DVD Storage in Home Cinema?

chris_r · 19 May 2011 at 01:42

Hello,

Doing my own home cinema soon and i was planning on having two Ikea book cases full of my DVDs in there, only thing is it is a small room and after looking through the gallery i can see that less is more, they look so clean and sleak with no dvds in the room etc.

My question is, where do you guys store them all, do you all have to goto another room and choice which movie to watch before entering your home cinema room?

Do you some how have them all on a very large external HDD?

Im new so would appreciate any support on this area.

thanks

Ezah · 19 May 2011 at 04:46

Most of my content is on HDD ( 3 TB of it on WD mybooks) but I chose the Ikea Besta cabinet I have with 2 Glass and 2 solid doors, so there is plenty of room to hide the DVDs, CDs etc without looking cluttered, and my AV stuff is behind glass so works with the remote.

Which is the exact opposite of my office, with 5 of those EXPEDITE Ikea book shelves filled with records and "stuff". They are a real dust trap though, so I rather have closed storage.

cram · 19 May 2011 at 08:23

All of my DVDs/Blurays are ripped to a pair of NAS boxes. The media is then stored in the loft. But if I hadn't gone down the HTPC route would probably have kept them out of sight in a cupboard somewhere.

chris_r · 19 May 2011 at 14:09

I am thinking about a HDD myself but i have like, 1000 DVDs, i imagine i would need about 4tb?

Never used them before so say i had one, i am guessing it's plugged into a PC. Then to watch a film on the PJ would i have to go through the PC and find the movie etc?

sHo0sH · 19 May 2011 at 15:31

At the moment the best priced NAS enclosure that I can find is the HP Microserver, check the Server forum theres a big thread about it, basically after the £100 cashback you have a NAS enclosure that can support up to 4 3.5 HDDS and a fair few 2.5 aswell for £130!

SGWills · 19 May 2011 at 16:02

chris_r said:
I am thinking about a HDD myself but i have like, 1000 DVDs, i imagine i would need about 4tb?

Never used them before so say i had one, i am guessing it's plugged into a PC. Then to watch a film on the PJ would i have to go through the PC and find the movie etc?

depends on how you rip them and the format you store them, for example, my little one has all her films (disney etc) on a 1tb hard drive, compressed them slightly but there is about 150 films, just under 100 albums and nearly every single peppa pig,ben and holly etc tv program that she likes. there is still a little bit of room on there, mine on the other hand is kept on 2 tb which is about 200 films, the odd tv series not many and about 1000 music albums (mixed between the miss's taste in music and mine) and i still have a bit of space left on my hdd.

if you got the space *fingers crossed i might later on in the year* im looking at getting a NAS/server in the loft with a couple of 3tb HDD , looks nicer and gives thehouse more space

chris_r · 19 May 2011 at 16:23

So from the projector/home theater point of view, if i used a NAS i am going to need a PC connected to the PJ via VGA in order to find/play a movie?

DiCe! · 19 May 2011 at 16:49

sHo0sH said:
At the moment the best priced NAS enclosure that I can find is the HP Microserver, check the Server forum theres a big thread about it, basically after the £100 cashback you have a NAS enclosure that can support up to 4 3.5 HDDS and a fair few 2.5 aswell for £130!

How does this cash back offer work exactly? im very interested in this! looks to be perfect for what im after.

dave-lew99 · 19 May 2011 at 17:04

chris_r said:
So from the projector/home theater point of view, if i used a NAS i am going to need a PC connected to the PJ via VGA in order to find/play a movie?

Actually no!

There are lots of media player devices now - like the WD TV Live etc

The best solution i've found is a PC with XBMC then you get a really good front end experience - easy to browse, helpers to choose (ie browse by genre etc).

Oh and you'd use HDMI, but that's what you meant to say right

chris_r · 19 May 2011 at 17:16

I just laughed actually, i don't know why i put HDMI. I forgot i'd be using a splitter, my mind was telling me one HDMI at a time haha!

I think i may have to go down the NAS route, it would be great to also have it all on tap via the iPad in the bedroom :-)