Media Server

[d.jakes]

Ok, its official.... My Sony Bluray changer has died.  I have about 200 blu-rays and 150 DVD's.  What would my best solution for a media server be?   Software/Hardware used to rip the movies and for storage?

 

Thanks All......

[turls]

Nothing will match that setup in simplicity.  Might check out the new Kodi stuff from Chowmain.

 

If you've gone this long without ripping, maybe convert those discs to streaming at less than $5 each.  It might save you headaches in the long run.  

[SMHarman]

I would seriously consider doing disc to digital and putting them all in the UV rights vault.

200 BD is $200 on VUDU and you could convert the 150 DVD to BD/HD for $375.

Then you can playback on a streaming box like roku or TiVo bolt or to keep true BD quality the kalidescape alto.

No physical media or backups to manage. Excellent C4 integration and $3k of spend.

You need a lot of HDD storage for that much media and a backup plan (unless doing it over again with the silver discs is the backup plan) pricing wise a big server is likely to get toward that price point with a lower quality ui.

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[d.jakes]

SM -

 

I'm sorry, but I dont understand what you said......  call me slow

[SMHarman]

This is all about putting your collection in the cloud. 

I've disc to digitaled all my BD and DVD collection.  Less physical stuff in my life.  I will be donating them to housing works for a tax deduction.

So you check to see if there was a digital copy in the box and If there was you redeem it (check even the expired ones usually work).

If not you convert to a digital copy on Vudu, they have a great discount, convert 10 and do it half price.

http://www.vudu.com/movies/#

http://www.vudu.com/in_home_disc_to_digital.html

or you can take the discs to WalMart,

or you can use Flixster (more expensive (because of no discount) but sometimes finds discs that Vudu does not) https://video.flixster.com/d2d

To do this you have to set up a UV account, this is where all the movie companies store your digital rights.

http://myuv.com/

This was the bit above where I said the conversion is $1 for the BD and $2.5 per DVD (to make them HD).

Then you can watch them on lots of devices Roku runs the Vudu app with HDX very well (http://www.vudu.com/setup_roku.html) , as does the new Tivo Bolt. https://www.tivo.com/support/how-to/watch-shows-vudu

The final part of this was if you want something to replay them in bitperfect BD quality (and many will tell you the difference between Vudu HDX and BD is virtually imperceptible), then you could, instead of spending on a pile o HDD to store copies of the BD, buy the Kalidescape Alto.

http://www.kaleidescape.com/products/alto/

This has great integration with C4, has a great GUI and intgrates with the UV vault you created above, so now you can download up to 100 of those movies onto the Alto for BD bitperfect playback and rotate them in and out as desired, if your internet connection is fast then the KScape servers keep up and you can start watching a movie while it is still downloading from their side.

So now you have all your movies in a digital copy format in the cloud and can download them to your mobile devices for viewing on the go or can watch them at home on the big screen and as this is a virtual copy you don't have to worry about damage or replacement.

The finger in the air math says you have 40Gb x 200 and 7Gb x 150 of storage requirements.  That is ~10Tb of storage space requirements and that will only grow. 

So 4 4TB HDDs WD Red at $150 each = $600

http://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B00EHBERSE/

Something to put them in that fits nicely in a rack.

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-America-Station-Attached-RS815/dp/B00ST05IF0/

and something to play them on $350

http://www.amazon.com/Dune-HD-Base3D-Media-Player/dp/B00B0OPDUM/

Total $2049

vs

Convert to digital all your media $575

Buy a Kalidescape Alto for $2500 (and a bonus $200 to spend on more movies).  Or wait and see what they will do with the price of this over the coming months as their 4K player does its thing and so forth.

$3075

So Kalidescape is more, but then there is zero maintainance on your part and viewing from everywhere and a great UX.

And you can skip the kalidescape and use a Roku3 / 4 for $100 instead.

Hopefully this makes my ramblings above clearer.

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[d.jakes]

I understand now..... thanks

[Gary Leeds UK]

Have a look at

 

http://www.innuos.com/en

 

Buy a Buffalo Nas Link Station and link it to the Movie server and you have all you

dvd and blu rays in 1 to 1 copies and also covert to MP4 files we can be watch on IPad.

 

 

 

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[PapaSmurf74]

While vudu is great, there are some downsides.

 

1. Ultraviolet does not support disney movies including marvel studios.  Ultraviolet is the DRM service that backs vudu and flixster.

2.  While vudu has the best video quality I've seen it still doesn't have the quality and sound of a bluray.

 

What I use is a combination of a NAS, Dune, MyMovies, and Plex

 

I rip all my blurays to a NAS using anydvd.  This way I get full bluray quality in my home theater.  

 

I use a Dune Smart B1 bluray player that allows me to play network attached bluray rips directly with full menu support.  The Dune players are one of the few players that support full bluray menus.  The newer Dune models do not support full bluray menus.

 

I use MyMovies to manage the metadata for the collection.  I use the my movies driver for control4 to import the collection into the pretty new movies interface for 2.8.  When I select a movie from the control4 interface it switches the rooms device to dune and automatically starts playback of that movie.  It works really slick.  It's important to note that I've been using mymoves for media management for over 10 years.  This allowed me to get grandfathered in with the mymovies api that allows this whole process to work.  If you're new to mymovies you'll need someone with a dealer license to get the metadata into control4.

 

Finally, for playback on smaller tvs, tablets, and phones I use handbrake to re-encode all my bluray rips into a single mkv container.  I use Plex to serve up my movie collection to a HUGE range of devices including phones, tablets, rokus, tivos, firetvs, etc.  For me, Plex is such a huge advantage over services like VUDU (which I did use before discovering plex)

[SMHarman]

While vudu is great, there are some downsides.

1. Ultraviolet does not support disney movies including marvel studios. Ultraviolet is the DRM service that backs vudu and flixster.

2. While vudu has the best video quality I've seen it still doesn't have the quality and sound of a bluray.

1. VUDU does tie into Disney movies anywhere. The UV equivalent for Disney/Pixar/Marvel/Star Wars. As does Kalidescape. So to make this a weakness when I can see my Disney digital and everything else on the same screen is not accurate.

2. It is close enough for 98% of movie watching. Only critical HT / big big screen watching in > 7.1 environment can you pay attention to the differences.

And like I said you now end up with a server with BD ISO/file. And a mkv/mp4 file for on the go.

And you completely ignores that the $600 UV/DMA/VUDU on Roku solution has your criticisms but the Kalidescape Alto version does bitperfect BD local digital copy playback. Surmounting all the theoretical problems you pose.

How do you watch big hero 6 on a plane using plex? Easy with VUDU to go.

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[PapaSmurf74]

1. VUDU does tie into Disney movies anywhere. The UV equivalent for Disney/Pixar/Marvel/Star Wars. As does Kalidescape. So to make this a weakness when I can see my Disney digital and everything else on the same screen is not accurate.

 

Glad to hear it's improved.  When I went through the process about 2 years ago only about half of my movie collection was available in UV.

 

 

2. It is close enough for 98% of movie watching. Only critical HT / big big screen watching in > 7.1 environment can you pay attention to the differences.

 

I agree that VUDU visual quality is quite good.  However, the sound/video quality difference in my home theater is pretty dramatic for bluray vs VUDU.  I like the option of having the original bluray readily available.

 

 

And you completely ignores that the $600 UV/DMA/VUDU on Roku solution has your criticisms but the Kalidescape Alto version does bitperfect BD local digital copy playback. Surmounting all the theoretical problems you pose. 

 

Not ignoring.  Kalidescape is a perfectly valid option.  It's also expensive.   Kalidescape also doesn't provide the sync capability for tablets that VUDU or Plex provides.  I'm not saying my way is the best, just letting the OP know how my system is setup.  I also acknowledge that there are weaknesses in my approach as there is a lot of labor involved. 

 

 

How do you watch big hero 6 on a plane using plex? Easy with VUDU to go. 

 

I sync it to my phone using plex.  I've used both vudu to go and the plex sync option.  They work very similar to each other.  I do like the extra flexibility that plex provides in possible bitrate and resolution choices.

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to say the options you present are bad.  They are perfectly valid ways of replacing his old bluray changer.  There are lots of ways to approach this and in my opinion there isn't any one perfect solution.  Hopefully with lots of options presented the OP can make his own decision on what works best for him.

[dmccor1]

^{SMHarman, Can you use the Kalidescape player in conjunction lets say with a high end NAS box to download and watch digital movie's, or do you have to use their high dollar server?}

[SMHarman]

^{SMHarman, Can you use the Kalidescape player in conjunction lets say with a high end NAS box to download and watch digital movie's, or do you have to use their high dollar server?}

No. The alto has a built in ~ 4tb disc for local storage though.

[Cyknight]

all of 4Tb?

[turls]

all of 4Tb?

 

Its the Apple model.

[SMHarman]

all of 4Tb?

Unless you know the exact number. 100 40gb BD take 4tb.

You swap in and out so don't need all 350 natively stored. The other 250 are cloud stored.

Shows my VUDU with Disney and DreamWorks and the rest in the same GUI.

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[dmccor1]

OK, I was reading mostly about the M500 Player and how it integrates with their Server. I see the Alto is more of a standalone I guess. Do both Payers output the same Video quality, or is the M500 better.

[Cyknight]

Unless you know the exact number. 100 40gb BD take 4tb.

You swap in and out so don't need all 350 natively stored. The other 250 are cloud stored.

image001.jpg

Shows my VUDU with Disney and DreamWorks and the rest in the same GUI.

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You're short hundreds of discs on my end - and I'll be a rotten potato if I'm going to rely on cloud (and internet access) to be able to play my disc.

 

To each his own - but I'll take my setup where I have full quality video and audio for all of my movies on hand at all times.

[SMHarman]

You're short hundreds of discs on my end - and I'll be a rotten potato if I'm going to rely on cloud (and internet access) to be able to play my disc.

To each his own - but I'll take my setup where I have full quality video and audio for all of my movies on hand at all times.

Short hundreds on your collection.

Also, how much of your collection is upscaled DVD vs BD. The cloud based copies or downloaded bitperfect BD copies are all streaming in HD.

I also see they have a 4K player out now and 4k content coming soon. How will the local DVDs look upscaled to 4k?

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[dmccor1]

you would think with the new 4K, that the others would come down in price.

[Cyknight]

Short hundreds on your collection.

Also, how much of your collection is upscaled DVD vs BD. The cloud based copies or downloaded bitperfect BD copies are all streaming in HD.

I also see they have a 4K player out now and 4k content coming soon. How will the local DVDs look upscaled to 4k?

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Hundreds not counting the DVDs

What DVD? You mean all of those that are NOT going to be on VUDU anyway, or those that aren't re-encoded to BluRay at all? 'Cause I have plenty of those.

And yes on MY collection - this was MY opinion for MY use - just like yours in on your use.

Bitperfect is NOT the same as BD quality audio and video - and DVD upscale to 4k, are you talking of my potential new player that will scale my files? Or are you expecting all DVDs to be available in 4K (even all existing BluRay) in short order on VUDU? I suspect you'd be sorely mistaken

 

4K content is coming...probably. It was supposed to be here at the beginning of the year. Meh. People are tired of paying for 'another' HD is the impression I more and more get. To my own detriment mind you - I'd love for it all to go there (for the right price), but if you want to make a comparison of how many 4k tvs I've sold vs 'normal' HD TVs.....I'm having a hard time being convinced that 4K will take off that well - let alone fast.

Assuming that will happen - I'll deal with that just as soon as I will deal with the great move to 3D

[SMHarman]

Yes it was. I'm still watching TV on 720 plasma. I was in the middle of construction when Panasonic pulled out of the plasma market and spent the money moving a steam pipe and a air vent.

We all have different needs and different projects, apologies if what I said came across wrong.

In my limited D2D so far I've been offered HD/HDX more often than not and as my decluttering has moved to digital media I am learning that two decades of digital data is also at starting to get cluttered so where I can shift the management responsibility that works well for me.

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