Digital Storage of DVD Films?

Question

How do I store my DVD films digitally so I can play them from a single source straight to my TV? I would like to store around 500 films to clear some space in my home. The DVD machines with storage on the market only seem to have around 400gb memory which by my reckoning will ony store about 80 films I was thinking possibly a pc based solution with several hard drives but anticipate a few problems:
1. Logistics/ interface to play straight onto TV.
2. Copyright/ protection issues.
3. Upgradability to Blu Ray.

Thanks Chris

Answer 1

It sounds like constructing a home theater pc is your best bet. Do a search on HTPC, and you'll see many people are doing it. It's very possible to bypass the encryption on a DVD with various free software such as DVDFab Decrypter so that you can rip them straight to a hard drive. You can also upgrade fairly well to Bluray (most Bluray drives run under $200) assuming you build your system around the right hardware.



http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ is a great site to peck around in. That's the interface I use, and the forums can provide a lot of advice concerning hardware and system configurations. I'd also recommend pricing things out on Newegg.com once you've gotten a list together of the parts you'd like to use.

Answer 2

All camcorders designed and outfitted in the final 10 years are digital. the only alterations are what media is used. digital records may be stored on complicated disc (HDD), optical disc (DVD), reminiscence card and tape (miniDV). the optimal datarate/high quality recording at present is on tape (miniDV) and lowest is DVD. each and each media style has its specific reward and a few cameras grant a hybrid of reminiscence card and yet another media. Optical has no longer proved out very nicely and until Blu ray camcorders are developed, they're going to quickly be eclipsed by way of different media style. the 1st digital media became into miniDV which has seen new existence with its version to HD recording as HDV. Tape structures require ieee1394 serial port on the laptop, it somewhat is because of the fact they might desire to allow the laptop action administration over the tape (ie end, rewind, play, checklist, timecode, and so on). Tape is decrease priced, and only shop the tape and you have a digital archive. Photographers are greater acquainted with reminiscence enjoying cards and prefer using them. reminiscence enjoying cards with sufficient speed and storage means to be smart are costly. reminiscence enjoying cards have yet another function in that they are actually not standardized. no longer purely like the photographers JPEG, reminiscence card video may be any of a minimum of a dozen records compression kinds, a number of very poor high quality. HDD has speed and storage means, and ordinarily hire the final compression schemes (AVCHD, MPEG2, MPEG4) however the undertaking is finally they fill. Blu ray is the only sensible archive approach for the two enjoying cards or HDD.

Answer 3

for your criteria,a computer might be the best solution.

you would need a machine that could easily handle the data rates.

I would recommend a high end graphics card with interface capabilities

for high definition.

a sound card that fully supports dolby srs 5.1/7.1,thx etc.

you will need a massive amount of storage to contain this number of

movies.

a standard dvd uses mpeg2 compression. typically a 2 hr movie

would occupy 4.5 gb. more with audio streams like thx.

high definition would require approx.40% more space.

you will need dvd 'ripping'software to circumvent copyright and

content protection.

you could convert the video streams to mpeg4,and this would

reduce the amount of space required for your movies.

you would have to have a software 'player' to play this format,

as it is not compatible with dvd.

you could further reduce the needed space, at a sacrifice of video

quality. in either case a couple of tera bytes of storage would be needed.you might look into 'swap-able' drives.

Blue-ray is a disk format,so you would be going back to 'disks'.

Answer 4

depends on the quality you want to ''rip'' them at...avi format is the best quality/size ratio...youll get 500 plus avi films on a 400 gig drive

no copyright isues as long as you keep the originals

to play on you tv u need a s-video out on your graphics card....simple as...