DVD to HDD and then to HDTV

[hiramcarter]

I want to back up several DVD's to an external HDD and then watch them on my TV. I know how to get them to the HDD - I've been using MTR, Visual Hub (no longer supported)/Handbrake, etc for awhile, to back up as DVD, but now I want to rip them to an external drive. I have a Philips 5990 DVD player which has a USB1 port and will play many video formats, if I use it do I just rip as a full disk dvd, and will the player think it's a dvd rather then a file? Or should I rip to the drive as a TS file, or convert to another format. Also, if I do that do I need a media manager? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, hc.

[Frobozz]

I just looked up that player. The USB port is for a flash drive to play photos or music. There is no mention of it playing video.

There are some HDD devices that can play disc images of video DVDs and from VIDEO_TS folders. I have a LaCie Silverscreen and a MediaGate unit that can do this.

Edit: I see from the following post that I'm misinformed by what I read on Philips site.

[Ai Haibara]

The 5990 will play video from a USB drive, yes - but for large USB drives (in other words, more than just a regular pen drive), you might need the drive to have its own power supply.

It'll play the same types of video as you can from disc, although it may take slightly longer to read from USB. However, as I recall, while it can play VOB files from a USB drive, it doesn't recognize IFO files, using an external drive.

[hiramcarter]

Ai Haibara- so if I have an ext firewire/USB drive with it's own power supply, I'll be able to put VOB files on it and the 5990 will read it? You say that "it may take slightly longer to read from USB", will that affect the playback? The 5990 also reades DivX and DivX Ultras and MPEG3, is there any reason to convert to one of those? Thanks for your help, all of this is still a bit confusing. mj

[Ai Haibara]

I can't make any guarantees. There's been a number of threads here on VideoHelp about the types of drives the 5990 may or may not be able to read, and what you can play from them; you might want to spend a little time looking through them to be sure. Actually, reading Techflaws' FAQ is probably a good idea, too. http://blog.techflaws.org/2008/11/01/philips-dvp3260-5990-faq/

If the 5990 does like the drive, you should be able to view VOB files from it, I believe (though I haven't tried it, myself, with mine - don't have any VOB files lying around to test. ). The 'slightly longer' comment has more to do with the possibility that some DivX/Xvid files may take a little longer to load from USB than disc, possibly depending on their size and encoding.

As for converting to DivX/Xvid/WMV/MPEG (note that MP3 and WMA are audio formats ), if you don't mind losing some quality from re-encoding, you can convert them to smaller AVI/WMV files to take up less space on the disc/drive. A full, ripped and non-altered DVD can take anywhere from 4.5 to 9 or more gigabytes of space - a DivX/Xvid AVI can take much less space, depending on your encoding settings. However, you'll generally lose the menus and such from the DVD.