Movie Server

Hi,

I am looking for a good movie server to integrate with my C4 system. Recommendations?

A NAS and a Dune player.

User DiamondDesign can hook you up.

Second that!

Okay im going to throw this out there. My system is a Windows Home server to store the videos (and such), then a 1st gen Apple tv(running XBMC) to stream the videos, and the XBMC driver on the C4 system. I love this setup, you can browse the videos on the remote, and it loads it automaticly.

Just my two cents

Dune before EVA or NEOTV550 ?

^ I would say yes, but ultimately it depends on your needs.

My next media player investment (which should happen soon...just been too busy to think about it) will be in a pair of dune players.

+1 for XMBC... I think the native XMBC interface, when nicely skinned with fanart, cover art and all the media flags blows the Dune interface out of the water IMHO. I also have a Pioneer Elite Blu-Ray player gathering dust that I watched exactly one blu-ray on, discovered XBMC and haven't looked back.

I only recently got the XBMC, and my wife,kids and I love it. I think having the apple tv 1st gen is the way to go. I don't know if you can have 2 way IP control with the 2nd gen apple tv or not. I would be interested now if you can or not.

I'm curious, what are most people doing to RIP a DVD to the server? I assume XMDB isn't an automated system like Kaliedescape.

thanks

I use the Boxee App(based on XBMC) on a MacMini.

I rip Blu-rays using MakeMKV(http://www.makemkv.com/) and DVDs using Handbrake(http://handbrake.fr/).

Mac has the ability to run scripts when a disc is put in the drive, so I was automatically ripping anytime a disc was put in the drive.

Fusion Research. Best user experience and integration with Control4 is seamless.

I actually have a kaleidescPe system. I didn't realize fusion research makes a similar product.

I did some quick googling and it looks like base system costs can be the same. I do like you can add your own NAS storage because Kscape costs about $1k everyone I add a 2gb drive.

This keeps me looking, especially if I want to eventually move my blurays over.

Wow those are some pricey systems, but im sure they are outstanding.

I built my WHS box for 500-600 somewhere between there. It has 6.5 terabytes of storage and plenty of room to grow, and has enough problem to do on the fly transcoding and streaming over the web. To rip dvds and blurays I use DVDFab,(dvdfab.com) and have had good luck with it. My Apple tv was bought used for $60, which streams the videos from the NAS box flawlessly.

I think it looks realy nice, you can skin it to youur likeing, and works awesome with control4.

imho

I've spent a many hours this week researching this topic. The main thing I've learned is that it's a REALLY complicated topic and I'm barely able to scratch the surface. However, I have learned a few things:

There are at least a couple dozen options for a media player. But if you want to control it via Control4, that narrows the field considerably. The choices for reasonable Control4 integration seem to be the Dune, XBMC (and maybe the Boxee variant), or Netgear; there may be others.

It seems to me that the critical differentiator is whether you have Control4 running a dedicated theater with a very large screen and multi-channel surround sound and therefore want support for Blu-Ray and its DTS-HD, TrueHD and LPCM audio formats. If that's your situation, get a Dune. Anything else means dedicating your life to getting acceptable hardware and making it work. Nothing I could find says that XBMC currently supports the Blu-Ray audio formats, and there is very limited hardware support for it -- your typical system does not. If someone knows otherwise, I'd love to learn I'm wrong -- I'd really like an XBMC system for my theater.

If your display is an LCD/Plasma, especially if it's not a dedicated theater with 7.1 sound, then I would suggest that Blu-Ray is not critical** and XBMC will be a good choice. But unless you already own the hardware, it's probably not cheaper than the Dune.

Short answer for Control4 systems: For large-screen theater or to make your life simple, get a Dune. For LCD displays (with standard DTS/DolbyDigital) AND customizing flexibility, get XBMC.

**There's been lots of research into viewing distance vs resolution that you can look up if you're not familiar with it. For example, in our temporary home, we sit about 10 feet from a 60" plasma TV. I don't think I've been able to tell much difference between DVD and Blu-Ray but I haven't done much testing. But in the theater here in Colorado, sitting 12-13 feet from an 8'-wide BD screen, there is a huge difference between DVD and Blu-Ray. There is also a noticeable difference in the sound between DirecTV, DVD and Blu-Ray.

Edit: To clarify, you can rip and then use XBMC to watch Blu-Ray. You just don't get the advanced audio formats, you get something like DolbyDigital.

Edit2: For some XBMC bleeding edge work recently on getting those formats to work: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=78289&page=25

I would also like to know the best way to stream blue ray movies (blue ray quality picture and sound digitally stored) that works seemlessly with C4.

Do any of the systems above do this?

Dune.

I would also like to know the best way to stream blue ray movies (blue ray quality picture and sound digitally stored) that works seemlessly with C4.

Do any of the systems above do this?

I have an NTV550 with an external HDD connected snd it plays BR ISO's perfectly with all menus and audio formats.

do you still need a audio video matrix switch when using a dune player

and which one do you use

Win Homeserver running Mymovies > Dune

I'm running XBMC on a bespoke HTPC and I absolutely love it. I was controlling it via IR with my old Pronto system, but having moved over to C4 recently and integrated it with Alan Chow's driver, it is simplicty itself to operate. I use it primarily for Blu-Ray back ups with Make MKV to save space which is a bit of a ball ache, but using the intact audio option still offers great surround sound audio for my system. If you want to rip Blu-Ray/DVD iso's then the Dune players with the EV driver and a NAS drive are a great formula as you can run it from within the C4 environment, and the one 53D Sigma Dune player I've sold so far (not in a C4 set up so had to install Zappiti) seems to be very good.

I built a WHS system with six 2 tb drives. Plenty of storage thus far, right at 600 movies on the system. I have two 9150's in the system. 1 through a 16x16 video matrix and 1 dedicated to the Theater Room. All in all, it works well. I have had the 9150's for a while, not sure if something newer is better for the playing of the movies, but I have been happy with my WHS build. After building it, I have built my last two computers. Will never go back to buying a computer out of the box - easy to build and get more for the money (my opinion).

do you still need a audio video matrix switch when using a dune player

and which one do you use

It depends on whether you want to roe the Dune signal to multiple TV's. Look at the Dune like a DVD player.

MyMovies sent out a newsletter today and had this brief write-up on MM for Mac:

"My Movies Collection Management for Mac

Since the release of our software for iPhone and iPad, we have had many requests for a Mac OS X based software, which many of you will be happy to know is currently in development, planned for a first release during the summer.

Compared to the PC version, the Mac version will be created with more focus on a graphical presentation of the movie collection, as Mac users at least initially will not get a front-end such as My Movies for Windows Media Center for presentation.

The software will be released in two steps - the first version will allow for collection browsing and management of the movie collection, while the second version will operate with media stored on hard drives and storage devices, and will store meta-data for third party software and media players similar to the Collection Management program on PC.

There will be a lot more details on this Mac OS X software later on."