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    Invelos Forums->General: General Home Theater Discussion Page: 1  Previous   Next
Movie storage system
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStevizard
Registered: July 8, 2007
Posts: 5
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Hi gang,

Since I have over 1200 full-length movies, I'm running into storage problems. Storing my movies on DVDs is getting impractical (I've got six 240 disc wallet-style cases) and they take up a lot of room. I'm planning on converting them to mpeg4 and storing them on hard drives. I've looked at the Buffalo 2 terabyte hot-swap system (four 500GB drives in a single enclosure) but its a bit pricey.

Is anyone doing this now?  Please make recommendations . . .

Thanks,
Stevizard
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorJuoquim
AKA Archangel of Overkill
Registered: March 22, 2007
United States Posts: 95
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I haven't heard of this one, but am interested in looking into it.

Do you know a website we can look at to take a look at it?
Juoquim

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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantAscended_Saiyan
A Blu-ray crack fiend
Registered: March 13, 2007
Posts: 1,127
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Personally, I found that even 2TB is nowhere near enough space unless you are willing to lose a lot quality.  I estimate that you might need 6TB of storage space (depending on how many are on dual layer DVDs) for equal quality.
To err is human...
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473 Blu-ray Titles
 Last edited: by Ascended_Saiyan
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantDr. Killpatient
Here's my card
Registered: May 19, 2007
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United States Posts: 5,917
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I've been converting my widescreen movies into WMV-HD at max quality.  I see no quality loss and the files basically come out to 1 GB per hour.

I've almost filled my Iomega 1 TB network storage device.

I was putting them on hard drives in my server PC (had 8 running in there) but I got tired of moving files from one drive to another as I filled up the space and larger drives became available.  I figured adding a TB or two in network storage at a time was more preferable.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantsteinyd
Registered: September 19, 2007
Posts: 18
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Earlier this year I purchased an Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (now owned by Netgear) and installed 4 - 750gb enterprise class hard drives. This gave me about 2TB of online storage. Infrant is now preparing an upgrade to their OS that will allow me to fully recognize 3 TB of storage.  You can certainly chain a couple of these together as your needs grow. I believe they are also now supporting the larger hard drives.

I am currently storing my movies (main movie only) in VOB format as the jury is still out on the best way to [affordably] distribute the media.  Right now, I am using a Helios X5000 wired (also provides wireless) streaming media device that does play the VOB files quite well. I am using a VOB joiner to make it one, seemless VOB file per movie.

Recently announced at CEDIA are new devices coming from Netgear, DLink and Linksys that will support h.264, Dvix and Xvid containers via MediaCenter. Should be delivered later this year.

Regards,
David
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorwhispering
On ne passe pas!
Registered: March 13, 2007
Finland Posts: 1,380
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Quoting Stevizard:
Quote:
Hi gang,

Since I have over 1200 full-length movies

Few hour movie takes about 6GB of space, so that means you would need about 7-8 TB of storage (Using 2TB external HD's that would cost you ~3000$). It takes time to rip them to the computer, so i would guess it probably takes an hour/movie, which results in 50 days of work from the PC to record them. Considering you have to swap discs every 2 hours... 

I would just forget it, go buy 100 new DVD's and 2 of these ...and it would still be cheaper
 Last edited: by whispering
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantmacee
Registered: September 11, 2007
Netherlands Posts: 17
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Quoting whispering:
Quote:

I would just forget it, go buy 100 new DVD's and 2 of these ...and it would still be cheaper


Ugh i would just build my own... a lot! cheaper. Or get a handy friend to help you if your not that good with your hands :d
 Last edited: by macee
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantOverseer
Where's my damn statue?!
Registered: March 17, 2007
United States Posts: 175
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Quoting whispering:
Quote:
It takes time to rip them to the computer, so i would guess it probably takes an hour/movie, which results in 50 days of work from the PC to record them. Considering you have to swap discs every 2 hours... 

If you were using a hammer and chisel then yes, about an hour per movie.  However, with drive speeds these days a normal time would be between 10-15 mins.

Still a long time for 1200 movies.
Gotta nip it in the bud, Andy!
 Last edited: by Overseer
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorwhispering
On ne passe pas!
Registered: March 13, 2007
Finland Posts: 1,380
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Quoting Overseer:
Quote:
If you were using a hammer and chisel then yes, about an hour per movie.  However, with drive speeds these days a normal time would be between 10-15 mins.


Used a laptop thats less then a year old.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStevizard
Registered: July 8, 2007
Posts: 5
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Hi Steinyd and all,

Im converting my movies into DivX using the latest DivX Pro codec. I can cut the main movie down to 1GB or slightly less with no apparent loss in quality (I watch movies on a 120-inch diagonal front-projection screen). So, 1.4TB should handle all of my movies at present. But I would like to have the ability to add additional space above 2TB should I need it (and I probably will).

The Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ looks like just what I need but "holy cow batman," the price is out of this world. That's why I'm looking at the 2TB Buffalo Terastatiion ($600.00 with drives included). I could put roughly 1800-1900 movies on the Terastation, which is cheaper than buying 18 100-pack DVDs at $35 per pack.

Yes, it does take time to convert vob movies into a single DivX file but when you consider the storage space I'm saving, its worth it to me.

Does anyone know if the Terastation can stream movies via its 2.0 USB fast enough so that the movies don't lag?

Stevizard
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantDr. Killpatient
Here's my card
Registered: May 19, 2007
Reputation: Highest Rating
United States Posts: 5,917
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I have the 1TB iomega solution and so far, it works well for me except that I have filled it up.  I simply hook it up to my gigabit lan and map out it's build-in share.

However, I plan on getting a 2TB NAS and configuring it as a stripped mirror RAID for redundency and copy all the stuff from the 1TB onto it and use the 1TB as a backup server.
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantstevenwilliams
Registered: June 10, 2007
Posts: 2
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I have stored all my movies on a spare PC I had. I add a new 500gb disk (about £60) each time it fills up. I'll move to 750gb disks when they come down to the £60 range.

I basically create a new directory for each disk names as per disk title and copy the VIDEO_TS directory into this.

The drives are shared under a single share with subfolders so basically I share c:\MEDIALIBRARY on the PC but each drive sits under this. (c:\MEDIALIBRARY\DRIVE1, c:\MEDIALIBRARY\DRIVE2 etc..) as a seperate mount.

As the only share on the PC is the \\mediapc\medialibrary mapping it to each of my Media center PC's is easy. (They all map to drive M)

Obviously the PC has ANYDVD installed so copying the vobs is not an issue.
If a drive should fail it's not a problem as I have stored the DVD's in the attic in boxes that are labelled to represent the drives. BOX1 = DRIVE1.

I use DVD profiler to catalogue the DVD's and import the XML extract into 'My Movies'. This way I get the DVD covers and movie information on the screen.

I have found this the best solution as I can view DVD's in any room (I have a media center in every room).

I have streamed 4 different DVD's at the same time with no loss in quality. No time delays and no performance issues.


This has worked for me and I have over 550 disks. Yes it takes quite a few disks but the end results are worth it.

BTW: It takes about 15 mins to copy a DVD to the PC. I have a seperate PC I setup with 5 DVD rom drives for the initial load. That way I was able to load 5+1 DVD's at the same time. So thats 6 DVD's every 15mins rather than every 1h30m. At £9 for a IDE DVD ROM and £14 for a SATA DVD Writer (Ebuyer) it makes sense.



MediaStore PC:
Intel Pentium D 945
ASROCK motherboard (2 IDE, 2 SATA)
2GB DDR2 RAM
3x unbranded 4 Channel SATA Controllers (SIL3114 chipset) (£14ea eBay)
2x 250GB Western Digital Hard Disks (OS & Programms, Pictures, CD's)
3x 320GB Western Digital Hard Disks SATA (DVD's)
6x 500GB Western Digital Hard Disks SATA (DVD's)
1x LG DVD Writer
850WATT Power Supply
1000Mbps Intel Network card.
Custom Made Case

DATA Load PC
AMD Athlon xp2400
ASUS A7N8X Motherboard
1GB DDR RAM
1x 1250gb IDE Hard Disk (Seagate)
3x LG IDE DVD ROM Drives
2x LG SATA DVD Writer Drives
1000Mbps Intel Network card.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantDr. Killpatient
Here's my card
Registered: May 19, 2007
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United States Posts: 5,917
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I went the route of a NAS PC at first, even had an 8 bay external SATA case.  However, it got old after upgrading the drives to larger ones and moving the files between them.  I decided it was a lot less effort to simply add a new NAS storage system to the network when the current ones fill up.
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantstevenwilliams
Registered: June 10, 2007
Posts: 2
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Quoting Dr. Killpatient:
Quote:
I went the route of a NAS PC at first, even had an 8 bay external SATA case.  However, it got old after upgrading the drives to larger ones and moving the files between them.  I decided it was a lot less effort to simply add a new NAS storage system to the network when the current ones fill up.


I thought about going the NAS route but just couldn't afford it at the time.

My current setup is based mostly on existing hardware I had lying about. Only the drives were an actual purchase specifically for this.

I'm looking at upgrading the SATA controllers to the new Sil chipset that supports port multiplying. That way a 4 port SATA controller actually supports 12 drives. I cannot be botherred to copy between drives so I'll just keep adding new ones until 1TB drives are about £60. Probably in 2 years or so. :-)
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantMarEll
Registered: June 9, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 1,208
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@Dr. Killpatient

What do you use to convert your WMV-HD?  And how long does it take?
 Last edited: by MarEll
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantDr. Killpatient
Here's my card
Registered: May 19, 2007
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United States Posts: 5,917
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Quoting MarEll:
Quote:
What do you use to convert your WMV-HD?  And how long does it take?

Intervideo DVD Copy 5 - but it only works with unencrypted video.
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