Suggestions for a DVD Video on Demand System? 651
An anonymous reader asks: "I was paid, with about 1000 DVD movies, by a video rental store that owed me money and then subsequently went out of business. I'd like to rip a couple hundred of them to a 1 TB disk array, and serve them up to my big screen, via a video on demand system. However, all the systems I can find for interfacing computer network to the plasma display only serve up the basic MPEG files, and not the entire ripped DVDs with their menus, etc. What systems would Slashdot readers suggest that could manage the ripped DVD files as a complete disk, and serve them up?"
MythTV (Score:5, Informative)
Xbox Linux (Score:3, Informative)
And as a plus, it also runs MAME and Unixware.
why recompress? (Score:5, Informative)
Who says he has to recompress? Maybe there's a solution that will use the original
BTW-- damn, I wish I had 1000 DVDs. He should open up his own store, then "black out" certain ones while they are rented so he can't watch them at the same time.
disc changers (Score:1, Informative)
Software (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:2, Informative)
Alcohol 120% or others (Score:2, Informative)
the Kaleidescap System (Score:5, Informative)
The disadvantage is that it is a) not cheap (starting at $27k) and b) not f/oss.
but then again, it is exactly what you are looking for
One terabyte won't do it. . . (Score:0, Informative)
read avsforum.com (Score:5, Informative)
How good are you with programming? (Score:5, Informative)
Second, are you any good with programming? What I've done is rig up a simple fullscreen frontend with Java. When you select a movie, the player starts fullscreen. I've got a simple IRman interface, a remote control, and Girder [girder.nl] to translate keypresses on the remote into keystrokes that the Java app recognizes. Works great, and it's customizable to my preferences. I can understand if you don't have the time or skill to write a frontend, and I'm sure other posters will point out pre-made frontends.
The best part about Girder: you can translate keys like FF, REW, STOP, etc. into commands the player understands.
Re:One terabyte won't do it. . . (Score:5, Informative)
ISO + Daemon Tools (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this assumes you're using Windows...but maybe a similar approach could be used on other operating systems.
Re:What about (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:5, Informative)
Almost every DVD playback software can play DVD disc layouts from a folder (I know PowerDVD and WinDVD can both do it, to name a few off-the-shelf products, as well as Xine and Ogle), complete with all menus and original features. How do you think people who author DVD content test their menus, etc. before committing to disc?
Of course if the disc was encrypted, you need DeCSS to get the disc contents onto your HD, and that's legally iffy right now (fair use says yes if you own the original disc, DMCA says no). But there's absolutely no problem supporting menus, multiple audio tracks, subtitles, multi-angle, etc etc. from content in a HD folder...
Re:Are you sure these copies are legal? (Score:3, Informative)
I would assume that if there was an issue here that blockbuster would be a big enough target that the MPAA would have stopped it long ago.
well.... (Score:2, Informative)
rip them with dvdshrink. be sure you have nero installed. you can set dvdshrink to 100% quality and have it automatically burn to nero's image writer once done. you can then put the images on your storage array and mount them with software like alcohol 120% of daemon tools (i recommend the former, although the latter is free). attach the computer to the plasma and use some software dvd player. (and before someone complains, i do this to dvds i bought and paid for so i can watch them on my laptop without bringing the disks with me).
dvdshrink will preserve all the menus and whatnot and if you set it to 100% quality and use nero's diskwriter plugin it more or less just rips the dvd to a full image minus the css.
assuming linux:
i use linux alot but honestly i have never played a dvd movie nor ripped a dvd movie under linux. someone suggested the mythtv site, i would advise going there. that said im sure it would be rather easy to to basically the same or similar thing on a linux box as i suggested for a windows box. a small amount of shell scripting and you could write the interface for choosing the movie.
Re:How good are you with programming? (Score:2, Informative)
That's a lot of DVDs (Score:2, Informative)
As far as backing up some DVDs.. it's going to take a lot of money if you want to do it quickly. I hear they sell Terabyte harddrives for $1300 now (not sure who sells them) -- you could start by ripping and decrypting them to the harddrive... then either splitting them into two parts and burning on seperate disks or compress it as much as possible (lessening the quality horribly; defeating the purpose of the DVD) and burn to a single DVD. I'm saying this because it gets it ready for the user to download (2 parts would be faster than one big part). Also, it'll save you a lot of space on your server.
None the less, this is going to take a lot of time. Have fun!
myHTPC (Score:3, Informative)
Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Mount the images and run the DVD player using DaemonUI's
Obviously this is a Windows solution. This can also be done easily with linux, although I don't know the specifics of mounting disc images.
Now as to the storage, an average DVD has 7 to 9 GB of data. 1000 DVDs will take up nearly 10 TB. The MPEG2 data cannot be compressed any further losslessly.
If you don't mind a quality loss (and spending a HUGE amount of time re-encoding the video and converting the menus) you can convert to your favorite MPEG4 derivative (Divx, Xvid, Quicktime MPEG4, etc.)
This will be a hugely expensive project, with the cheapest hard disk based solution costing over $30,000 (3x Xserve RAID 3.5 TB) plus the client machine to attach to the fibre channel switch (and that's not cheap either) to read from all the Xserves.
My suggestion: Just like with legal adivce, this is not the time to ask slashdot. With the kind of money involved, hiring a professional is the best option.
PowerDVD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alcohol 120% or others (Score:3, Informative)
VideoLan (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a link to crutchfield:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-bpdQMmcLqTX/cgi-bin/
what system? (Score:4, Informative)
This is a good Windows-only setup using mostly freeware tools:
DVD Decrypter [dvddecrypter.com] to rip the DVDs to macrovision-free/region-free ISO images
Daemon Tools [daemon-tools.cc] to mount the isos as virtual drives on demand
MyHTPC [myhtpc.net] as a TV-friendly filesystem shell (in combination with some simple batch scripts to control Daemon Tools, several of which can be found in the MyHTPC forums)
Zoom Player [inmatrix.com] to play the DVDs (it's fast, full-featured, and you can turn off the GUI entirely which is nice on a TV.
You will also want WinDVD [intervideo.com]: not to play the DVDs, because the interface is so bulky and slow, but because you will need good MPEG-2 codecs and I don't know of any free ones as good as the filters that come with WinDVD. Zoom Player has a feature that automatically finds the codecs and registers them for you. (AC3Filter [sourceforge.net] is a free AC3 audio codec that is comparable to InterVideo's.)
There are loads of ways to do it in OS X and Linux. Somebody who knows better than me is sure to post them.
I thought that too, but its legal (Score:5, Informative)
321 Studios should use this info in their DVD X Copy appeal. Obviously, the DVD CCA is willing to let some companies sell fair use products, but not others. It is probable that Kaleidscape system DVD reader has a legit player key so as to not need to circumvent the DCMA, but that establishes a double standard where fair use products can only be developed by companies willing to pony up cash the the DVD groups.
Re:MythTV (Score:5, Informative)
MythTV on the other hand has nice menus for browsing the movie collection and a lot of nice features including remote control support (for instance the one that comes with a haupag 350).
MythTV is something your wife, parents, or kids could use with very little difficulty, as long as the setup is already done.
Xbox yes, Linux no (Score:3, Informative)
More Info Here (Score:5, Informative)
Re: MythTV (and samba) (Score:5, Informative)
I think you might want to consider using Samba to share the drive images, in any case. I think it was the Linux Journal, which had an article about using it as a CD jukebox, using
(oh, you can do nfs simultaneously if'n you like)
Re:why recompress? (Score:1, Informative)
Get a mac. Then, get DVD Backup.
To rip a DVD to disk, you launch and quit the DVD player app, then run DVD backup to copy it to any mounted volume. Apple's DVDPlayer app will play any VIDEO_TS folder anywhere in the filesystem.
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:2, Informative)
Too complicated -- use DVD changers instead (Score:5, Informative)
Buy yourself a couple of Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 disc DVD changers and connect them to an Escient DVD-M100 DVD manager. This is what I use for ~450 DVDs in my theater (110" DLP front projection
Some rough numbers off the top of my head: 3x changers @ $700 each + 1 manager @ $1800 = $3900. More expensive than 4x250GB drives + computer, but you'll be able to store all of your DVDs and not spend a ton of time ripping them and figuring out how to manage/play them.
You can check out the Escient manager at www.escient.com.
MacOS X solution (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More Info Here (Score:5, Informative)
Rip DVD to hard drive [dvd-guides.com]
Another Rip DVD to hard drive [dvd-guides.com]
Then you could use something like Myth or VideoLAN as mentioned in other posts to play or stream.
Re:the legality question... oh how sad (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, you're absolutely right in what you're doing. The problem is that there simply aren't enough people doing it to make the MPAA sit up and take notice. People are selfish. The average person isn't going to get involved and deprive themselves of pleasure just to help "society" if they derrive no immediate return from it.
One solution you might want to try however is the same thing I'm doing with music and dvd's: I never buy them new. Go to a used media store and you can buy the latest stuff (I mean less than weeks old) at incredibly discounted prices. Add to that the fact that the RIAA (music) and the MPAA (movies) don't get a penny for these sales and it just sweetens the pot. That way, you can enjoy the stuff but rest easy in the knowledge that you aren't contributing to the problems.
Re:1000 DVDs? (Score:3, Informative)
Check out Molino Networks (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ISO + Daemon Tools (Score:4, Informative)
Since it's a virtual DVD-ROM then you can use any DVD decoder/software/hardware that will work on a computer with a regular dvd in a regular dvd drive. The computer doesn't know the difference. When you swap discs it does auto-play as well (unless you've disabled it) so it'll start playing immediately. Disc swaps take a second, longer if it is across the network. Be aware that you'll want at least 100Mb connection via switch or direct to the server. While the DVD in theory only has a 16Mb stream coming down, the ISO is actually delivering quite a bit more information. You can easily play one movie via a network such as this, two is pushing it as long as you don't use it for anything else. Three is right out.
I use DVD-Decrypter to rip the disc to an ISO (and also removing macrovision and css - annoying 'features' I don't need and wish I wasn't paying for).
-Adam
Re:ISO + Daemon Tools (Score:2, Informative)
VideoLAN? (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
John
Re:why recompress? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:2, Informative)
You'll also need far more than 1TB if you plan to rip all those DVDs. Your average DVD hold 4GB of data; any fool can tell you 4GB * 1000 > 1TB
I have a 0.5TB array for DVD storage, I can only hold around 100 DVDs (some are much bigger than others, LOTR-FOTR is like 8+)
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:1, Informative)
No, "fair use" does not say yes to this particular use.
Fair use is a specific doctrine that describes a certain set of exceptions to copyright, generally of a subset of a work for purposes like education, review, or scholarship.
There are other exceptions to copyright in case law that allow you to make backup copies, or to make incidental copies necessary in the ordinary course of use of the product (think the copy of that CD in your disk cache and app process memory, as well as on the CD, or in your router). But those exceptions are not "fair use".
"Fair use" does not mean anything like "I can do whatever I want with my own copy", as you see so often on Slashdot, nor does it mean "any exception to copyright".
You'd think people that are so picky about the precise legal meaning of "theft" as opposed to "piracy", would be more concerned over the precise legal meaning of "fair use".
Re:1000 DVDs? (Score:4, Informative)
So, the $89 was likely the price Kosmo paid, but not the price they could replace it with now.
Daemon tools + dvd images (Score:3, Informative)
create images of the dvds, then load them up in a virtual drive such as daemon tools?
Re:Simple Solution (Score:3, Informative)
The command you are looking for is 'mount -o loop [image.iso]
[1] dvd::rip likes to work from a mounted DVD, but a straight dd rip is faster if somebody wants their DVD back quick.
Re:Legality? (Score:5, Informative)
He probably failed to mention that this was a porno video store. As far as I know (and in my experience), pornos don't use CSS encryption. Just copy over the VOB files and you are done.
Also, Bollywood (Indian movies) and probably other foreign film makers don't use CSS encryption. I think its only those Hollywood jackasses that pull that crap.
My solution (Score:3, Informative)
1. Use DVD Decrypter [dvddecrypter.com] in File mode to rip movies to hard drive/storage area in separate folders. Remove UPOs at same time for convenience.
2. Create a web page on your server which links to each starting VOB in that folder with the name of the movie. Customise as necessary into Genre etc if desired.
3. Associate VOB files with your choice of DVD player software. Set player software to go into fullscreen mode and disable screen sleep.
4. Use remote mouse or whatever with video interface to computer to choose appropriate movie and voila!
Re:HOW WE AV PROGRAMMERS HANDLE IT (Score:5, Informative)
Crestron is http://www.crestron.com/ (the best home automation controllers)
HumaneInterface.com is http://www.humaneinterface.com (the leading program/design firm)
http://www.kaleidescape.com/ (the referenced DVD server system)
http://www.request.com/ (makes a DVD changer controller that interfaces to the excellent Audio Request music server)
aem
Re:why recompress? (Score:0, Informative)
Instead of blacking them out, he should admit that copyright law sucks. If six people may watch the same movie at the same time on the same player, it stands to reason that it should be legal for six people to watch the same movie at the same time on six different players. Get the law changed, and then go after the MPAA's trust. $25 for a dvd is freakin highway robbery!
Re:Legality? (Score:2, Informative)
So we had to do plan B and actually load these 10-15 copies of 8 - 10 movies into a bank of 150 cheap VCR's (DVD players were too expensive then) and serve that up on demand.
Maybe the legal issues are more sane now, but that's where it was 7 years ago.
Re:Hollywood is never gonna help this... (Score:3, Informative)
That is incorrect. DeCSS is for getting at the underlying mpeg stream. If you are going to be ripping complete images, you can keep them in encrypted form. Your player software will legally decrypt the data for you.
10 TB could cost as little as $5k (Score:2, Informative)
A bit unweildy, perhaps...
Re:why recompress? (Score:4, Informative)
But, any Windows DVD playback software like WinDVD, PowerDVD, DVDMax, etc will.
mount -o ro,loop dvdimg.iso /something/movietitle (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, I'm sitting here trying to get Freevo running on an Xbox, so I can watch DVDs over my network. I had it working (briefly last week, before trying to update some stuff and blowing it), and it was pretty sweet. I want to rip my 300+ DVDs to a RAID, then serve them to Freevo (or mythtv, or whatever) clients throughout my house. When I get my system finished, I'll be able to watch 4 different movies on 4 different TVs (i bought 4 xboxes for this project), and each addition client costs about $230 (xbox+dvd remote kit). The server storage will be the expensive part.
Another cool bonus... When I rip the movies to my server, I can copy just the movie, and not all of the unskippable trailers or FBI warnings. Instead of putting in a disc and having to wander off and do something else for 10 minutes (like sit there and curse the movie studio for ruining my Zen), the movie will start right away.
AVS Forums (Score:3, Informative)
Check out the AV Science forums. They have one dedicated to just this. There are lots of pointers and lots of people who will help.
AVS Home Theater PC(HTPC) Forum [avsforum.com]
kiwi
DVDs on Xbox - don't! (Score:2, Informative)
Now these problems might be related to my particular xbox, but I would strongly suggest you take some of your favourite DVDs to a store and demand to play them on an xbox there. Don't know wether these problems might be fixable byb using Xbmp (xbox media player) instead... good luck.
Re:the product is greater than the sum. (Score:1, Informative)
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history [slashdot.org]. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
For example, in this recent post [slashdot.org] twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this [slashdot.org] post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories [slashdot.org], more [slashdot.org] offtopic [slashdot.org] FUD [slashdot.org] and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants [slashdot.org], promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS [slashdot.org], apparently [slashdot.org] (that first one is a winner). I mean, really [slashdot.org]. You think [slashdot.org]?
FUD [slashdot.org], FUD [slashdot.org], FUD [slashdot.org], FUD [slashdot.org], offtopic FUD [slashdot.org], and more FUD [slashdot.org]. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD [slashdot.org] and more FUD [slashdot.org] instead of canned meat. Amazed
Re:xBox + EvolutionX (Score:4, Informative)
I know for a fact that all it takes is two solders to mod an XBox now. I don't know the exact process but I've seen one of my frat brothers do it on pretty much all the XBoxes in our house. It works great, the only disadvantage is that you can't switch between Dashboards like you can with some of the mod chips, but unless you're playing XBox Live that's probably not much of a problem for you.
Anyway, I would google for that before buying a mod chip at this point. If you can't find anything, post here and I'll ask my frat brother for a URL. Hope that helps.
Re:DVDs on Xbox - don't! (Score:3, Informative)
As for the DVD drive itself, I have never had a problem but I would not be surprised to learn that some people have had problems.
-sirket
Re:ISO + Daemon Tools (Score:3, Informative)
I don't have a ton of experience, and don't want to start down the wrong path.
Re: MythTV (and samba) (Score:4, Informative)
Put thos images on some server (samba?)
A dvd drive emulator (demeamon tools) kan be used to mount the images
windvd can be used to play the disks
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2, Informative)
What are you talking about?
I recently bough 250GB drives at Frys for $179.-. That's $716/TB, or $7160/10TB. Even if you put just 4 drives in one system, you could get a 10TB setup for $10K. Of course he says he only wants to rip a couple hundred. In other words, $2000 gives him 2TB of storage.
Combine that with your too high estimation of 7-9GB for DVDs average, which should really be more like 6-7GB average, (I've actually been storing DVDs like this for a year now) and for $2K he can store 300 DVDs.
Slightly different story, and I know this from experience, not guessing.
Simple solution (Score:5, Informative)
DvD decrypter will rip the DVD nicely, menus and all to your harddrive.
Most software media players will not recognize DVD menus, but one called ZOOM Player will, and just happens to be a nice player to boot.
After you have those it is simple a question of hardrive space. Most movies run between 5-8gb so 1000 DVD's going to require something in the neighboorhood of 5-8tb. Most of the newer high end mother boards will hold up to 10 devices (CD/DVD/hardrives). You biggest problem is going to be one of heat, noise, and enough power connectors. You might want to think about is having multiple servers, with one connected to the TV with the absolute minimum required to run in order to keep it quiet, but enough to fullfill any recording you'll want to do. You then would have one or more servers tucked away on a home network where they won't bother you, with their hardrives mapped to your main server at the TV.
Don't forget you'll want to use to use your machine as an MP3 jukebox as well as a video recorder (TV shows).
While it's not a computer solution Sony does make 200+ DVD carasel players. A friend of mine uses two of them to hold his collection, and has them set up to be controlled by his palm top. He has an older machine connected in as well for the mp3 and video recording functions.
Enter Prismiq (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:4, Informative)
RAID 0 is horrible for anything but video scratch. For this application you'll want RAID 5 or 3 (RAID 5 is redundancy spread across the array, RAID 3 has one drive dedicated for redundancy.)
The proper way to do this would be a hardware RAID array but those are expensive $1500 at least for a decent rack + controller. Infortrend [infortrend.com] make some nice stuff, but it's not cheap. The EonStor range is lovely. I'm mostly experienced on the high end and mac side of things, but there may be software based RAID 3 or 5 solutions for windows/linux. YMMV however, but it's generally not recommended as computing parity is very processor intensive. The controllers the Infortrend stuff uses is a PPC G3 to give you an idea...
ps. I don't work for Infortrend but I just know they make damn good shit.
Here is the solution (Score:3, Informative)
Buy the XCard [sigmadesigns.com] - it will playback divx and mpg, but it does it in hardware so even a slow computer can serve movies(Specifically it plays Plays DVD-Video, Superbit DVD, Super VideoCD (SVCD), and VideoCD (VCD) 1.x, 2.0, DivX , MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 files, Play NTSC titles on PAL televisions, PAL titles on NTSC televisions )
Composite, s-video, scart rgb, s/Pdif outputs.
Then you should buy JovePlayer [8dim.com] - this is a player dedicated to work with the Xcard. Your basic "Home Theater Software", it displays its menu interface on the TV screen [8dim.com] (and is skinnable btw, so if you want it to look like StarTreks LCARS [lcarscom.net], you probably could) - if you have a faster machine it offers the ablity to reencode video formats that the XCard doesn't support nativly (such as RealAudio, Windows media - and straight from web pages if you like).
Then you just fit your "home theater" machine, with harddrives with your content, pop in CD's, or mount network shares and navigate with JovePlayer (and the remote) to the desired folder [8dim.com] and click on the relevant IFO file. It will play back as a normal DVD, (because in essense it is a normal DVD, you might just have relocated it) -via the remote you can navigate the DVD Menus, change soundtracks, page through subtitles etc. You can bookmark specific places and make playlists as well
Mac? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legality? (Score:2, Informative)
I'll look into that. I believe one of the features of the software I use is that it just makes a pure disk image, suitable for use in producing "real" DVDs (not DVD-R or DVD+R) with the encryption intact. I haven't used it in a long time, so my memory may be playing tricks on me.
Now for the legality of removing CSS, I thought that it was finaly agreed upon that it was not a trade secret.
Of course it isn't. The fool lawyers for the DVD CCA included the full source of DeCSS in an unsealed legal document that is now part of the public record. That makes it impossible to claim it as a trade secret. Those guys make SCO's lawyers look smart. Not that I'm complaining, of course
Main Lobby - DVD Lobby, MythTV and MyHTPC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:4, Informative)
Pnnacle ShowCenter (Score:2, Informative)
Pinnacle ShowCenter [pinnaclesys.com]
OpenShowCenter [sourceforge.net]
OXYL-BOX [www.oxyl.de]
Supported File formats:
Music:
- MP3
- PCM
- All incompatible audio files (E.G. WMA) will be converted to MP3 at 128kb/s
Video:
- MPEG-1
- MPEG-2
- DivX AVI
- Xvid AVI
- All incompatible video files (WMV, DV) will be converted to a ShowCenter compatible format as set by the user.
Image:
- JPEG
- BMP
- PNG and GIF files are converted. All "Portrait" oriented image files are rotated by 90 degrees in the ShowCenter database and scaled to PAL or NTSC video resolution. The pictures are optimized for being displayed on a TV screen and stored as a copy in JPEG format, while preserving the original image file.
Video standards for A/V outputs:
- PAL 25fps full D1 720 x 576 interlaced
- NTSC 29.97fps full DV 720 x 480 interlaced
Inputs and outputs:
The ShowCenter box provides all audio and video outputs for delivering the optimum sound and video quality no matter what A/V equipment is connected. The A/V connectivity is equivalent to a premium quality DVD-player and consists of:
a) SCART 21-pin connector (Europe-only, also known as Peritel connector or Euroconnector) with composite, Y/C, RGB, stereo audio
b) Component video output ("YPrPb", 3 x RCA)
c) Composite video output (1 x RCA)
d) Y/C ("S-Video") video output (1 x Hosiden)
e) Stereo audio outputs ("Line-Out") (2 x RCA)
f) Additional stereo audio output (for separate connection to stereo system) (2 x RCA)
g) Digital audio outputs, both optical (1 x Toslink) and electrical (S/PDIF 1 x RCA)
Further inputs and outputs:
a) Ethernet 100baseT (1 x RJ45) with associated connection/data LEDs
b) PCMCIA slot for Pinnacle-approved wireless network card
c) Power cable connector
d) IR receiver
Use A Mac and copy the DVD image (Score:2, Informative)
Damn linux folks, expand your horizons!
This Is What I Do (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:2, Informative)
Hardware vs. software raid (Score:3, Informative)
How fast can the fastest DVD drive read? I'd estimate, that a software RAID's write performance -- 10-16 Mb/sec seems quite achievable on modern hardware -- will never be saturated by the paltry input from the DVD reader.
I'd rather have the other processor available for other tasks, when I'm not writing to the RAID. For the price difference of Infotrend vs. software RAID I can buy a dual vs. a single CPU machine with more memory. The second processor will handle the load of the software RAID and have plenty of cycles left to be useful for other things.
Time and time again resource sharing is demonstrated to be more cost efficient than resource dedication, only to have someone state that the opposite is "generally recommended". It is not.
It only makes sense when you wish to maximise performance -- at any price, and your particular specialized application will not be able to take advantage of the extra resources in any other way. Such as, for example, a database server, which are notoriously hard to scale "sideways", so you try to improve them "vertically".
Re:If he's got plasma... (Score:3, Informative)
The same applies in computers. Obscurity doesn't work if the same implementation is being used as a standard across millions of computers, because once someone finds out about it, all those millions of computers are at risk (and easily accessible through the internet). But if you were to write your own special internet protocol, so you could access your machine remotely, and your implementation had all kinds of holes and buffer overflow exploits, it wouldn't matter because it's only on one machine, and you're the only one with the source code.