Digitising my Movie/TV/Music collection

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

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Has anyone done this?

I'm terrible at keeping discs, and Blu rays/DVD's are cluttering up my flat. So I had an idea:

Raspberry Pi + RASPBMC + Network Storage. Then I can convert all my entertainment media (Music CD's, DVD's and Blu Rays) into a digital format and store on networked-storage to be accessed by my TV, PC, Tablet, Phone, whatever for a fraction of the physical space.

A good idea? Are there any protection issues on Blu Rays that may prevent me from converting them? Would there be any quality degradation?

Thanks,

David
 
I've done it. I've got an Acer Revo R3700, HP Microserver with 10TB of storage and gigabit switches.

Use MakeMKV for DVDs and Blu Rays, I've never had a Blu-Ray not rip properly.
 
Deep said:
I've done it. I've got an Acer Revo R3700, HP Microserver with 10TB of storage and gigabit switches.

Use MakeMKV for DVDs and Blu Rays, I've never had a Blu-Ray not rip properly.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response.

Does converting into MKV affect quality in any way?
 
I've got all of my media on a box running Windows Home Server with over 4TB of storage, and I've currently got 2 devices capable of playing it back, all running XBMC, with the library on a shared MySQL database running on the server. This ensures that my play-states and library is kept synchronised on all machines, rather than each one having it's own copy of the library.

1x PC in an HTPC case in the living room, 1x laptop in the bedroom. Will be adding a few more devices - probably some Raspberry Pi's with some active 2.0 speakers or a cheap low-profile amp and bookshelf speakers.

I am running Yatse Widget on my Android phones, which gives me the ability to control any of the XBMC instances from anywhere in the house with a device I've always got on me :)

With the MySQL database, I can stop playback on one machine, and pick it up on another machine at exactly the same point :)
 
Your method with the Raspberry Pi does give you more options regarding file formats and containers, however one option you might consider would be a NAS and an Apple TV. When it comes to Media management an Apple TV is pretty solid and you can organise album/cover art quite effectively too with apps like Meta X.

But if Apple isn't your flavour the Pi should do the job, or even a Qnap/Synology NAS with DLNA built in with a direct stream to a DLNA enabled TV such as Sony or Samsung.
 
Just to note, an apple TV cannot play mkv files natively. You would need to convert them to mp4/m4v files, or else get a jailbroken apple tv 2.
 
Confused said:
I've got all of my media on a box running Windows Home Server with over 4TB of storage, and I've currently got 2 devices capable of playing it back, all running XBMC, with the library on a shared MySQL database running on the server. This ensures that my play-states and library is kept synchronised on all machines, rather than each one having it's own copy of the library.

1x PC in an HTPC case in the living room, 1x laptop in the bedroom. Will be adding a few more devices - probably some Raspberry Pi's with some active 2.0 speakers or a cheap low-profile amp and bookshelf speakers.

I am running Yatse Widget on my Android phones, which gives me the ability to control any of the XBMC instances from anywhere in the house with a device I've always got on me :)

With the MySQL database, I can stop playback on one machine, and pick it up on another machine at exactly the same point :)
Click to expand...

That sounds really useful
 
AMMUT said:
Just to note, an apple TV cannot play mkv files natively. You would need to convert them to mp4/m4v files, or else get a jailbroken apple tv 2.
Click to expand...

Excellent point, nonetheless the m4v container is pretty robust and can give 1080p res for playback on atv3.
 
That article is out of date, the details on the XBMC wiki are better - but doesn't go into details of getting multiple OS versions working - I'll try to tap something up tonight :)
 
I would also throw in that SickBeard has a really good TV show Renaming application built in, and can be used to show you not only which episodes you have, but also which are available. I think it's great just from a management point of view!
 
bertles86 said:
Excellent point, nonetheless the m4v container is pretty robust and can give 1080p res for playback on atv3.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I convert mkv files to m4v files at the minute (using handbrake) and put them on a HP Microserver (Windows 2012 standard). Itunes is installed on it and this serves 1 atv3 in the bedroom.

Recently got a raspberry pi so interested to see if I can get the mkv files playing from the microserver as well, with no issues, through it.
 
It might seem obvious but don't forget to factor in for plenty backups.

If you spend weeks/months ripping everything then the last thing you want is to lose everything.
 
Ditch rasberry pi idea and its a great plan. Rasberry pi, will never support netflix etc.
Use one of the android based tv boxes, or Apple TV, or a hTPc.
The pi is not designed for this and its not even particuly cheap, compared to the far more powerful android based systems.
 
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