So I just built my first HTPC

S

SarverSystems

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 9, 2002
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Now where do I start? I've got Vista Home Premium running on a triple core, 4GB RAM, 160GB OS drive, and soon to have up to 8 1TB drives for movies.

The question is, where do I begin woth software? I'm reading other threads here, but to be quite honest, I am getting confused.

All I want to do is rip my DVDs to the hard drive and have Media Center pick them up in the menu system and be able to play them.

I've got Nero, DVD Shrink, and the freeware version of DVD Fab.
 
Well, do you want to compress them? Keep them uncompressed and remove the extra stuff? Or leave them untouched? You could always rip them to ISO, and use Deamon Tools to mount them and play them through a media player.
 
These are 3 programs you can use for the front end.
Vista DVD Library http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930526 (You have to enable it)
MediaBrowser (http://www.mediabrowser.tv/)
MyMovies (www.mymovies.dk) This can be used as the backend also to collect DVD covers and info about the movies.

I suggest VIDEO_TS format since not every program can call an external mount program to do it for you.

For Bluray you will need anyDVD +Daemon Lite/Virtual Clonedrive and PowerDVD9/TMT if you plan on using a remote.
 
MyMovies is nice. Get anyDVD HD too. Both are worth the money. F*ck movie copyright protection. I sure wish I had made backup lossless copies of the 250 CD's that got stolen from my car when I was 18!
 
Just an FYI on myMovies...the new version will be out soon utilizing MCML so it will look and hopefully feel like an integrated app. I personally use and love Mediabrowser..but the future versions will not be free. If you utilize Windows 7, you will not need to enable the DVD library and it's much slicker, much more features and it's just fast...and faster on my extenders if you decide to go that route.
 
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