How do you store movies?

**scott** · **03-06-08, 08:26 PM**

I have over 400 Movies and am wondering what it takes, as far as hard drives, to store them. Do I need to build a server to work with my PC? and what is the best media center to invest in?

**tonyvdb** · **03-07-08, 08:12 AM**

Most capture software wont let you copy movies onto your hard drive. But given a movie is usually 2hrs long and to capture at a quality thats as good as the original you need about 5gb of hard drive space per movie.

**Blaser** · **03-07-08, 08:49 AM**

Some use hard USB drives with PS3 and store their movies. It acts like a server. Not very sofisticated but it works. The movies can be ripped but I just forgot the name of the software. You'll find everything here http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...tup-tests.html

**Mitch G** · **03-07-08, 02:47 PM**

I use DVDfab (www.dvdfab.com) to back up my movies to my media server and watch them using SageTV. I only back up the main feature and as mentioned above that takes about 5GB of disk space.

Mitch

**scott** · **03-08-08, 10:37 AM**

I don't have a PS3 and I already have DVDfab and all the other back up programs, I need to get the best way to put the on a hard disk for cataloging and playback, And keep in mind I have over 400.

**Jarin** · **03-09-08, 01:06 AM**

Quote:

scott wrote:

I don't have a PS3 and I already have DVDfab and all the other back up programs, I need to get the best way to put the on a hard disk for cataloging and playback, And keep in mind I have over 400.

Sounds like you need a fair bit of disk space. And you wouldn't want to lose that disk space. I have a Buffalo Terastation NAS, and I'm very happy with it. It's 2TB. 4 500G drives, RAID-5. I store all my media (28,000 MP3's, movies, pictures, etc) on it, and use a D-Link mediaplayer to access it over my LAN.

If you needed more than 2TB, just chain a couple together, or separately, etc. I wouldn't go for a standalone USB drive.

J

**Blaser** · **03-09-08, 05:06 AM**

Jarin,

This sounds like a fair bit of investment. How much did that cost you? Do you have a link?

Thank you

**Jarin** · **03-09-08, 11:21 AM**

Quote:

blaser wrote:

Jarin,

This sounds like a fair bit of investment. How much did that cost you? Do you have a link?

Thank you

Well, it's all about how valuable your media is. I don't want to lose all my wife's photography at any cost, so it's worth it to me. Just under 700$ about 18 months ago I think. You can Google and find current pricing. There's 3 and 4TB models too I believe. I have mine connected to my backbone GigE switch. Basically any computer on my lan can access it and use it, etc.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/

J

**scott** · **03-09-08, 12:29 PM**

Thanks jarin, I'll check this stuff out. I know I'll have more questions very soon so please keep checking this thread.

Scott

**Blaser** · **03-09-08, 02:03 PM**

Jarin,

But how do you play your movies in your HT?

**Jarin** · **03-09-08, 03:35 PM**

Quote:

blaser wrote:

Jarin,

But how do you play your movies in your HT?

I use DVDShrink or DVDFab to rip DVDs, then encode them as XVid with DVDFab. Works great. I keep the 5.1 soundtrack and use a 2Mb/s video encode rate. Excellent quality. Most DVDs end up between 2 and 3GB. I probably have 150 to 200 stored on the NAS. Never had an issue with any.

The D-Link DSM-320 plays those XVid's perfectly on my system:

http://www.silvren.com/hometheatershack/

J

**basementjack** · **03-10-08, 08:53 PM**

I've been using DVD fab too, great program!

personally, I don't think Xvid looks as good as the original DVD in a good upscaling dvd player - so I've used my server mainly for tv shows, kids movies, etc.

my xvids play over the network to a number of devices - the xbox 360, the klegg media share, and I hear the PS3 works also, so long as your file size is below 2gb.

I have not tried a ps3 so I can't comment on that, but the klegg blows away the 360 for media playback. The klegg can play whole dvd's ripped to your hd as .iso files, as well as xvid files (and many others) I plan to add a sticky on the klegg when I have time to write it up properly. The klegg is available in the USA from frys - I have seen it on sale there twice for $129

as for storage, if you are good with PC's and have access to software, then building a small server is the cheapest/best way IMO. On the other hand, if you have no experience with that, or you don't have any OS you can use, and you would have to shell out $$$ for windows, then those stand alone network hard drives really begin to look attractive.

however you look at it, you'll need a backup - I use a combination of internal drives in the server, and external drives for backup.
Internal protection schemes like mirroring and raid 5 are not adequate as they don't protect your investment from accidental deletion or corruption.

For your needs, you'll probably want 2x 1 terabyte hard drives - one internal, and one external to backup the internal. you should be able to get roughly 500 movies on the drive if you use xvid.

if you build a small server, I'd suggest a small drive for the OS, and use the 1TB drive for storage.

**Jarin** · **03-10-08, 11:40 PM**

Quote:

basementjack wrote:

I've been using DVD fab too, great program!

personally, I don't think Xvid looks as good as the original DVD in a good upscaling dvd player - so I've used my server mainly for tv shows, kids movies, etc.

my xvids play over the network to a number of devices - the xbox 360, the klegg media share, and I hear the PS3 works also, so long as your file size is below 2gb.

I have not tried a ps3 so I can't comment on that, but the klegg blows away the 360 for media playback. The klegg can play whole dvd's ripped to your hd as .iso files, as well as xvid files (and many others) I plan to add a sticky on the klegg when I have time to write it up properly. The klegg is available in the USA from frys - I have seen it on sale there twice for $129

as for storage, if you are good with PC's and have access to software, then building a small server is the cheapest/best way IMO. On the other hand, if you have no experience with that, or you don't have any OS you can use, and you would have to shell out $$$ for windows, then those stand alone network hard drives really begin to look attractive.

however you look at it, you'll need a backup - I use a combination of internal drives in the server, and external drives for backup.
Internal protection schemes like mirroring and raid 5 are not adequate as they don't protect your investment from accidental deletion or corruption.

For your needs, you'll probably want 2x 1 terabyte hard drives - one internal, and one external to backup the internal. you should be able to get roughly 500 movies on the drive if you use xvid.

if you build a small server, I'd suggest a small drive for the OS, and use the 1TB drive for storage.

Most definitely. It comes down to how much you're willing to shell out, and how valuable your data is. I use a combination of things myself. I have multiple servers and operating systems doing various things, but take this as example. My main Dell XP box has twin 160 Raptors in raid0 for performance reasons. This volume's backed up externally via USB to a 500G WD MyBook drive. That in turn gets copied to the Terastation NAS which I back up via Exabyte drive to tape. So not only can I rebuild/restore my main XP gaming/console PC at any point (via Norton Save & Restore), I also never lose any of my other collected data, which is all on tape.

You can easily build a standalone Linux box as your NAS, either using software raid, or getting a dedicated controller or two or three, etc. But, when you price out the parts, the Terastations come really close, and already run Linux and have a great feature set.

Anyways - it's just one way that's worked for me, and it's scalable.

J

**wbassett** · **03-12-08, 10:45 AM**

I agree with Basementjack, DVD Fab is a very nice program. I've used it and DVD Shrink and DVD Fab actually has more options and seems a bit more suited for archiving to a hard drive.

**derekbannatyne** · **03-14-08, 02:45 PM**

I use DVDShrink to conserve disk space (you can control how compressed you want the files). Won't work to backup all discs, but in can be used in conjunction with other programs to make it work. For example, you can use another program to rip the entire disc into an ISO, mount it, and then compress it.

**nova** · **03-14-08, 04:23 PM**

I store my movies in a DVD case that sits on a bookshelf

Little odd for a computer guy huh?

**Jodean** · **03-24-08, 05:50 PM**

Quote:

nova wrote:

I store my movies in a DVD case that sits on a bookshelf

Little odd for a computer guy huh?

LOL...ya whats wrong with simply grabbing the dvd and putting it in the drive?? No file corruption, no bad sectors, no backing up all the time, no raid issues, no thousand dollar investment.

**basementjack** · **03-27-08, 08:14 AM**

I too have questioned my actions when it comes to digitizing my collection of movies, just for the sake of a small bit of convenience.

With dvd players costing $35 - it's hard to justify the expense of the server and extenders.

Maybe we do it just because its cool?

**tonyjover** · **03-27-08, 11:32 AM**

Quote:

Jodean wrote:

LOL...ya whats wrong with simply grabbing the dvd and putting it in the drive?? No file corruption, no bad sectors, no backing up all the time, no raid issues, no thousand dollar investment.

I agree with you completely. We have our movies (nearly 1000 DVDs at last count) in large leather-type binders that take 250 disks per 'book'.

We have them loosely catagorized (comedy, drama, blockbuster, period drama etc) in the different folders.

One day I'll complete my promise to myself to catalogue the lot on PC ;-)

Regards,
Tony

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