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  1. Member
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    Jan 2009
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    This doesn't have much to do with video and audio editing, but kinda does ...........

    I know this depends on a lot of things that are relative to the 'individual' and how they work and what they're after. Depends too on GB's of storage available. At the moment I'm managing with my MBP's 200 GB drive and a 300 GB FW ext drive. Knowing I need more!!!!

    Not that I think I'll emulate anyone, but am curious how you manage your files, when do you toss this or that, do keep everything, how many drives do you have, ever use DVDs to back up?

    My 'aim' is to set up a home theater using one of my older macs, a MDD, has a 9800 Pro Vid card, and plenty of drive space. The process of digitizing/ripping/encoding all the video and audio is loading me up with seemingly redundant files. Yet I make excuses for why I 'should' keep stuff. One thing seems definite and that is maintaining any original files, whether ripped or downloaded, that way any reprocessing can be done if needed.

    Encoding an avi to dvd not only produces the Video_TS but also m2v, ac3 and mpg files. Since original files are safely stashed, if I'm happy with my Video_TS, then I've been dumping the other 3 ..... I hate throwing anything away. Anyway this is just one example of extraneous files I'm not 'sure' what to do with. There are other examples like rar files that need expanding, they are the original files, but I have what I need, and rar's can be quite large to hold on to.

    Anyone want to pitch in on this?
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  2. Member terryj's Avatar
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    Sep 2002
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    How funny...I was just working on a Vidcast on how I took a PM G4 QS 933,
    that I bought for $10, and turned it into my media server.

    The basics were simple:

    * Swapped out the Stock Radeon 7000 card for a Radeon 9200 All-n-One Video Card
    that allows SVHS output to my Dvd Recorder, and from there
    to the TV.

    * Kept the stock 80GB HD, as the boot. Moved it to the "Zip Drive" slot.
    In the ATA-33 slot, I installed two WCC 500GB HDs, one for TV one for Movies.

    * Installed Remote Buddy and Miro 1.2.8 for the Media Manager.
    Installed PErian 1.13 and Flip4Mac as well as the QT-Mepg-2 Component.

    I mostly keep on it stuff I am currently watching or stuff I watch
    again constantly when I want. These I keep in XVID .avi format,
    as it takes less space for these file types then a Video _TS folder.
    Don't keep .rars, expand them and trash the .rar sets.
    I also use it to surf Youtube and
    watch stuff there, as well as podcasts from others.

    I use then DVD Recorder for what its for:
    Watching Rented and Purchased DVDs,
    and to archive things off the Media Server Mac as necessary to save space.
    I do this by using it as a "Mpeg-2 Compressor" as I can set shows
    I want to save in my own season sets, by creating a playlist in Miro,
    setting the number of episodes I want to a DVD-5 ( say 4 four for watchable quality)
    and then record them in real time as they play
    back in Miro to DVD-RW.
    I then quickly finalize, take the disc over to MDD Mac, and rip content
    to HD there using MpegStreamclip.
    Once in, I then take those assets and drop them
    into DVDSP and author a true "season" DVD.

    I also don't keep everything..somethings are watch once and trash it.
    Most TV to me is, and I only make my authors of TV I REALLY like.
    YMMV.
    But I would strongly consider in building a Media Center Mac,
    stock it with 2 of the largest HDs you can afford for your media,
    as it will quickly fill up.

    hope to have the podcast up by Friday, will PM you with a link when it's up if you like.
    "Everyone has to learn, so that they can one day teach."
    ------------------------------------------------------
    When I'm not here, Where can I be found?
    Urban Mac User
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  3. Member
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    Interesting for sure - coincidences. I appreciate the 'How To' you did for yours. I'll have to dissect it some ......
    Originally Posted by terryj
    How funny...
    * Swapped out the Stock Radeon 7000 card for a Radeon 9200 All-n-One Video Card
    that allows SVHS output to my Dvd Recorder, and from there
    to the TV.
    Thinking the 9800 Pro will work for me. (<<-- comments?) By SVHS are you referring to S-Video?
    I'm hoping to use all four drive bays - 2 ATA 100 and 2 ATA 66 - and the thot of moving the boot drive to an optical slot is intriguing as well.
    hope to have the podcast up by Friday, will PM you with a link when it's up if you like.
    Absolutely, I need all the help I can get, but am slowly putting the pieces together. Have my DVI to HDMI adapters and cables on the way. Have a thread started at Apple discussions re home theaters but not much response. One question about hard drives, of course bigger is better, do rpm's factor in? also higher is better? do the drives just hook up normally (boot - master; others - slave??)

    See, I really do have a lot of questions
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  4. Member terryj's Avatar
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    1. Yes I refer to S-Video in this regard.
    2. You can use all four drive bays. The QS 933 only has two bays, the main
    ATA-33 and the secondary ATA-33 for Optical Drive and Zip 100.
    I primarily did this as (1) I didn't want the hassle of removing the
    Combo drive, and putting them there, and (2) It made more sense
    to have both the main data drives on the same ATA chain,
    rather than have one there and one in the other bay, and if say
    I had a problem with one, it would be easier to swap it out
    in the main bay then the hassle of the Optical bay.

    3. Rpm's --7200rpm is normal for the kind of reading it will be doing.
    you could go 10,000 but you want then to add case fans to help
    deal with the heat.
    A 8mb Cache would be ideal, but 2mb cache is ok.
    I set both drives to CS and plugged in as normal.
    They mounted just fine in the Finder, & I formatted them and off they
    were ready to accept Data. Tied Miro to "watch" them for new data,
    and everything is good.
    "Everyone has to learn, so that they can one day teach."
    ------------------------------------------------------
    When I'm not here, Where can I be found?
    Urban Mac User
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  5. Member
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    Search Comp PM
    I understand Front Row is designed to play your media from your media sever (in our case our MDDs), does Miro essentially work in the same manner ..... as an alternative to FR?

    My MDD is famous for heat issues so will steer clear of the 10K rpm drives, won't be hard to dump 3-400 on 4 drives, fortunately I can add them over time.

    Been reading (enough to fill a couple GWTW novels) and feel like I'm getting up to speed on the whole HT thing. Seems maybe I have been wasting some time and hd space converting avi to video_ts. Oh well, whatever I've learned in the process will be handy.

    Be sure and shoot me a link when your vid cast is rdy.
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  6. Member terryj's Avatar
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    Miro is an all in one Media App, which allows you to create Playlists
    of Content, Subscribe direct to RSS feeds for content, and
    and can search Youtube or Google and Torrent content to your Mac.
    (Think of it as iTunes but Only for Video).

    Unlike Front Row, Miro natively handles divx .avi files, .wmv files,
    .mp4 files that may not be h.264. It does so because it's backbone is
    VLC, not Quicktime.

    you'll be the first to see it when it's done.
    "Everyone has to learn, so that they can one day teach."
    ------------------------------------------------------
    When I'm not here, Where can I be found?
    Urban Mac User
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