DVD Server

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Tinfoilrcr

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Hi All-

I am looking into building a DVD Server similar to the Kaleidescape System (http://www.kaleidescape.com/experience/). Any ideas suggestions about the best way to go about doing this? Ideally I would like it to be accessible from any TV and ideally controllable from a Universal Remote Control (such as the Pronto TSU 9600). I have no idea if any or all of this is possible. Thank you very much for all of your help.

Cheers!
 
What kind of budget are you working with?

This can easily be done with Windows MCE and MyMovies.

The big decision point is whether you want to go with a integrated encrypted cable tuner or just make the movie box a standalone unit.

With the integrated unit you are looking at an OEM PC from Dell/HP/Velocity Micro/etc. with Digital Cable Tuners. Without the tuner integration you can just build a bunch of HTPCs using the MyMovies Client/Server setup.

Plan for 3-7 GB of storage per movie when planning storage for SD, 27GB ish for BR/HD content.

Personal Setup:
Dell XPS 420 with 2 ATI DCTs
Local DVR storage/iSCSI planned
Windows(CIFS) File Share With DVDs converted to DVR-MS format.
2 xbox360s feeding off of the master xps420.
 
Budget is not an issue for this project. And I think that the plan would be to use this strictly for Music/movies. After a quick perusal of the My Movies website, this looks promising. DO you have any experience with it?

What all would I need to build a system along these lines? Would I beable to control it via my Universal Remote? Thanks!
 
you will need either an extender (xbox360 or linksys) or a HTPC that access the content from the server.


Personally i would build a HTPC ($400)

any 780g motherboard will play HD content no GPU required, an 80-160gb HDD for OS only
a 45w AMD AM2 CPU of your choice and then a case....

you will have more options and better power with that than an extender.... (it will read any file format, where as the xbox360 like certain formats)

i use my movies and its great, but i have it running on my HTPC, which has about 3TB of storage (no need for a server for me)


for the remote just get a MCE remote and use the IR reciever from it, then use the universal to either learn the commands from the MCE remote or if the remote has MCE in its database you are set. that is the best way when running either VMC or MCE


GL
 
Check out SageTV. You could set up a very simple server to run it and house your DVD/Music/photo collection and use one (or more) of the SageTV HD Extenders to access all the content on it. Plus you can add as many extenders as you'd like. And they cost much less than a full blown PC.

Very easy to use and set up.

One thought, go with a Windows Home Server (so your storage is easily exandable), the Windows Home Server version of SageTV (would run on the Windows Home Server itself), and a bunch of the SageTV HD Extenders.


www.sagetv.com
 
i have not used sageTV, but the software licenses were fairly expensive last time i checked for me to do all my PCs

webguide for MCE is free

JMO
 
Adidas4275 said:
i have not used sageTV, but the software licenses were fairly expensive last time i checked for me to do all my PCs

webguide for MCE is free

JMO
Click to expand...

It's $70 for the server license and $25 per client. Very reasonable.
 
I Built something similar to that for my home. I was going to use extenders, but then decided to go with PCs to every TV basically. I have one main unit that serves as my HTPC which has all my movies stored. Then I use DVD Library in VMC and dvd library manager...a nice little tool to get all the cover art on there. It works great so far, but now I am in the process of building a server for everything to be connected to.
 
Currently I am going to Use WHS for my server which will have around 14 planned TB. My HTPC has 1.5 TB Full already of Movies and I have 5 other PCS with 500GB on them (space only used for that computer and not movies). The movies all come off of the Home server. It is very simple because it just uses Windows Vista Media Center. Each computer has two tvs hooked up to it. In that case I just use a Firestorm HDMI SPlitter....Don't get a cheap one... And the same signal goes to both TVS (plan it so you don't use the same two tvs too often because you have to be watching the same movie on both TVS). It is a fairly simple setup when all is said and done.
The reason I don't use Media extenders is so I can just put the DVD on my server and stream that around the house. It is much simpler. We ALWAYS use subtitles, and sometimes when you convert to .mpg .divx. h.264 you lose subtitles.
 
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