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Old 11-21-2018, 03:35 PM   #1
GP_Matt
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So, my wife loves moves and has hundreds of DVDs. I convinced her to throw out all the cases and keep them in binders which is great for space but I would like to take it to the next level.

In my head, I would like to rip all of the DVDs to a hard drive that is connected to the wifi and push movies to any TV or device in the house.

Ideally with some software that includes things like cover art and other information about the movie.

Can anyone point me in the right direction.
Is it legal to backup your own DVD's?
Is it easy to backup your DVD's? I assume it will be time consuming but if it is easy it can be done in the background over a period of time.
Is there good software for organizing the collection? I don't mind spending some money if it is going to be a slick system.
Is it easy to stream on any device? The TVs can/do have Chromecast? Tablets and phones are Android.
What will the picture quality be like?
Anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks
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Old 11-21-2018, 03:36 PM   #2
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You want Plex.
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Old 11-21-2018, 03:51 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GP_Matt View Post
So, my wife loves moves and has hundreds of DVDs. I convinced her to throw out all the cases and keep them in binders which is great for space but I would like to take it to the next level.

In my head, I would like to rip all of the DVDs to a hard drive that is connected to the wifi and push movies to any TV or device in the house.

Ideally with some software that includes things like cover art and other information about the movie.

Can anyone point me in the right direction.
Is it legal to backup your own DVD's?
Is it easy to backup your DVD's? I assume it will be time consuming but if it is easy it can be done in the background over a period of time.
Is there good software for organizing the collection? I don't mind spending some money if it is going to be a slick system.
Is it easy to stream on any device? The TVs can/do have Chromecast? Tablets and phones are Android.
What will the picture quality be like?
Anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks
It's legal to make backups for personal use. There is a law against breaking copy protection but no one is going to come after you if you're not sharing the movies.

MakeMKV is probably the easiest program to rip DVDs. The resulting file will look just as good as the original. You can use something like Handbrake to make the files smaller if space is an issue, but you'll sacrifice a little quality.

I agree with Fuzz about Plex. It's an easy to use media organizer that looks very slick. There are apps for just about everything you can hook up to a TV, and work on mobile devices too.
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Old 11-21-2018, 04:42 PM   #4
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Can you run everything directly off a standalone hard drive or do you need to get a computer setup as a media center?
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Old 11-21-2018, 05:01 PM   #5
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You'll need a computer to run the media server.
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Old 11-21-2018, 05:35 PM   #6
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You'll need a computer to run the media server.
I use my Nvidia Shield TV as a server, and it works perfectly as well as being an excellent media player and game console.

I was using my NAS but the processor isn’t powerful enough to do heavy transcoding. Pretty much any computer will do the job.
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Old 11-21-2018, 05:41 PM   #7
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I have an old Q6600 and 4gb of ram that I loaded up with 2 2 TB hard drives. Installed Plex and not looking back.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:41 PM   #8
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Sounds like I have a project lined up for myself. Thanks for the help.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:57 PM   #9
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I use my Nvidia Shield TV as a server, and it works perfectly as well as being an excellent media player and game console.

I was using my NAS but the processor isn’t powerful enough to do heavy transcoding. Pretty much any computer will do the job.
How much storage do you get with a Shield? Can you add to it?
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Old 11-21-2018, 08:20 PM   #10
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How much storage do you get with a Shield? Can you add to it?
The regular one doesn’t come with storage. The “pro” has a 500GB drive. You can add storage via USB or on the network. I keep everything on the NAS and it works perfectly. I did buy the pro because I read it works better with Plex, but I think plugging in a USB drive to use for temporary storage would work just as well.
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Old 11-21-2018, 08:54 PM   #11
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How do you store stuff on the NAS or network but get the Shield to do the transcoding and streaming?

EDIT: NM, seems pretty simple after a quick Google.

Last edited by Finger Cookin; 11-21-2018 at 08:57 PM.
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Old 11-21-2018, 09:23 PM   #12
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The regular one doesn’t come with storage. The “pro” has a 500GB drive. You can add storage via USB or on the network. I keep everything on the NAS and it works perfectly. I did buy the pro because I read it works better with Plex, but I think plugging in a USB drive to use for temporary storage would work just as well.
FYI, there's no difference in processing power between the standard version and the Pro. The only differences between them are the storage (16GB vs 500GB) and the Pro has an IR receiver, so you can use universal remotes without any addons
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Old 11-21-2018, 10:18 PM   #13
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FYI, there's no difference in processing power between the standard version and the Pro. The only differences between them are the storage (16GB vs 500GB) and the Pro has an IR receiver, so you can use universal remotes without any addons
I read that plex only uses internal storage for temporary files so there’s a chance that the 16GB version might cause issues when transcoding 4K or dealing with a large library. That might have changed since I researched it before buying mine.
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Old 11-22-2018, 11:13 AM   #14
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Sounds like I have a project lined up for myself. Thanks for the help.
Me too, this sounds pretty interesting. I love the idea of central storage for all the movies we own.
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Old 11-22-2018, 01:48 PM   #15
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You'll need a computer to run the media server.
Could also get a Raspberry Pi as well.
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Old 11-22-2018, 02:36 PM   #16
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Could also get a Raspberry Pi as well.

Raspberry Pi makes a good Plex client, not a server. It doesn't have near the power to do any serious transcoding. Then there's having to work in a Unix environment with it, which would make things much more difficult for non-tech oriented people than using an existing Windows desktop or a Shield
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Old 11-22-2018, 05:04 PM   #17
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Is Chromecast going to work as a good Plex client?

Any other thoughts on the Shield? It looks like a good energy efficient solution. Pro or not?
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Old 11-22-2018, 07:22 PM   #18
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I guess my setup is lacking, but works great for us.
External HDD attached to router, and use SMB sharing to make content available to every TV in the home, and use Kodi as client on Amazon firesticks.
No server running all the time and works fantastic, for us.
I always have been interested in Plex, just hate the idea of running a computer 24/7 for it.
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Old 11-22-2018, 09:22 PM   #19
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I built an unraid media server using a used supermicro motherboard with a Xeon E5620 + 24GB ram in a mid-tower atx case with a few hard drives.

I use emby server as my backend instead of plex (same idea, but I preferred how emby handles subtitles). It manages all of my movies, tv shows, music, and OTA recordings (using a hdhomerun tuner). Clients for my tvs are nvidia shields and mi boxes. All of my boxes are hooked up to my network via ethernet.


All of my dvds and blurays were backed up using makemkv. It takes a while but it's handy when it's done. Makemkv will let you pick and choose what you want to back up off the dvd. I strip out all the menus and extras, and just keep the movie, audio track(s), and english subtitles. Some people will also compress the mkvs with handbrake to get the size down, but you sacrifice some video and/or audio quality to achieve this.

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Old 11-23-2018, 05:19 PM   #20
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Is Chromecast going to work as a good Plex client?

Any other thoughts on the Shield? It looks like a good energy efficient solution. Pro or not?
Chromecast works fine as a client.

The client really doesn't do much other than provide a front end. The server does any transcoding necessary, the client just pushes it to the screen. I've used RPi or Chromecast as the client and the issue was never with those.
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