DVD vs Media Server

I have a nmt. Any one who grabs videos off the net would find it a valuable tool. I've debated for a long time on making my computer a media server but always come to the conclusion that its not worth the trouble.

You could do fancy raid setups and all sorts of things to make the storage more reliable but I feel much better having them on a disc. If somehow you have a crash your out all your work. Also if you use regular dvd you can take them anywhere and avoid storing stuff on the hdd that you only watch on rare occasions. They even have software out now that can take your blurays to dvd5.

That being said I do enjoy streaming to the tv from the computer for things that I only watch once and delete when I'm done.

Interesting stance. I however disagree. I LOVE having my entire library on my computer. I back all my movies, music and pics up now on an external, well 2 externals and stream them to the TV with my WDTV Live.

DVD's can also become ruined so don't feel too safe. I guess what i'm saying is there is nothing that is 100% safe and with the proper care you can have an acceptably safe movie collection.

storing media on HDD has the following advantages as compared to burning em on optical media

1. versatility : one can easily delete(even undelete)older movies when better rips (720p,1080p)are available.

2.easy maintenace: asides from a rare(in terms of today's tech) possibility of HDD crashes , these are better managed than Discs.

3.longer data retentivity : discs are subjected to scratches (even if u take best care) unlike HDD

4.easy searching for media: for those that have over 100gB ,HDD can facilitate easier searching for the media


this n many more(m too lazy to think em all out )

Everyone makes good points. Maybe I just need to have better backup habits. Like connect a external once a month and transfer over any new files. I could go for the automated backup that comes with win7 but I like to shut the drives down after everything is done.

I do own a few blurays but haven't attempted ripping them. Picked them up mostly just to support what I enjoy. I have anydvd hd but not a blu drive for the pc yet. So much easier just to download a pre-made space saving 720p file.

Plenty of online options for backing up photos or documents(along with keeping local copies) so I'm not quite as worried about those.

I agree with everything alpha said.
I'll add too the price per GB, which is already lower on large HDDs.

Going a little off topic as usual but
does the wdtv live player or popcorn hour compare (a full BR rip) to watching a BR movie on a standalone blue ray player?

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Originally Posted by Detale

Interesting stance. I however disagree. I LOVE having my entire library on my computer. I back all my movies, music and pics up now on an external, well 2 externals and stream them to the TV with my WDTV Live.

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Originally Posted by Detale

DVD's can also become ruined so don't feel too safe. I guess what i'm saying is there is nothing that is 100% safe and with the proper care you can have an acceptably safe movie collection.

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This is true, however its much easier to replace one disc than a entire collection. Maybe a mix of both is the best answer.

While storage may be slightly cheaper using drives I find it easier to just buy more dvdr's than having to keep adding hdd's to the computer. If your into tv shows some can easily take up 100 gb of space even if you rip episode only.
Edit: I also wanted to mention that if you backup to externals you are also doubling the space required because of the backup. Maybe the best compromise is to keep your favorites on the server and the rest to dvdr only.

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Originally Posted by pone44

Going a little off topic as usual but
does the wdtv live player or popcorn hour compare (a full BR rip) to watching a BR movie on a standalone blue ray player?

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a 1080p file should look the same. Most people can't even tell with a 720p rip.
The quality of the electronics in the playback device could make a difference.

So I have right at 900 movies on my server and almost half of which are over 4.4gb so now your talking about dula layer discs and then I also have some that are over 10gb so now I have to split them up and use 2 discs? I would never even think about doing that. And thats not counting the over 2500 tv episodes on there also which most are hd and some episodes would fill a standard dvd-r themselves. So I would have to burn approx 3000-4000 dvd's. and burned dvd's go bad over time due to the deterioration of the dye in them.

I've come to the conclusion that using discs, or a media server is neither right or wrong. All depends on what you want. Some people are horders, others minimalists, and some are in between. If keeping 900 movies and even more tv shows is your thing and you would like instant access to them then I say thats great and hope you enjoy your hobby. I personally don't have the need or interest to store so many movies when I have newsgroups and netflix.

Most hd movies look great on dvd5 after being re-encoded with x264 so discs are still a very usable thing. So for me, since I don't often watch things over I don't mind flipping through a wallet to find a disc once and a while. I still believe discs will out last any of your hard drives if you use a good brand and store them properly.

The best way to describe my media server use is kind of like a dvr. I load it up with stuff and erase when I'm done.

Based on your last post a media server may not be what you want, but in answer to some of your earlier points :
1. You don't need to keep adding drives to your computer there are many alternatives, An external drive or even better a NAS is one alternative or if you are on a budget an older PC running FreeNAS ( a linux distro optimised as a storage server) are all simple alternatives for storing media.
2. Backup if you have any one of these devices you can automate backups of the files you want using backup software, once it is configured you can leave it running and once scheduled it will backup the files you require.
In the end though as you say horses for courses, I personally stream data to other rooms so loading DVD's would be a hassle where as with a quick network I can have more than one file being accessed from the storage drives on my HTPC.

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Originally Posted by alpharomiyo

storing media on HDD has the following advantages as compared to burning em on optical media

1. versatility : one can easily delete(even undelete)older movies when better rips (720p,1080p)are available.

... blah blah ...

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Alpha has the right idea. I store practically everything on my external hard drive. If you've got a PS3 or an Xbox 360, you can use PS3 Media Server ( http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ ) on your regular computer instead of getting a dedicated media server. It does fantastic wired / wireless streaming, and it's easy to configure.

I have a egreat m34a. I used ps3 media server for a bit and works great considering the limitations of the ps3 not being designed as a nmt. I used to have a stack of rw's that I would put all the temp stuff on. Purchasing a media player has been one of the coolest additions in my home theater in the past few years. I may sound like I only use discs but 75% of the stuff I watch is on the nmt tank, it just gets deleted after I watch it.

Do you think mirroring a 1 tb internal to a 1 tb external is a good enough backup? I was thinking about raid but they only offer slightly more space than mirroring the drive. I'm trying to get by using 1tb of space for a small media server for simplicity. My to be watched folder already takes up 15% of the whole drive.

I have been playing around with the new handbrake using x264. Its quite impressive for sizing down tv shows without quality loss. I was able to take a 50 minute (sd) show from 1.8 gb down to about 800 mb with no visible quality loss. The only issue is that the encoding takes even longer than the playback time. This just ties back into the first thing that bugs me. If both my drives fail then the real loss is all the time spent encoding everything. If I don't encode then my only choice is to build a huge raid array. This is why I like to plop it on a disc and be done with it, that is if its worth holding onto.

What do people think is the best program to launch movies...I'm interested in J River Media Center 14...