Newbie saying hello. Stream my entire movie collection to my xbox or ps3

[pyrocide]

Hello all!

Thought I might pop in a say hello.

EDIT: Upon doing a search of the forum and guides (was referred by someone to this forum as this forum is the best place to find info), i haven't quite come across what I was hoping to find in the guides section. Maybe someone could help out with this?

I would like to convert my entire movie collection (ALL DVD no BD or HD) to a digital format (MKV for example) that is dvd quality to play through streaming to my xbox or ps3. The size of the files are not a worry to me as I have over 6TB of storage capacity with room to fit more HDDs into my computer.

I have done a few 700MB rips of some movies but they are distorted and pixelated when i start playing them on either console via TVersity and ffdshow over gigabit line.

I am very new to the ripping scene, but would like to learn more by doing, rather than copying from someone else's work.

I know the hardware is there, but its a matter of finding the right settings in a guide or something to help me through the first couple of rips.

Any help is appreciated.

I was also told that MP4 is better than MKV which is better than AVI for video playback. Can someone comment on this?

[jman98]

Streaming through the PS3 or Xbox is bs. You may not know this, but those both were surpassed as media players FOUR YEARS ago. Yes, FOUR YEARS ago. If you want to go down that path and deal with all the limitations those platforms have, that is your call, but it is like deliberately choosing to paint yourself into a corner when you really don't have to. Really this task would be about a million times easier if you would just buy a good streaming media player that like one of the Western Digital models.

MP4 and MKV are just containers. Whoever told you that MP4 was better is full of #$%^ and probably an Apple fanboy. There are actually huge disadvantages to MP4 containers compared to MKV. AVI has it's disadvantages too but to be blunt it's really not all that much worse than MP4 and in some ways arguably better. MKV is the best container format. When people say AVI they are really usually referring to Divx or Xvid encoded video, but AVI is not restricted to that. MP4 and MKV usually mean H.264 video is present. H.264 is a better quality codec, but MKV is not limited to H.264. I've actually seen AVI files with H.264 video, although such is rare. MP4 basically means H.264 video and either AAC audio or AC3 audio. MKV and AVI support more formats than that. Apple settled on MP4 because they like to keep things simple so by restricting what they support, there are fewer "dumbass user" problems to deal with. But the MP4 container specification had to get modified after the fact to support AC3 audio because AAC support is not always present and everything supports Dolby. The spec group got tired of people bitching about how MP4 "sucks" because it didn't originally allow for AC3 audio, so they modified the spec.

A lot of people like Handbrake for the task you have at hand. It's easy to use and does a good job but I will warn you that every now and then it has problems converting a DVD. If that happens to you, you're pretty much screwed and you'll just have to find another program for that particular DVD. Finally, you need to use a ripper that understands current "bad sector" copy protection technology on DVD discs. We recommend AnyDVD or DVDFab for this but there is a free version of DVDFab that might be OK for you. If it can't rip something you've got because it's new, then you'll need to buy the commercial version or wait 6 months for the free one to be updated.

[Baldrick]

I changed your thread title so it better describes your main problem.

I agree with jman98. PS3 and xbox360 are not any good media players.

[pyrocide]

Fantastic! Exactly what i was looking for.

I have DVDFab 8 and handbrake both installed among other dvd rippers. Ran into a problem with my "The Mummy" franchise and picked up DVDFab.

I will look into the WD Steaming hardware later on today when work isn't so busy. Is there a particular one I should look at? One that will connect via Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi, and can access my PC hard drives or NAS?

[Eyedoctor2]

I would highly recommend Plex media server which works wonderfully for your described purpose and is free.

You can use BluRip to convert your blu ray rips to mkv (also free) or the trial version of MakeMKV to convert either blu ray or dvd rips.

You can stream from your computer with Plex installed to the PS3, which works flawlessly in my experience as long as you have the necessary bandwidth. You can also stream from Plex to Roku (free), an IPad/Iphone or your android device of choice after purchasing a $5 app.

[Cauptain]

I changed your thread title so it better describes your main problem.

I agree with jman98. PS3 and xbox360 are not any good media players.

Hi Baldrick

Just a doubt. Have you ever tested the PS3 as a Media Player?

X360 is really bad, but the PS3?

I have a PS3 and play ALL FILES on this. No problem using PS3 Media Server.



Claudio