the issues and fixes as I went along in the 4 threads I created on my build.

 

[itschris]

I don't know that you need a NAS. It's up to you but, that's the direction I was intially headed but after thinking about it... I didn't really see that much of a benfit for my setup. I built my box for about $800 and you can certainly do it a lot cheaper as BoredSysAdmin outlined in those threads. My box, the SilverStone GDO7 was pricey, but I can easily throw 5 hd's in there without issue.

 

[Kruz]

I see where you're coming from but I don't really want to get into building my own machine. I would rather use something out of the box for my application. Thanks for the answer though!

 

[itschris]

Well most of the newer intel/amd pc's can bitstream. Think about building though. I spent all of about 2 hours putting my box together and that time included my wife interrupting every 5 minutes and the cat knocking screws off the table. You can build a very capable box in no time for about $400. just a thought.

 

[panteragstk]

If you just want to be able to play movies off of a NAS without a lot of configuration then a Dune, Popcorn Hour, or a WDTV live would be the best bet. I don't know which has ISO support, but they all work well and you don't have to worry about all the HTPC stuff. But, they will be VERY limited compared to what a full HTPC can do.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

If you are ripping BDs, you are going to need a PC anyway. Make this your all-in-one HTPC (no need for NAS). Install Windows 7. Install XBMC. Play DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD audio, 1080p video. Get DVDFab for BD ripping.

The Antec-12 PC case can hold 12 HDDs if you don't install a BD drive. Get a portable BD drive just for the ripping. 4TB x 12 = 48TB. Plenty of room for expansion.

Amazon.com : Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Gaming Case : Desktop Shell Cases : Electronics

I love XBMC. I have about 900 HD movies (a few BD concerts) now in my PC.

 

[itschris]

I love XBMC. I have about 900 HD movies (a few BD concerts) now in my PC.

You need to FedEX me your hard drives. I'm so sick of ripping BD's!!!!!!

 

[Kruz]

But I'm a mac guy! I'm just going to attach an external Bluray player to that and use it to rip the BDs.

Seriously though this is a tempting project to undertake but I don't have it in me to deal with all the computer parts. I would rather have an out of the box option like panteragstk mentioned above.

If you are ripping BDs, you are going to need a PC anyway. Make this your all-in-one HTPC (no need for NAS). Install Windows 7. Install XBMC. Play DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD audio, 1080p video. Get DVDFab for BD ripping.

The Antec-12 PC case can hold 12 HDDs if you don't install a BD drive. Get a portable BD drive just for the ripping. 4TB x 12 = 48TB. Plenty of room for expansion.

Amazon.com : Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Gaming Case : Desktop Shell Cases : Electronics

I love XBMC. I have about 900 HD movies (a few BD concerts) now in my PC.

 

[itschris]

The Dune player looks interesting. I don't think I looked at that very closely. I remember there being a downside though.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I use the Dune players and have been pretty happy with them over the past couple of years. They support full BD ISOs as well as MKV playback. I have over 1,000 TV shows along with about 300 full BD rips and 300 full DVD rips. Everything is stored on 4 Thecus RAID units with about 21TB of redundant storage (RAID4). I love the way it plays back the MKV files the most. Immediate startup, looks great. The full BD rips are just more than I think I really want so I eventually will move everything to MKV format for the BD rips.

I use two different Dune players (HD Base 2.0 and Smart) and either of them can play back over the network at the same time without issue.

They aren't perfect, but I still haven't found something which is better. The newest players seem to be buggier than older ones.

I think XBMC is a interesting product, but the lack of native ISO playback really does bug me.