Harddrive based DVD's and GBPVR

[KiwiKid]

Hey there,

Interested in people who run their DVD collections off their HD.

Questions

Do you rip them in file mode and have only the movie on the HD?

How many run as ISO's complete?

I'm wondering how you get on with wanting to jump to a particular scene if running the movie only files. When you push the "menu" button on the remote how does the movie / GBPVR respond (on a dvd it usually goes to the scene selection menu) Do you run scene selection menus? How does GBPVR deal with this - or does it use the chapter points and you have to skip/ffwd until you find the point you want. ? Or can you bookmark the points you want and save them permanently to some file?

I like the idea of still having the (DVD) menu available, but only if I press the menu button after the movie has started directly. I guess I'd have to alter all the menus to get the way I would like to run my collection - not sure that is a good idea as the time frame would be considerable.

[blader_se]

I have some as iso and most as Xvid. Basically I only keep a few as iso because of space limitations. Some ripping tools inserts chapters every 10 minutes or so. (I use Auto-GK, but have not seen such setting in that.)

Is it possible to have scene selection in DivX? I've assumed that it was a DVD-feature only...

I guess it would be nice to have the bookmarking feature (resume where I last stoped watching) in GB-PVR for avi's as well...

[reven]

i keep a few in iso format (about err 8 or 9), but mostly i just have the dvds. the 8 or 9 are pretty much my brothers dvds that i have to go up stairs for (yeah im lazy). every other way you can backup a dvd to hdd has to many limitations, ratdvd is the best format other than an iso, but that still is too young for you to start backing up all your dvds to .ratdvd (and the fact it can take half a day to convert a dvd).

your best bet is to go and buy a big hdd (or multiple ones) and back them up to iso (using dvd decrypter). if ratdvd improves you can then mount the iso and convert it to ratdvd using daemon.

at the end of the day it depends on what you want, a quick perfect copy but larger in size (iso), or a slow nearly perfect copy but with a lot of limitations (well a few, you can fastforward,rewind with ratdvd in gbpvr yet, ratdvd error not gbpvr).

ratdvd is good, the quality is good, the only problems ive seen with it are
- no fastforward/rewind
- menus are lower quality than the originals (the menus look like rubbish, like downscaled to 320x240 then upscaled again, they just look bad, but you can probably configure this to make it look better).
- jerky playback on a celeron 2.67ghz with 1280 mb ram.
- slooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

all of those problems will probably be fixed in a future release, it has the potential.


oh and with iso its easy to burn them to dvd aswell (ratdvd have to be converted back).

[Networker]

No to get TOO far off subject.. I've tried ISOs, I've tried MPEGs (which work fine) from my DVD converts.. I tried latest AutoGK, the video is nice and it's about 1/2 the size of my MPEG rips.. however I got no audio... But the more I think about it, the ISO way seems to be good, IF you don't use an MVP. I choose to go with MPEGs of the movies and hoped that DivX would work. I understand to use AVI with MVP it has to transcode and that, of course, takes CPU power.

Hmm.. that wasn't presented smoothly, but hope that works.

J

[KiwiKid]

Hey...thx for the replies.

I think my original post must be flawed so I'll explain a little further.

I plan to build a media server (approx 5Tb or more) to run all my dvd's from a hard-drive based system. Originally, I was just going to rip my dvd's in file mode (only the main movie), but since I've been playing around with some S/ware like DVDlabPro, and DVD Remake etc, I realised how dvd menus can play an important role.

So...if I am playing a ripped movie from the HD and want to select another scene - how do you do that in GBPVR? (Normally, in a DVD, a scene selecion menu pops up, but with only the movie ripped there isn't one available) The chapter points are normally saved with the video are they not - so I guess GBPVR will skip forwards and backwards along those chapter points??

What happens when you push the menu button on the remote while playing a movie (Straight back to GBPVR's frontend?? )

Can GBPVR bookmark certain parts of the movie and store that bookmark in some permanent file somewhere - like a chatper list?

I guess I'm really answering my own questions in some ways, because I realise the only way to get things the way I want is to run things in ISO mode with a modified IFO. Damn...that's going to be a lot of work.

[blader_se]

I tried latest AutoGK, the video is nice and it's about 1/2 the size of my MPEG rips.. however I got no audio...

codec heaven ;-) I use vlc to play them, which works fine, and can play external subtitles as well. (I think i installed the DivX player to get the codec, but I also have no sound when using MediaPlayer).

I plan to build a media server (approx 5Tb or more) to run all my dvd's from a hard-drive based system. Originally, I was just going to rip my dvd's in file mode (only the main movie), but since I've been playing around with some S/ware like DVDlabPro, and DVD Remake etc, I realised how dvd menus can play an important role.

For me I'm using iso mode just to be able to keep the extra material on the DVD, I never use the scene selction menu. As I previously said I'm more interested in a resume function...

I guess I'm really answering my own questions in some ways, because I realise the only way to get things the way I want is to run things in ISO mode with a modified IFO. Damn...that's going to be a lot of work.

How were you planning to organize the collection so you could retrive them later? With some database? 5Tb could hold a large number of movies...

[sub]

So...if I am playing a ripped movie from the HD and want to select another scene - how do you do that in GBPVR? (Normally, in a DVD, a scene selecion menu pops up, but with only the movie ripped there isn't one available) The chapter points are normally saved with the video are they not - so I guess GBPVR will skip forwards and backwards along those chapter points??

Why dont you just try it?

You can view the normal DVD menu including scene selection etc, or you can type in a chapter number and press enter to jump to that chapter, or you can (for example) type 3-5-skip to skip 35 minutes forward.

What happens when you push the menu button on the remote while playing a movie (Straight back to GBPVR's frontend?? )

It'll show you the DVD's menu.

Can GBPVR bookmark certain parts of the movie and store that bookmark in some permanent file somewhere - like a chatper list?

No, but as I said you'll still be able to use the normal chapters etc on the DVD.

[KiwiKid]

Sub - I'm still trying to come to terms with GBPVR, so I'm not yet fully conversant with how to do some of this stuff (I've been playing with the TV side of things). Now it's time to try and get the movie side of things set up. Thx for your reply - most helpful. (PS - a permanent bookmark feature would be really nice)

blader_se - (How were you planning to organize the collection so you could retrive them later? With some database?)

Hmmm...you've got me worried. Can't GBPVR handle movies ripped to HD's and accessed through a cover pic? Or are you asking of the way I would set them up on the HD (File Vs ISO?) Why would I need a database, as I thought GBPVR already had one.

(5Tb could hold a large number of movies...) 624 DVD titles so far - that's 1034 discs total - eek! I hope 5Tb will be enough. You know what they say...it's only money . Need to allow some extra space for additons.

[reven]

with 5TB just rip them using dvddecrypter to iso, installl daemon and then gbpvr will automatically mount the iso image and play it as if the dvd was in the drive (dameon is a virtual drive, so it fools the pc into thinking theres and extra dvd drive).

(stupid plug) with my videos you can get all the info you want from imdb.com/amazon.com and a few other places, so you would have pretty cover art and info about the movies. its how i do it with my iso images. (its how i designed it to work aswell). (stupid plug over).

[KiwiKid]

Reven - yeah...I keep coming back to ISO. In the past I've always ripped my DVD's in file mode, but with ISO I've started to like the one big file all self-contained. I still might just modify the IFO's to get the expereince I want though.

I'm in the process of setting up the movie side of GBPVR so still have a lot to learn. If I have some issues I'll drop a post I've got "My Vidoes" installed so I guess I'm moving forward.