Reply to: Damn non-pirated DVDs

[MarillionFan]

The best quality DVD (factory produced) and DVD-R are expected to last in excess of 300 years. The worst quality can fail in a week.

300 years! Is that it!

FFS. It'll take me weeks to reburn all my DVDs in 2311. On my rate then that'll cost me about £127 million in lost billing.

[NotAllThere]

The best quality DVD (factory produced) and DVD-R are expected to last in excess of 300 years. The worst quality can fail in a week.

[OwlHoot]

Eh? Are you saying digital recordings stored on hard disk drives degrade in quality if they are stored for long periods of time?

I believe so - The magnetic domains start degrading and merging into each other, almost like melting ice, and stray cosmic rays zap the odd domain every now and then.

Also, microscopic flakes start peeling off the surface - They say you should always spin up a disk at least every three months to avoid these building up too much.

I guess regular copying deals with most disk problems though (and similar problems probably affect DVDs, although less so).

[NotAllThere]

Shrink emplies encoding double layer to single layer, I think. Is it possible to have the necessary files on the hard drive and play from there (and backup of course)?

DVD Shrink is designed to remove any crap that you might not want - subtitles in different languages, audio streams, adverts for other films etc. But it can also be used for straightforward backup - either to DVD or HD. It can remove region coding as well, if you need to do that.

[Freamon]

Beckause a properly recorded, or (far more so) commercially produced stamped, DVD is orders of magnitude more reliable than disk storage, I reckon.

In a few years, you'll find mysterious glitches popping up in films copied to disk, until they soon become unplayable, unless perhaps you record copious PAR files to go with the VOB files or whatever.

Eh? Are you saying digital recordings stored on hard disk drives degrade in quality if they are stored for long periods of time?

[OwlHoot]

Why bother with the hassle of physical media when you could just buy one of these:

Popcorn Hour - Networked Media Jukebox

Beckause a properly recorded, or (far more so) commercially produced stamped, DVD is orders of magnitude more reliable than disk storage, I reckon.

In a few years, you'll find mysterious glitches popping up in films copied to disk, until they soon become unplayable, unless perhaps you record copious PAR files to go with the VOB files or whatever.

[Freamon]

Can you play CoD4 on it?

I looked at one about a year back but they were hard to get hold of then, now it looks expensive considering you don't get a HDD or the games console for much the same money.

You can't, but it's purpose built as a media player, can handle pretty much any format under the sun, automatically bookmarks files so it will pick up where you left off, etc.

This gives you an idea of the functionality:

[gingerjedi]

That's what that does, except without the need for an Xbox.

Runs Linux and has a dedicated MPEG decoder chip, nice GUI, remote control to select files and play/pause etc. You can fit a hard drive and turn it into a NAS device, or just mount any other network shared drives to play video off.

Can you play CoD4 on it?

I looked at one about a year back but they were hard to get hold of then, now it looks expensive considering you don't get a HDD or the games console for much the same money.

[Freamon]

Or a media streaming NAS drive?

I bought a 1TB WD Mybook NAS drive for £90 a couple of weeks back, it handles all my backups via synctoy and pipes music, pictures and video to my TV via Xbox without the need to switch a computer on.

That's what that does, except without the need for an Xbox.

Runs Linux and has a dedicated MPEG decoder chip, nice GUI, remote control to select files and play/pause etc. You can fit a hard drive and turn it into a NAS device, or just mount any other network shared drives to play video off.

[thunderlizard]

or the thunderlizard lo-tech solution: chuck away the boxes and keep your DVDs in little plastic wallets or on a spindle. Instant 80% space saving.

[gingerjedi]

Why bother with the hassle of physical media when you could just buy one of these:

Popcorn Hour - Networked Media Jukebox

Or a media streaming NAS drive?

I bought a 1TB WD Mybook NAS drive for £90 a couple of weeks back, it handles all my backups via synctoy and pipes music, pictures and video to my TV via Xbox without the need to switch a computer on.

[Freamon]

If I ripped my own legally bought DVDs, could I also then cram them onto writable blu-rays to avoid having a whole bookshelf full of box-sets? BR disks store 6X as much AFAIK so most boxsets would then fit on a single disk. I never found anyone selling DVD-quality on a BR to conserve space, to me it's a great idea.

Why bother with the hassle of physical media when you could just buy one of these:

Popcorn Hour - Networked Media Jukebox

[PRC1964]

If DVD quality movies were easily available to legally download at a sensible price I'd happily do so. As they are not I find ways to rip them that give me an ad-free movie in a format I can control.

[d000hg]

If I ripped my own legally bought DVDs, could I also then cram them onto writable blu-rays to avoid having a whole bookshelf full of box-sets? BR disks store 6X as much AFAIK so most boxsets would then fit on a single disk. I never found anyone selling DVD-quality on a BR to conserve space, to me it's a great idea.

[Cliphead]

DVD Shrink's nice and easy to use.

Shrink emplies encoding double layer to single layer, I think. Is it possible to have the necessary files on the hard drive and play from there (and backup of course)?