I was just thinking that just a few short decades ago that entire post would not make any sense
I did not understand all the technical jargon you used, but I have over 1000 DVDs I want to put on NAS and be able to stream anywhere. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Well, I’m not a gamer and speed of processing video has never been a priority for me.
Have been a Ham Op for 45 year, Old Hams were Cheap. Built my first PC from TRS-80 parts in 1982.
I’m 75 and still pretty up to date on how things work, but I most respect good clean design and simplicity.
Am not a programmer.
I’ve never bought a computer that was new. Have built some from scratch with new parts.
Ran almost every platform you can imagine (if you are old enough, smile.)
Started with NewDOS80, ran all MSDOS releases and all Windows releases up to Windows 11. In 1994 I installed my first Linux distribution.
For 5-1/2 years toward the end of my business career I ran a catalog department for one of 2 wholesale hardware distribution companies I worked for. Had a really large desk, was the owner of the company’s desk at some point before I got it. On one side of the desk was a Windows computer, opposite side I had a Redhat Linux computer and directly across the hall was the IT Department. I had more access to the system resources than anyone in the company except the IT Department.
Spent my days dragging flat file data from the AS400 onto my windows desktop machine and poking it into Excel (I remember when I used Lotus) and then with the help of ASAP Utilities I prepped the data for import into Quark. The process was a total hack, no body in the company knew how it was done except me. At early stage of that position a young guy had the job, he was a good graphics person, he liked fast computers, I was more efficiency oriented.
On the 2nd try, I got us off of the custom built catalog prep software to put the data into Quark. The first database driven system was like playing a horrible on line game. Ounce you got the data into Quark, it could not be edited without destroying the work. Sucked. I found a programmer who wrote an import script that was lightning fast (it was text you were working with, but imported the image blocks too. Cannot remember whether it was Xscipt or Xdata that I used at the time.
We had 47,000 items in the catalog, 3,000 pages plus indexes and insert pages. It was like watching magic as I imported the processed Xcel file into Quark. I composed all the Catalog, a monthly promotion, 5 seasonal promotions that were hundreds of pages.
When I took us to our first online catalog it was another huge project. We did not have an image for every item. (sizes and colors etc were listed in column for below a single image) I found a way to open the catalog .pdf and extract data from the previous catalog section printing and then extended the images to the item level. The IT staff took care of the database work in the AS400, but I sized and formatted the images on a PC. I used Image Magic, text based software. I started a script running at 5:30 when we shut for the day, and when I came back to work the next morning it had created size transformation and format (.jpg .gif etc) transformation. Can you imagine creating 47,000 thumbnail images and item images in one night? It all worked. One of the biggest projects I ever accomplished.
I extracted data from the opened .pdf files (opened with pdftk) and used Quark to process the sequencing data which I put in a database to finish.
Had to really think hard to remember all that crap. It is funny how old minds work (sometimes).
Dave K.
For video storage? I don't watch enough video to nake it worthwhile.
for later
I find that screen capturing on one computer is too taxing. It results in freezes and jumps. It’s much better to play on one machine, through a capture device, to another machine. OBS is the cat’s meow. Then process with AVIdemux and Auto Gordian Knot. All are public domain.
The biggest benefit of this method is that it doesn’t use programs which try to do too many tasks. Because of hardware limitations they do individual tasks poorly. Other benefits are:
1. DVD’s are prone to errors. losing videos is common.
2. AVIdemux keeps your “keep” video on-screen instead of DVD Shrink’s method of re-editing for each segment, then combining segments.
3. AVIdemux gives you larger editing screens.
4. Auto GK accepts either VOB files or AVI files. It lets you choose the output video size, then tweaks parameters automatically to arrive at the chosen size.
OBS has a learning curve, but mastering it is worth the effort. I set up a screen resolution spreadsheet to convert aspect ratios from input to output resolutions. Then the conversion profiles can be stored for fast retrieval.
ANyone know how to configure for this?
L8r
AMDs scream. A friend gave me an HP All-In-One with an AMD slug and it boots Win10 from stone-cold in 40 seconds. And that’s using an HDD. That PC isn’t in a mission-critical role or I’d drop an SSD in it just to see what it does to boot times.
In fact it was AMDs who brought the multi-core thing to PCs. Some of the UNIX manufacturers had been doing multi-cores before that but IIRC AMD went to it because it offered a solution to the overheating problems that came from just endlessly cranking up the clock cycles.
Earlier this month I bought a refurbed Dell Optiplex 5040 off a noted online retailer (box probably came back from corporate or institutional lease) with a quad-core Intel i5 CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB SSD ... for $140. Shipped free. I added another 1TB SSD, loaded Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on it, put a swap slice on both SSDs with the same priority (which effectively makes them striped/Raid0) and it is faster than stink. Astonishing performance for a $200 investment.
SSDs raise the performance of virtual memory to a whole ‘nother level, especially when you stripe multiple devices. I’ve got a couple of boxes I put a small SSD in just so I could have virtual memory on a solid stated drive separate from the drive the OS was on. It’s a YUGE boost to a box that only can support 4GB of RAM. More’s the pity SSDs (and the interface to support all that speed) didn’t come along when PCs all were still 32-bit.
Great discussion, fellas. (and ma’ams).
I’m chiming in a couple days late as I’ve been ruminating over my sit’ation. Perhaps we can continue to discuss?
I’m not a computer guru, only moderately savvy.
Background: my main box and laptop are Linux-Ubuntu. I transitioned from Windows to Ubuntu several years ago. I have a couple Dell Opti 760s upgraded to 2TB optical and (maxx’ed) 8Gb RAM. One is a Win10, previously used for work but no longer needed since I retired last year. The other is whatever I decide. I have a lot of DVDs and music that I’d like to put on a media server for household wifi use.
I currently use MakeMKV and Handbrake to digitize DVD and blu-ray. These work pretty well except I have issues keeping the chapter selection intact for multi-episode TV show discs, and have to digitize the bonus features as separate files.
Blu-ray conversion takes much longer than simple DVD.
I don’t quite understand the NAS (network attached server) architecture that several of you have mentioned. More study is needed for me.
I’m not in a hurry to convert so I only use one box to do it. Having said that, in the months to come, I’d like to finish converting hundreds of DVD/BR to digital as time permits.
Ultimately, I’d like to have a standalone linux media server box that I can stream over the household wifi to 2 TVs and tablet devices. The TVs have ‘smart’ blu-ray/wifi players that I can put apps on. The tablets are a mix of android and kindle that I’d really like to jail-break...
I’m intrigued by the Plex option, but is that the best solution for this situation?