My blu-ray collection is starting to get out of hand - over 160 titles and will probably get a lot bigger. I also have 200-300 DVD titles as well, and I do have two 400-disc changers for those, but If I have a solution for blu-ray, I can do the DVDs as well.
This could be a big space saver if it works well.
Yes, I do have Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. for my Rokus, but I want the highest possible video and audio quality that only a blu-ray can provide, and I understand a media server can accommodate that.
I am not interested in any internet streaming solutions.
Some specific questions:
Which server do you have and what’s the capacity?
What software do you use to rip the discs (legal only please).
How do you get the video/audio to your television and sound system?
Any advice you can provide will be much appreciated. Thanks.
I use Plex as a media server. https://www.plex.tv/
I have the movies on my Synology NAS and stream to a chromecast on my TV. You could also have a media PC attached to the TV and run Plex on that.
If you have Windows 10, there is a DLNA server built in. Go to Control Panel and type “media” in the search box. Click on “Media streaming options” and then click “Turn on media streaming”. That’s all that’s necessary. Any DLNA client on your network should be able to play the files served by the computer. There are several DLNA clients available on Roku, including the built-in, but rather awkward, Roku Media Player. If you want a somewhat more fully functional server, Plex is a good one, although it’s more work to set up. There is a Plex client available for the Roku. Contra gazpacho, there’s no reason to connect a computer directly to your TV, which rather misses the point of using a media server. Personally I like the “My Music” Roku channel as a music client (maybe because I wrote it), but as the name suggests, it only handles audio, not video.
Do you want to use your current computer for this, or do you want to use a separate machine for just this purpose?
If you have the money and the space, a separate machine may be more of a headache to set up, but it might be less trouble in the future - not having the TV and music gone for everyone when you switch your personal computer, for example.
If you expect to end up with a larger and larger collection on computer, consider the machines that have room for you to expand the storage. And remember that an almost-full large hard drive doesn’t run well - you need to allow more storage than what the sum of your collection would indicate.
(How much extra is necessary depends on what file system format the disk is using, but let’s say maybe a large disk runs best if it’s no more than 75-85 percent full.)
If I had money and watched a lot of movies and TV, I’d look at what ixsystems is selling.
I don’t have money and I don’t watch much, so I just use my one computer for everything.
I’ve been looking to solve the same problem. Is there any Sonos-like device for video? I would like to just have the video files on my NAS, with a device which would just read data from the NAS and send them over HDMI to the TV. Sonos does this nicely for audio, the NAS only has to be a file server (no media serving).
Ideally I could find an app for my Sony Android TV that would just play files on my NAS. Tried looking briefly a few months ago and didn’t get too far.
Also, my intention is to keep the highest quality video and audio on an NAS (xxTB capacity). I’m certain that an ISO image would be overkill, so I would probably dump second languages, and even special features in order to save space. Preservation of 3D discs would be nice but not terribly important.
A “mux” of the video and english audio is all I would need.
If I understand it correctly, I would use a lossless compression scheme…MKV format?
If you demand true lossless 100% perfect so a computer can’t tell the difference in the picture, then IMO there’s no real point doing anything other than copying your ISOs. If “really good” is what you want, then try something like that guide.
(Test on something challenging, a movie with lots of fast action in the dark or something like that.)
MKV is not a video format, it’s a container. Any type of video format (such as H.264, H.264, VC1, etc) can be stored in an MKV container. If I’m understanding your requirements correctly, I agree with DavidwithanR that you should not reencode the video; it would be a waste of time at the least, even if you didn’t introduce new video artifacts. You can reencapsulate the video into an MKV container if you really want to, but don’t change the video codec.
Close. I did read that over before I posted this, but I have no intention of playing back my disc rips on a computer.
All of the ripped media will be played on my 1080p televisions in my house.
You’re clearly planning to play them on a computer all the time though, because your NAS is a computer.
Or… Wait, what is the final benefit in all this for you?
Synology NASs can have a variety of server software installed on them. Other NAS solutions allow you to install third party software, Plex has a list of supported devices. A NAS is basically a computer. Where the physical form allows for a number of drives to be installed in a space efficient manor. They also tend to have lower power processors because serving files just does not take much computing power and it is nice to use less electricity and have a quieter box because they don’t need to have loud fans to cool things down.
I think in most cases leaving the video encapsulated in the original Bluray H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format is a poor cost/benefit choice and impractical because of the huge file size, if the OP’s intent is to rip his whole collection and keep everything online. You could compress the file with H.264 down to one-fifth or even one-tenth the size retaining the full 1080p resolution and I would bet that in most if not all cases you couldn’t tell the difference – and the file could be even smaller with the more efficient H.265 compression.
I think the best advice to the OP is to try different compression quality settings with an application like Handbrake and make his own decision about what RF factor provides the best balance between file size and quality. OP should remember that RF settings are exponential, so small changes in either direction are more significant than one might think.