Sony 777 or DVD Rip Option?

[kblagron]

After reading beelzerob's post here -> http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/sho...php?t=6861

I am trying to rethink my CQC setup wrt DVD's, and would like some thoughts from others.

I have a Sony 777, and probably don't have 300 DVD's to fill it up, but the rip and play option within CQC sounds better, assuming I can render/play it without issue.

What I was thinking about doing was one of two things:

1) Going with Theatertek option and have it rendered on WHS Server. I only have Squeezebox running on this, and it has a light load during daytime hours.
2) Going with Sage HD Extender option and buying a server + extender to offload it to the box.

I assume from a DVD ripping standpoint, there would not be any difference between the two, and it would be a matter of whether you want it rendered via PC or via Sage?

My plan is to have it wired directly into the B&K HD6 which sits next to it and out to the 6 TV's I have.

Any thoughts would be great!

[potts.mike]

Well I am using a WHS as my cqc master server and sage sever. IT has 1.7 TB of storage attached that is almost full of my dvd rips, music and computer backups. I use hd extenders to distribute videos to my tv's.

[CalypsoCowboy]

You may want to use a combination of both. For me I have 300 ish movies but most of those I don't watch very often so way waste the disk space on something you want once a year. You may want to rip the more common movies and leave the rest in the changer. My 2 cents.

-Josh

[klindy]

You may want to use a combination of both. For me I have 300 ish movies but most of those I don't watch very often so way waste the disk space on something you want once a year. You may want to rip the more common movies and leave the rest in the changer. My 2 cents.

-Josh

Pretty much what I did too. Most of the ripped movies are those which tend to be watched frequently (i.e. kids movies). The thought is then the kids can be watching whatever they want, or even more than one, from the 'ripped pool' and the changer is still available for the non-kid movies.

While I still have some space in the changer, I have some duplicates (ripped and disc) of the favorites. For these you have to add an entry into the CQC repo manually with one pointing to the file the other entry pointing to the disc.

One comment about my changer - it seems the video quality from the changer isn't near the quality of the disc based movies. I get some green and purple banding which slowly drifts upward on the screen (bands which are 1/3 or more of the screen height). Unless you look for them you don't notice them and the other half hasn't complained yet, but I see them. If we had a larger flat screen or a projector, I fear they would be more noticable. I don't have the same issue with OTA signals or file based movies so I'm pretty sure it's in the changer itself.

In other words, picture quality may also be a factor especially if you use ffdshow or something to enhance the picture.

[Dean Roddey]

I get some green and purple banding which slowly drifts upward on the screen (bands which are 1/3 or more of the screen height).

Isn't that usually some sort of electrical interference? I.e. do you have the video output of the changer running past any equipment that might interfere with it, or network cables or something like that? I always found the output of the 777 to be pretty darn good.