HDD Questions

chris_r · 2 Jun 2011 at 20:12

Hi guys,

Creating a home cinema and i purchased a few dvd holders to store my 1000 DVDs.

Anyway, it's going to be hard to choose what to watch an finding them etc

So i cannot afford a NAS, but, i have a couple of questions.

1) I have a P4 system lying around with 100gb HDD in and space for a few more, if i were to put in 6tb (x3 2tb) would the pc take them no problem or do they struggle?

2) Never seen nor heard of this before but is it possible to have many external drives plugged in...and keep collecting as collection grows. Use these externals to stream to the PJ or TV's in the home?

I'd really appreciate some suggestions,

thanks

SparkyG · 2 Jun 2011 at 20:40

Answer 1 - Depends on how many SATA ports your mobo has

Answer 2 - You can use multiple external HDDs but again it depends on how many USB ports you have but then again you can always use a USB hub to add even more

I suggest you turn your old P4 system into a media server

chris_r · 2 Jun 2011 at 20:52

SparkyG said:
Answer 1 - Depends on how many SATA ports your mobo has

I cannot believe myself sometimes, completely forgot about the connections!! internal is defo a no go! I will check later whats in there an stuff, i am not even sure if it is SATA.

Answer 2 - You can use multiple external HDDs but again it depends on how many USB ports you have but then again you can always use a USB hub to add even more

I could buy them as i go along plus easily plug them into another computer if i ever need to upgrade. If i were to use external drives only, would the media streaming be slowed down for music/films.

Also, if i were to lets say, keep five externals on at all times, would they not get a little over heated?

Thanks

chris_r · 3 Jun 2011 at 01:00

Ok bit more info, the machine has 200gb HDD already In, which I am using at the moment to rip my cd collection to.

It has and athlon xp 2400
1gb ram (hmm even though has three sticks?)
2ghz

R.C.Anderson · 3 Jun 2011 at 01:21

I do this with all my DVDs, as I'm a student, I don't really have space for them all at Uni, so if I stick them all on a HDD I still have them. Depending on how you want to rip them will depend on how much space you need, I have ripped some of my DVDs as an ISO, which are around 4.5GB each, and others as MKV, these are about 1.4GB per disk.

As for your question on external drives, heat shouldn't be an issue, as long as you put them somewhere that air can circulate around them, and after all, if you set the power settings in windows on this PC to turn HDDs off after a period of inactivity, they won't heat up unless they're being used

The PC itself would be fine if you basically just want to use it as a NAS, although if you want to use it to play the DVDs (from the HDD) direct to your TV, you'll want to make sure you get a reasonable gfx card for it (pretty much anything other than integrated will be fine), CPU wise, a P4 machine would probably be fine (1080p movies in mkv were almost perfect on my old pentium dual core, playing through VLC player, and was only not perfect because the decoder is only single core optimised, so the much lower requirements of DVD quality should be fine)

Although if your going to be buying more HDDs anyway, if you only want to use it as a NAS, I would just get a NAS, the price difference won't be much (especially if your going to be getting external drives), and any data transfer will be faster (gigabit ethernet, rather than USB2)

From the sounds of it though, you could always give it a try before you buy anything, see if everything works fast/smooth enough etc for you, and if it does, then decide what you want to do.

Oh, and last point, which may put you off the idea (although it's not my intention), ripping 1k DVDs will take you a long time to do. I ripped all 50 (ish) DVDs of a TV series onto my PC before I came to Uni, and it took me several days to do, and although I didn't dedicate 100% of my time to doing it, there wasn't a lot of time during the day that it wasn't busy.

chris_r · 3 Jun 2011 at 01:30

Hey mate,

Thanks for a quick reply, I'm using dbpoweramp at the moment to rip CDs. To see how it goes.

One question, it rips I'n a flac file, which actually are quite large. How do I convert them or make them playable?

Also, what would you reccomend I use or buy to listen to CDs and watch my DVDs on the living room tv and cinema room projector?

R.C.Anderson · 3 Jun 2011 at 01:55

For flac files, I've never actually come across them myself, however a quick google brought up this site, looks like it might have the info you want. Personally I would probably just rip your CDs as MP3 files (probably 320kb/s). For ripping DVDs, I used DVDshrink to convert to ISOs, however I used DVDFab to convert to mkv (there is next to no difference in quality how I did them). I can't remember for sure if they do audio CDs (although I think I remember an option in DVDFab), DVDshrink is free if I remember right, however DVDFab isn't.

As for what I reccomend to use/buy to listen/watch, what exactly are you meaning? eg. are you asking for AV system stuff, or which GFX card? (Am I to assume you have decided to go ahead with using the PC as a media server?)

chris_r · 3 Jun 2011 at 02:05

Will give the pc a go mate yes at at the moment testing it costs next to nothing.

If I say had the pc downstairs and my tv upstairs I'n living room, what's the best way to stream the music or videos to the tv? For DVDs I'd like the best picture

R.C.Anderson · 3 Jun 2011 at 02:16

Well if the PC is in a different room to the TV, you'll need something similar to this however I haven't had any experience in actually using something like this, only what I've read. There are quite a few similar devices, but that one was the cheapest that OCUK sell that (I think) does what you need. It's basically a mini PC that you connect to your TV, and treats the PC as a NAS. Obviously to avoid having to buy 2 of them you'll want to put the PC next to one of the playing locations (and use a direct connection from the PC gfx card), and use one of these in the other. A cheaper, however much less convenient way to do it, is to just run a really long HDMI cable (probably have to have at least 1 repeater in there) from the PC (where ever you keep it) to where you want to play it, and then it'll just show up as an additional monitor (depending how far away the PC is, you might get away with using a wireless kb/mouse to control it whilst in front of your PC, otherwise you'll have to go back to the PC each time you need to change anything)

chris_r · 3 Jun 2011 at 02:23

You have been a great help mate so thank you so much.

Do you think I'd get 1080p quality from my DVD rips? Also, those boxes upscale don't they to attempt to make the picture better

Thanks so much bro

R.C.Anderson · 3 Jun 2011 at 03:09

Not a problem at all

Unfortunately you'll never get the same quality as you would from a bluray if the source is only a DVD. That said, I think I remember reading something at some point that some upscalers are pretty good, they still can't give the same as a 1080p bluray/rip, however they look a lot better than if you just stretched a DVD. If you think about it, a DVD has a resolution of (if I remember right) 720x480 pixels, 1080p is 1920x1080, so although some up scalers have a go at "guessing" the missing pixels, it isn't perfect.

If I was you, I would expect standard DVD quality (possibly a bit lower, depending on how you rip them), and if your still happy, go for it. The only other option, would be to swap out your DVDs for Blurays (although with the quantity you have, would be rather ridiculously expensive), and I assume you have no wish to in the near future, or you would have already done so.

I do, however, encourage you to try comparing a DVD quality film to that from a Bluray, you'll notice how amazingly different they are, makes you wonder how we all "put up with" DVDs for so long (or even VHS :eek:

). Although if your still perfectly happy with DVDs, it's almost worth trying to avoid HD stuff, as (if your like me), you'll never want to go back to DVD.

chris_r · 3 Jun 2011 at 03:38

Thanks, you helped heap loads

Last question, pc is on xp pro, what application would you recommend fordvd and music album browsing/playing

I'd like something nice that displays the cover art and title

R.C.Anderson · 3 Jun 2011 at 11:10

Not so sure about that one, for playing, I would say go for VLC player, however it doesn't have the sort of library browsing your after. Personally I would just use windows explorer to browse, then VLC to play.