Mungler Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Okay, I have seen that the price of PCs and other electrical equipment is now in the toilet - I have seen full systems (alright it was a compaq) for £250 including monitor and so I was thinking about going the media centre route - PC with media centre, wireless network enabled, dirty big hard drive etc. plumbed into the main telly. Question: I have lots of original DVDs and copy DVDs (obviously not pirated, no Sir, not me). The question is, how can I get all my DVDs onto Hard Drive? I don't have the time or the patience to do any techinical like ripping a DVD and re-rendering it and the audio into Mpeg4 and all that malarkey. So, is there an idiot proof bit of software (drag and drop copy type simple) where I could drag and drop the DVDs onto the hard drive. I expect that that the already copied DVDs will be easier to move over. There was a piece of software I saw called virtual drive where it seemed to take a mirror copy of any content and then hold it as a "drive" - it seemed to be aimed at gamers so that PC games that required Disc 2 to remain in the disk drive, the game could be re-pointed to the "virtual drive copy". I just wondered if there was something like this for DVDs. Final question is what is the norm for playing media? Windows Media never seems to have the codecs required to make a job of it and there are issues re: playing DVDs (originals and copies). Cheers all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billy. Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 (edited) Yes, you can use a program called 'Foxit' which is designed to remove the copy protection so that you can burn a dvd to your hard drive and watch it when you like. You have made the right choice by looking for a media centre pc, as this will be the best to make a 'cinema pc' Remember that a standard DVD will be about 4.7 Gigabytes (GB) and the better, 'dual layer' will go up to 8 GB. A 1 Terabyte Hard Drive will hold 1024 GB, so you can do the maths to see if your collection will fit. Obviously you'll have to leave some space for the operating system (8gb) and extra software. If you need a program that plays everything (i mean everything) download the VLC Player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ It has every codec known to man and I've not had any problems with it. You can also download 'codec packs' for Windows Media Player, which will alow you to play Divx, Avi and VOB etc etc. A lot of people have this set up and I personally was considering it, but due to a lack of money and a preferred passion for shooting, I didn't buy it. There are quite a few media PC's on the net, but you'll be looking at 2k upwards for something decent. I'd just take your current PC and change the operating system to Media Centre and add a few extra hard drives. You can pick up a terabyte for about £70 these days, which is an excellent deal. You don't need to worry about getting a top end one because you're not using it for anything demanding. Hope this helps. Oh and I recommend a projector too, I've used them for years and they knock spots off TVs. Will Edited December 13, 2008 by harfordwmj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted December 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Ta for that, but £2k for any PC ain't gonna happen this side of ever. I got a tidy 3.4 Ghz P4 spare and will beef that up to run the DVDs and CDs. There should be a monkey "genuine" copy of media player on ebay. Projectors are too techy for me - I am not a single man and so do like to draw my curtains and open windows during the day and the idea of paying £400 for a replacement bulb....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDsniper Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 hi mate i have set mine up the same you dont realy need media center well not the way i have done it i i use a p4 pc. But i use my xbox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted December 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Do tell more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirokujames Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 I have 2 500gb external hdd's and put all my music and a selection of dvds on them connected to my pc. i also have a ps3 so i downloaded a program called tversity (highly reccomend) and is free. run that on ure pc and the ps3 picks up either wirelessly or wired on ure network as a media server and just streams from my pc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted December 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 There is a whole world of technology that is unknown to me. My brother was talking about something he set up in his home to stream MP3s. There was a little LCD display near his hifi that seemed to control it all (and link to a PC). I will just have to wait a few years for the kids to kick in. Apparently I am old fashioned because I still use VHS and don't have Sky plus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirokujames Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 you can buy multi room systems but there expensive to set up correctly, just depends how much you want to spend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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