Creating a dvd library on a NAS

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

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Ok, first off, i really couldn't find the best forum to post this in, so please move as requried.

Right, brass tacks;

I'm creating a fully cat5e (and probably coax too while i'm at it) embedded network in the house i'm about to move into.
I've just installed Vista Home Premium as a dual boot on my main pc, and it links nicely to the xbox360 for the media center bits n bobs.
My intention is to put c2d pc's in each of the kids rooms, running Vista HP too. They will also, (eventually) have tv cards in so they can watch tv from their rooms.
I would like to put a NAS box on the network for central storage and create a library of all our dvd's on there, so the kids can just use their media centre to select a dvd and watch it, rather than finding the disc and playing it through their dvd drive.
  1. How do i successfully copy a dvd film to the NAS so that it populates the media center list and can be watched by clicking its thumbnail. Drag'n'drop TS files etc or is there specific software that will do it all for me?
  2. If 2 kids wanted to watch either the same film or different films at the same time from their own bedrooms, would they experience stuttering due to the load? Indeed can the same film be watched simultaneously by 2 pc's on the network?
  3. Bearing in mind my first point about flooding cat5e through the house, i thought i'd flood coax in as well, for tv/radio quality to each room. Any other cabling to consider?
The answers you nice people give, may raise more questions, so be prepared :)

Many thanks.
 
i reckon best bet is to rip off to video file.

as for load stuttering i guess depends on the throughput of the systems.. 1gb LAN and a NAS with twin nics and load balancing might help i guess?
 
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I'd recommend ripping the dvds to an AVI first - you can keep the surround sound, nearly if not all of the quality, but reduce the file size greatly.
If you have NAS, then they can be mapped as network drives in each PC, and Media Centre can index them if told to

as for the film on 2 pcs at once.. if you still need an answer by 6pm, i'll go home and test for you
 
Thanks so far guys, that was quick! :)
I really thought there was software that actually ripped the dvd to your hdd, so it was almost like a 'click to play dvd' kind of thing.

I doubt i'll have the cash to buy a NAS with 2 nics and a huuuuge storage, although all the pc's will have gigabit nics in them and cat5e should do 1000mbit for the distance inside my house, so that may help.
I may even install a server 2003 workstation that houses all the libraries etc, that might work out ok.

edit: i can beg, borrow and (not) steal from work, because i don't have a bottomless pit of money. Its a matter of seeing what i can get me hands on i suppose.
 
I currently have 2 media centres and 2 computers that access my file server and all can watch the same film at the same time without any stuttering.

Currently using netgear ethhernet over powerline kit and i can't fault it.
 
there is lots of software to 1 click DVD -> AVI
depending if you have a dual core or quad core, there are different advantages to different programs

this would definately be best for you IMO
Get a single NAS unit with a 500gb hard drive - £100

Easily mapped to network drives
Plenty of storage - kids movies and such, you could get 500 movies on this (if you ripped them between 700mb - 1.4gb)
Simple to set up!
 
You can rip the DVD's directly to a folder on the NAS box and play the VOB's. Obviously you then need approx 5-9gb per film, whereas if rencoded everything to avi you would probably use 1/5th the space, but it is far more time consuming.
 
Ok, let me expand a little now then.
'Ideally', i'd like the full quality dvd, with 5.1 as is, and all its menu's etc (just like you would if you used the disk itself) stored on the nas and to be recognised and watchable through media center on any of the pc's. Also would like it watchable on the 360, although that seems to be the real problem, so lets forget that for the moment.
Most other people i've asked seem to only use the movie file and throw away all the other bits and bobs to save space i guess. That doesn't worry me, i just want the whole dvd experience on storage at my fingertips. Is that too much to ask do ya think? :D
 
k.Jacko said:
Ok, let me expand a little now then.
'Ideally', i'd like the full quality dvd, with 5.1 as is, and all its menu's etc (just like you would if you used the disk itself) stored on the nas and to be recognised and watchable through media center on any of the pc's. Also would like it watchable on the 360, although that seems to be the real problem, so lets forget that for the moment.
Most other people i've asked seem to only use the movie file and throw away all the other bits and bobs to save space i guess. That doesn't worry me, i just want the whole dvd experience on storage at my fingertips. Is that too much to ask do ya think? :D
Click to expand...

A good AVI converter does everything APART from dvd menus...

AVI would be small
Retain quality
Retain 5.1
Fantastic playback on lots of machines
Compatibability and ease of playback (instead of mounting images)
Listed in WMP or WMC
Streamable to Xbox 360 (not sure if a NAS will work here, though a spare PC set up with big hard drives will be a very cheap and workable solution)
 
Is there a way of 'imaging' the entire dvd to the drive without then having to open up the image with one program then play the dvd with another?
I would have thought there would be some kind of dvd library/catlogue software out there somewhere.
 
I don't have Vista so I can't test this but i remembered seeing this a while ago and thought it might be what you are looking for. How to Play Ripped DVD's on Vista

For anyone not willing to visit a link given by a "noob" here is the main point of the article:

"There’s an easy way to fix this by modifying a section of the registry, which will alter how Vista handles DVDs.

Open Registry Editor (Start, Run, REGEDIT) and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings

Double-click the key ShowGallery and change the value from “Play” to “Gallery”.

Click OK and exit the Editor. If you’ve got Media Center open, you’ll need to shut it down and re-launch it. Now, under “TV + Movies”, the “Play DVD” option is now “DVD Library”. DVDs will still play as normal though – just insert the disc and the movie will auto-load.

Select this option. Apart from a couple of trailers there won’t be any content. Right-click or hit the “i” (More) button on the MCE remote, and select “Add Movies” and then “Add folders on this computer” (or whichever option is appropriate).

Click “Add folder to watch” and navigate to the folder which contains the local DVD files. The best structure to have is a top-level root folder, and then subfolder for each DVD title. Put a tick next to the top-level folder, and then click Next.

Vista will automatically scan and recognise the contents of the folder and populate the DVD Library. Select any title, and it will play it as if it was a standard DVD.

As with DVD file playback on XP MCE 2005, each DVD title found doesn’t have a visual representation.

To enable this, simply do a quick Google Image search for the title, find an appropriate DVD cover and save it to the subfolder containing the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders – make sure you save the image as “Folder.jpg”. Go back into the DVD Library and the DVDs will have the appropriate image assigned to them.

If all of this seems like too much hard work, try installing My Movies. It achieves the same results as the process I’ve outlined above, but has a very useful Collection Management program which helps keep all your DVDs in order, and grabs all the relevant movie information, including cover art, from an online resource. Best of all, it’s free!"

Obviously as this involves altering the registry it may not be for everyone! And again I cannot test this myself so I cannot promise it will work
 
I use an external hard drive with Vista Media centre in a similar way than you want to with a NAS.


Getting my DVDs ripped.
-----------------------

To do this I use AnyDVD and CloneDVD (Not Free!) Costs about £50

http://www.slysoft.com/en/

AnyDVD sits in the background and will deprotect the DVD and then Clone DVD will make an image on your hard drive.

When you rip the DVD name the folder as you want it to appear in Media Cetnre.

For example my external drive is structured as follows

E:\DVD\Simpsons Series 1 (DVD 1)
\Simpsons Series 1 (DVD 2)
\Gangs of New York

etc.



Get the DVDs to show in Media Centre
------------------------------------

As the above post, here is the offical link:

"How to enable the DVD Library in Windows Media Center on a Windows Vista-based computer"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930526/en-us

Once you do this under "TV and Movies" you will now see a new entry called "dvd library"

If you open "dvd library" and then if you right click or press (i) on your remote and select "add movies" then "add folder to watch" then navigate to the root folder where you DVDs are stored.

Note you must use "add folders from another computer" and point it to the share on you NAS. If you do not and seloect a mapped drive instead e.g N:\DVDs you will get the folllowing error when you try to play a disk

"'DVD Error: Windows Media Centre Cannot Play this DVD. Please restart windows media centre and insert the DVD again'."



Adding DVD Covers to show in Media Centre
------------------------------------------

Now you can add cover art, so you have a proper cover shown in the "DVD library" rather than the defalt VIsta Icon.

All you need to do is to Download or Scan a DVD cover and save it as "folder.jpg" in the root of the DVDs folder. (Try to keep the image file size small i.e < 60kb)

e.g. copy the folder.jpg to e:\dvd\Gangs of New York

This folder will also contain the "Video_ts and Audio_ts" folders.



Notes
------

If you using a local external drive and getting the error

'DVD Error: Windows Media Centre Cannot Play this DVD. Please restart windows media centre and insert the DVD again'.

You need to create a volume mount point for the external drive as

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/com...ror-windows-media-centre-cannot-play-dvd.html



Hope this helps
 
excllent post, many thanks. I just used anydvd to copy the full quality dvd (minus the annoying trailers etc). When viewing in media centre in vista it works a charm, with full menus etc.

BUT..... i cannot get the xbox 360 to see the 'dvd library' option in media center.
I haven't physically shared my 'DVD's' folder on the pc yet, but surely that wouldn't stop the 360's media center from actually showing the 'dvd library' option??
Bearing in the mind i had to do a registry tweak to show the dvd library in vista, is there some tweak to do on the 360 to do the same?
 
Bummer! seems like My Movies won't do it either then.

Oooh as a side question, i was showing a friend how to use anydvd to rip the dvd to his hdd and play via vista. But when i tried to setup the library in vista mce, it returned a dialogue box saying something like "Some components are missing blah blah, try restarting mce"
Done that, rebooted, re-setup using the wizard. No joy. Apparently there are plenty of others suffering this and its difficult to find a cure.

Any ideas anyone?
 
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