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02-10-2018, 11:40 AM
ehbowen ehbowen is offline
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My Synology servers run a package called, "Video Station". It allows me to store video content on the server's drive volume and then stream it to TVs or mobile devices directly over my LAN or to family members as long as my 10 Mb/s U-verse upload connection can handle the bandwidth.

I've got a pretty good collection of movies and TV shows and, yes, before you ask, every one of them was obtained legitimately; I have a closet full of DVDs. My normal workflow is to rip the disk to an MKV file using MakeMKV (paid version) and then transcode into an MP4 file with HandBrake. I have three basic quality presets which I use; "HD" for 1080p video with both AAC and AC3 sound tracks supporting Dolby Surround; "SD" for 480p video with AAC/AC3 & surround sound (when supported by the original), and "Web", intended for Internet streaming, which just has a single sound track with basic stereo at a reduced bit rate. Since I upgraded my Internet connection from 10/3 residential to 50/10 business class (max available in my neighborhood), I haven't much had to use that last preset anymore.

This has worked out pretty well so far...but there are gaps. The most notorious one was Downton Abbey. I bought a DVD box set of seasons 1-6 and started ripping; seasons 1-3 ripped just fine but MakeMKV didn't recognize seasons 4-6 at all...even though seasons 3 & 4 were packaged in the very same case! I was almost about to send them back, but they play just fine on my DVD player. So, something in my workflow needs to be tweaked.

Ideally, I'd like to meet these objectives:
  • Keep a disk image with full quality and all content as an archive. I've been saving my MakeMKV files for now, but in many cases the disk is set up so that international variants with minor changes in titles and credits all rip to separate full-length files. When you're talking about a 30GB Blu-ray (This means YOU, Planes!) that adds up quick!
  • Optimize my Video Station server files for quality and bandwidth. Ideally, I'd like to learn enough about Handbrake that I can tune it for optimum performance based upon the source material. Animation, for instance, tends to balloon to enormous bandwidth very quickly.
  • Have the ability to rip every DVD and Blu-ray I've legitimately purchased...for noncommercial in-home viewing only, of course!

Looking ahead, DVD and Blu-ray seem to be going bye-bye in a few years. I have an UltraViolet streaming account and I have purchased a few items there, but it sticks in my craw. These sites are always "updating" TOS and/or merging and being acquired. They tell me I "own" the movie, but if it's not physically resident on my own hardware in my own home, then As Far As I'm Concerned it's not mine. Does anyone have any suggestions for solutions in that regard?
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  #2  
02-10-2018, 07:14 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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I take a somewhat different approach -- though mostly the same.

Also understand that collecting TV/cartoons is my roots, the reason I even got into video 25+ years ago. My video profession, working for studios -- it was an accident, a fluke, happening to be in right place, know right people, at right time. Never my intention to do what I did, to know what I now know. I was a just a TV collector seeking better quality, or just anything at all in many cases. Remember, when I started, DVDs didn't exist, and shows were hard to come by. Modern times are utopian TV collector's wet dream, and nobody would have believed this would be the future 25 years ago.

All of my post-2007(ish) shows are HD captures. The oldest ones are Xvid, then H.264 in MP4.MKV containers.

Any older is on DVD, and I ripped the entire image to HDD.
The only exception is some favorite toons (Transformers, Robotech, Smurfs, X-MEN TAS, I Love Lucy, Frasier, Married With Children, Seinfeld, etc), which are streaming copies because I watch those over and over every few years.
All of the DVDs are now the backup, in boxes in closets.
In order to save space on the drive, very often, I'll use DVD Shrink to compress it down in size. Should I ever need it to look better, I can just go fetch the original DVD (though looking a dozen+ boxes is not fun).

I see no reason to have huge NAS running 24/7, so ISOs on offline eSATA drives.

I'm not a fan of NAS, period. So right now, I have 5x USB2/3 drives connected to a central computer, essentially the house server, running Serviio. When requested, the drives spins up and plays. When not, drive is silent and powered down, saving its lifespan.

Most of the drives are also manually backed up to USB3 8tb Seagate archive drives.

All of this is played on WDTV (TV) or Kodi (tablets).

As far as online "copies" ... pffft. I don't trust those dumb SOBs. That's my blunt opinion there. They can take their approved UV and stick it. I've always seen the offers on the DVD/BD boxes, and choose to ignore them.
(A) I'm not always online, using an approved device.
(B) I don't trust it to disappear, or "update required" or whatnot. I despise new video games because of the constant upgrading required, online-only content, and other nonsense. It's only been about 2 years since we got actual high speed internet at home, and one aspect I most hated about my forced move in 2012 (due to health) was that I lost broadband access.

My question to you is this: How the heck do you deal with all the heat from multiple computers, spinning drives, etc.

Handbrake is a lousy newbie hand-holding crippled program. You want something good?
Learn Hybrid: http://www.selur.de
A member here turned me onto that a few years ago.
It'll both teach you and force you to learn more about x264 encoding, and it will unhide settings that are either unavailable or buried in something like Handbrake or even Avidemux.
It's about as close to x264 CLI as you'll get.

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  #3  
02-10-2018, 08:52 PM
lostcowboy lostcowboy is offline
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I use DVDFAB and Xmedia Recode. I use DVDFab HD Decrypter, that's the free version. Please note all versions are in one download called DVDFAB, get the latest version. You get 30 days free trial, then it drops down to HD Decrypter. In HD Decrypter mode you can decrypt to your hard drive, pay attention to size of file as it will want to compress down to 5GB DVD and 25GB Blu-ray, but you can override those settings.

I tried using HandBrake and a few other free transcoders. I have a geforce gtx 1060 6gb, the new drivers don't include the cuda dlls as they want you to use the newer api of their's It took a while but with Xmedia Recode I get a fast re-code using the GPU acceleration. In the video tab you want to select the codec (Nvidia nvenc) you can also select the two pass encoding a bit slower, but still fast using the gpu.
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  #4  
02-12-2018, 06:54 AM
wigam wigam is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post

I see no reason to have huge NAS running 24/7, so ISOs on offline eSATA drives.
This is something I was thinking about. I.e. ripping my old dvd collection to images on external hdd as I have no backups. Like you say I don't want them on a NAS constantly powered reducing lifespan of drives.

Do you periodically connect the external backup drives and scan them for consistency/on set of failure?
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  #5  
02-12-2018, 07:11 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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And reducing lifespan of wallet. From what I hear, UK power bills dwarf ours, and we already complain.

Because this is my main hobby, as you know, plugging in for mere checking isn't really needed. I tend to grab drives enough to watch the content. Perhaps, in time, once I'm done watching, and merely have it archived, I'll end up doing the old plug-n-test. But not now. Not yet.

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  #6  
02-12-2018, 09:01 AM
wigam wigam is offline
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lol yep. Don't get me started on petrol money either
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  #7  
02-12-2018, 11:17 PM
ehbowen ehbowen is offline
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Quote:
My question to you is this: How the heck do you deal with all the heat from multiple computers, spinning drives, etc.
It really hasn't been a problem. My highest electric bill from last summer, in Houston, was $237.49. That's for 1750 square feet (total) including a garage apartment with a tenant who runs her window unit on "MAX" 24/7. I have a Honeywell smart thermostat which sets the A/C back when I'm gone; when I'm home it's comfortable at 78 degrees...although I have it programmed to ramp down to 75 at night; I sleep better when I'm cool.

Quote:
This is something I was thinking about. I.e. ripping my old dvd collection to images on external hdd as I have no backups. Like you say I don't want them on a NAS constantly powered reducing lifespan of drives.
Reducing lifespan of drives?



I purchased my first Synology, a DS-410, in 2011. I liked it so much that I acquired a DS-416 in 2016, and then an RS-816 late last year. In all that time I've had to replace exactly ONE failed drive...and it failed while still in warranty; Seagate replaced it without a quibble. And it was in a RAID array; I lost no data. Of course, I use only top-quality Seagate drives rated for Enterprise or NAS use. (And I have to admit that I re-purposed the two original 2TB drives from 2011; they're still running but they're system and storage drives in my older desktop computer now.)

Benefits are:
  • I can stream and download anything in my media library to any device of mine, anywhere, anytime.
  • I have my own personal Cloud setup, which I can also share with family members. My mother, who is a Realtor, can pull up a contract on her iPad; it's then available on her laptop at work and her desktop at home and any edits she makes sync automatically to all three machines. And I don't have to pay Microsoft or Apple a monthly fee or worry about them compromising my data.
  • I run my own email server. Google and Yahoo can't read my email.
  • Likewise, I run my own CalDAV server. Google isn't reading my appointments list, either.
  • The DS-410 is my dedicated backup station. Every computer in the house backs up to it regularly.
  • I can save and catalog all of my personal photos, including adding comments on who is in them and where and when they were taken. I can allow friends and family to post comments on them too, by album. I can allow them to be downloaded—or not—and I can share them directly with Facebook, et. al.—or not.

I could go on, but it's past eleven here and I really need to get to bed. Suffice it to say that those NASs are the best electronics purchases I've made since my 1991 Commodore Amiga 3000. (Present company excepted, of course!) I think that if you give one a try and really learn to put it through its paces, you'll never go back.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
I take a somewhat different approach -- though mostly the same.
My question to you is this: How the heck do you deal with all the heat from multiple computers, spinning drives, etc.
Just an update: I was doing some capturing (FireWire) on my new rackmount setup with one of my NASs. The PC just went to sleep as I'm finished with it for the night. The NAS is still online and active, as is the router in the rack, although the hard drives sleep unless they're actually being accessed. My UPS status display shows 0% load, 474 minutes available run time, total of 6 watts power consumption.

I think I can deal with that amount of heat!
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  #8  
03-12-2018, 01:12 PM
dinkleberg dinkleberg is offline
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Synology and other consumer NAS offerings should really be avoided. I'll make a post one day explaining all the reasons why, along with easy to use and superior alternatives. No time right now. In the meantime -- google Intel Atom failure (yes the core cause is defective Intel hardware, but the NAS companies are passing the buck and telling customers they are SOL)
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  #9  
03-12-2018, 01:41 PM
ehbowen ehbowen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dinkleberg View Post
Synology and other consumer NAS offerings should really be avoided. I'll make a post one day explaining all the reasons why, along with easy to use and superior alternatives. No time right now. In the meantime -- google Intel Atom failure (yes the core cause is defective Intel hardware, but the NAS companies are passing the buck and telling customers they are SOL)
That's true enough and I don't like it, but I was lucky enough to avoid the problem personally. My machines use a Marvell Armada, an Annapurna Alpine, and a (much older) Freescale MPC.
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