My Digital Library

[Jophster]

Ok so I have a load of random posts dotted around and I would like a single thread with the best possible solution. This is where you guys come in...

I have a networked 2TB Hard drive.
A PS3 and a shed load of DVDs.

I want to put all of my DVDs on that hard drive so I can play them on my PS3 and PC's around the house.
People have recommend HandBrake and FairUse Wizard which I have used but the process is so slow that to do 300 odd DVDs is just impractical.

I have also been told to simply rip the DVD using DVDShrink which is so far the best option by choosing to Re-Author the Main Movie alone. However, I can't rename the film from VTS_01_1 which is not exactly user friendly and when played on the PS3 I get no option to show subtitles a must for House of Flying Daggers etc.

My question is, what do you guys recommend being the best method of taking a DVD and somehow playing that on the PS3.
NB I don't want to stream media as that means a PC has to be turned on all the time too.

Thanks all...

[Michael_L]

The big problem is that I can see Theydon Bois deleting this entire thread...

Ah well...

Basiclaly, if one ripper can convert a dvd in less time, it will be in inferior quality.

On my current rig, handbrake takes about 1hr to rip a dvd in h264 2-pass at origional resolution.
Output files are aprox 900MB to 1.5GB depending on the film length, though on my 900p display, appear no different than the dvd's; indeed, I did a test when I re-converted on of my rips into mpeg2 (normal dvd format), and could see very little difference, even with the second conversion.

With a 500Gb+ hdd on your pc, you could copy the raw dvd files to your pc, then queue them up on HB to convert in the background at all times, like when you are at work.

Of course, the other solution is to build a htpc with that 2TB hdd, and use it for dvd playback.

Alternativley, there is some system you could use to stream to the ps3, but putting your NAS in an an external hdd caddy and connecting it to the ps3 might be simpler.

Subtitle options: AFAIK , h264 does not support toggleable subtitles, though I may be wrong, but they can be hard-coded into the picture when you rip.

If I think of anything else, I might post again later...

[Jophster]

Originally Posted by Michael_L

The big problem is that I can see Theydon Bois deleting this entire thread...

Ah well...

Basiclaly, if one ripper can convert a dvd in less time, it will be in inferior quality.

On my current rig, handbrake takes about 1hr to rip a dvd in h264 2-pass at origional resolution.
Output files are aprox 900MB to 1.5GB depending on the film length, though on my 900p display, appear no different than the dvd's; indeed, I did a test when I re-converted on of my rips into mpeg2 (normal dvd format), and could see very little difference, even with the second conversion.

With a 500Gb+ hdd on your pc, you could copy the raw dvd files to your pc, then queue them up on HB to convert in the background at all times, like when you are at work.

Of course, the other solution is to build a htpc with that 2TB hdd, and use it for dvd playback.

Alternativley, there is some system you could use to stream to the ps3, but putting your NAS in an an external hdd caddy and connecting it to the ps3 might be simpler.

Subtitle options: AFAIK , h264 does not support toggleable subtitles, though I may be wrong, but they can be hard-coded into the picture when you rip.

If I think of anything else, I might post again later...

Hi Thanks that's actually really helpful... I think I am just going to settle with a DVDShrink setup.
For Flying Daggers etc I shall keep the DVD Version.
Again many thanks for the help and advice.

[Michael_L]

No probs.

Although you've allready decided, I would strongly reccomend using HB, as although it will take a little longer, you can get files the same quality of dvdshrink into <500MB, as opposed to 2GB+.

Just copy all the dvd's onto the pc raw, then leave for a few days to convert.
Running in teh background, HB won't affect your normal computing tasks at all...

Just my 2 pennies worth...

[Jophster]

Hi
I understand, if you feel it is the best way to go I can understand that ripping a load of them and leaving it over night for a few weeks I should get it done.
So my question now is
a) How should I store RAW DVD Files, using DVD Shrink or using AnyDVD can I now just copy them and paste them in a folder?
b) Is the PS3 Preset a good option to choose or can you reccomend me some settings for HandBrake.

Many Thanks,
Joseph

[Michael_L]

By a RAW dvd file, i literaly mean copying the entire disk to the pc, at arounf 5-9GB each.
After you have copied them, you then tell the computer to convert them one after the other, so you don't have to sit around all day changing disks.
Output files should be aprox 900-1.6GB.

Afterwards, you can delete the origional files.

[Jophster]

Hi Sorry yes I thought that it wasn't possible just to copy and paste off the DVD but thanks for that sounds pretty simple.
Any comments/suggestions on the PS3 Preset in HandBrake?
Ta Muchly.

[Michael_L]

I would not use the ps3 preset; rather, I would rip at the origional dvd resolution.

The best way I find for a good convert is to take one dvd, pick a reasonably short chapter, then rip it with lots of different settings and bitrates, then compare them all on your ps3. Also, remember to preserve the 5.1 surround when encoding.

[Jophster]

Originally Posted by Michael_L

I would not use the ps3 preset; rather, I would rip at the origional dvd resolution.

The best way I find for a good convert is to take one dvd, pick a reasonably short chapter, then rip it with lots of different settings and bitrates, then compare them all on your ps3. Also, remember to preserve the 5.1 surround when encoding.

hi thanks will have a play around and let you know how I get on!
Thanks again!

[MrBlofeldt]

This is something I've been wanting to do with some of my DVD collection, only slightly differently, the idea being to use Handbrake to put everything on a large HDD and use a mac mini or a PC to play everything onto an LCD TV, the problem I have is that a lot of the DVD's I own are from different regions, can Handbrake deal with region specific DVD's or will I need to deal with the region settings of the DVD drive in the PC/Mac ???

[Michael_L]

As long as you use a universal decrypter, you should have no problems.

[darth kevinho]

Originally Posted by Michael_L

By a RAW dvd file, i literaly mean copying the entire disk to the pc, at arounf 5-9GB each.
After you have copied them, you then tell the computer to convert them one after the other, so you don't have to sit around all day changing disks.
Output files should be aprox 900-1.6GB.

Afterwards, you can delete the origional files.

Hi mate, is there any chance you could post a screen shot of your default handbrake settings.

Thanks

Kevin

[Shoka]

Originally Posted by MrBlofeldt

This is something I've been wanting to do with some of my DVD collection, only slightly differently, the idea being to use Handbrake to put everything on a large HDD and use a mac mini or a PC to play everything onto an LCD TV, the problem I have is that a lot of the DVD's I own are from different regions, can Handbrake deal with region specific DVD's or will I need to deal with the region settings of the DVD drive in the PC/Mac ???

On my PowerMac I flashed the drives firmware, and use a program called DVDregion x to switch the region then use MacTheRipper to rip the disc, then queue the resulting files up in HandBrake and leave them going in the background.

[MrBlofeldt]

Originally Posted by Shoka

On my PowerMac I flashed the drives firmware, and use a program called DVDregion x to switch the region then use MacTheRipper to rip the disc, then queue the resulting files up in HandBrake and leave them going in the background.

Do you rip the discs onto a drive in your Powermac, then use handbrake to shift the files onto another HDD...?

In other words what size drives are you using, I'm assuming you have two ?!?!

My plan was to buy something like a 1TB external drive and run the whole lot through a Mac Mini (or a SFF PC) as space is at a premium in my house...

thanks in advance !

[Shoka]

Originally Posted by MrBlofeldt

Do you rip the discs onto a drive in your Powermac, then use handbrake to shift the files onto another HDD...?

In other words what size drives are you using, I'm assuming you have two ?!?!

My plan was to buy something like a 1TB external drive and run the whole lot through a Mac Mini (or a SFF PC) as space is at a premium in my house...

Yup spot on, I use 2 drives (well 3 in theory, if you include AppleTV) for the whole process.

In the PowerMac, I rip onto an 500GB internal drive (not the system disc) Handbrake then encodes the resulting files which then gets (manually) shifted onto a Western Digital 1TB RAID MyBook via Firewire for storage, and ultimately it ends up on Apple TV.

Not sure how much power it would consume with HB transcoding to an external drive? I think they eat quite a lot of juice. Thats why I manually move them, if you are au fait with applescript you could write a script to move it for you (should be relatively simple bit of script)

If you have a PC or something networked (wired) you could use that a dumping ground across the network and then move it manually later?

Hope that helps in some way.