Newbie - Some Basic Advice Please

[Fireblade]

I recently made the move, for music, to invest in a NAS (QNAP), a streamer (Sonos) and a DAC (Arcam) which collectively are providing me with great quality and convenience. For me, CDs now only exist to provide material which I can rip to a lossless format (FLAC). When CD, or better, quality files become more readily available to download then I will finally be able to cut CD out of the loop.

Now, having been convinced for music I should now like to go down the same ripping and streaming route for video. By way of explanation I have a good quality display (60" Pioneer + currently looking into a prjector), home cinema receiver (Arcam) and 5.1 speakers (PMC/Paradigm). I have done some research and like the idea of one piece of software that can complete the end to end rip process, for both DVD and Blu Ray. To this end I have begun experimenting with makemkv.

My intention is to purchase a streamer, possibly AC Ryan HD Mini2, which will be hard wired to my NAS. Could someone offer a view, please, as to how a ripped BD will look, on screen, using a streamer, compared to a traditional disc utilising a high end BD player? As with music, I am looking for convenience, but don't want to sacrifice quality.

Also, in addition to the AC Ryan product, are there other products that come recommended and which I should consider?

Finally, I am reading about some issues with HD codecs. Can makemkv produce rips that capture and play back the latest HD codecs?

Look forward to obtaining views - thanks!

[Fireblade]

Bump. 50+ views but no replies as yet. Apologies if these questions have been asked before - if so could someone kindly attach a forum link?

[Icetrips]

It's just really specific question with many hardwares part..

I know many thing about streaming video... but I can't answer that one.

First you need to confirm what your "AC Ryan HD Mini2" support.
Like did he could read MKV, MP4, h.264 ?
Did he support MKV with multi audiotrack (most company write compatible MKV.. but they can't read a file if the file have more than 1 audiotrack).

I don't know the "AC Ryan HD Mini2"...
You really need to read all about it...
I see "AC Ryan HD Mini2" have a bug with iso format.
Also he support mkv example in x264 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bRqgWRm ... r_embedded )
I'm not sure about MakeMkv mkv.


But I could answer it in general, most time you need to reencode your Bluray (MKV).
I'm not sure why... perhaps it's a bug in MakeMkv.
We are sure is this the media center the problem or MakeMkv.
This create artifacts with some disks.
We talk about that in another topic.
The problem is not with all disks (I can remember: Alice in wonderland 2010, Toy Story 3,...)

So the best way to be sure it's to test it.

[Marc_G]

@Fireblade,

I don't know anything about the AC Ryan HD Mini2, but I do know about the HTPC that I use to play the rips MakeMKV makes.

They look the same as when the BD/DVD player plays them. It's the same information. MakeMKV just does a direct dump of the stream from the discs into MKV files.

This of course presupposes that your player is capable of handling the format, and outputs a good quality signal. On the HTPC, I had to tweak some things to get the video output quality to be right, such as luminance, brightness, gamma... basically optimizing for video playback instead of desktop usage. Presumably the device you have considered is intended for this purposes so it should be pretty straightforward.

Be sure to check if it supports the audio codecs likely to be found in your rips, ranging from DD, DTS, LPCM, PCM... Not sure if HD audio is relevant to you, but if so be sure your player can handle it.

Note that I haven't had to reencode anything; I just use the files straight from MAkeMKV. But then again, the software I use to play is developed specifically to do just that...

Marc

[Icetrips]

@Marc_G,
The only thing is HTPC is a PC and he could correct or ignore error *live* on the source.
1 bad frame could be skipped without causing any trouble.
Softwares have great tollerance to error.

But when we talk about external hardware, we are never sure if this hardware will support erronous data source or support fully 100%.
When manufacturer write support this file format, you can't be sure he'll support it at 100%.
Like "AC Ryan HD Mini2" support iso but having some issue with dvd menu.
Like "WD Live" and "Samsung DLNA" support mkv but doesn't play mkv with more than 1 track audio.
So the firmware could be good or really bad... or could be fixed in the next version.. or never updated.
You can't be sure, you need to read about this hardware and try it if you think he worth it.

But Marc_G have a point, HTPC is the easiest way to support everything. You just need the correct hardware in.

[mAcOdIn]

I'm looking to go the same route but frankly, I've decided that these streamers aren't what I'm looking for. Don't get me wrong, I think they're neat products and I definitely see the appeal of a dedicated, low power and cheap box for such a thing but they all get so limited by firmware that it seems to be too much of a hassle to me.

While I have already pretty much ripped everything I own onto my computer I haven't bought any additional hardware yet to complete the plan but I plan on getting a NAS and another PC instead of a streamer. The series I'm looking at is this: http://www.asrock.com/news/events/2010V ... p?c=Models It's essentially a laptop crammed into a set-top box, uses less power than a desktop PC, is smaller and quieter but capable of running any OS you can throw on it just like any other PC. Currently I have all my media across a few hard drives on my PC but am currently slowly stocking up on 2TB drives and will first purchase the NAS, I don't want to have to re-rip anything if possible so first I'll get the NAS. Currently I have my main PC hooked up to my Television using Component since my TV is a 1080i CRT and incapable of doing 1080p and running XBMC which plays everything I've thrown at it just fine. Honestly, Windows Media Center in Windows 7 also works pretty good once you install the codec pack but I prefer XBMC's more configurable interface and skins along with it's ability to scrape metadata. Once I get the NAS it'll just be the simple act of having it look at the NAS instead of my separate hard drives on the PC.

After the NAS I will then buy one of those HTPCs I linked above, maybe not that exact series as there may be a refresh or something even better at that point but that's the general product I want.

The only true drawback with my setup now is that my main desktop is a power hog and loud, since it's my gaming PC as well. Buying a low power quiet PC to only hook up to my TV and NAS will be so much better. I can run it with the main PC off, currently it's a pain to use a media center program concurrently with using the desktop on another display, also since it's my main desktop I can't really do the HTPC convenient thing like having it boot straight into XBMC and stuff like that, but having a computer dedicated to just being a HTPC will allow you to do all that. You can have it go straight to your media center of choice so you don't even see Windows, Ubuntu or whatever.

But I'm kinda glad I'm not ready to buy the HTPC yet as there's some stuff going on right now that gives me pause anyways. First is Intel's new Sandy Bridge chipset, will XBMC, WMC, MythTV or some other Media Center take advantage of it for accelerating media playback? And what of AMD's Fusion APUs that have just been released? Traditionally Nvidia video hardware has been the one with the most robust support from all the HTPC software, probably due to the fact that Nvidia had the most robust support for linux which most of these programs are developed for. The Vision 3D I linked to above uses Nvidia for the graphics so hardware support for video acceleration should be pretty good regardless of what OS or Media Center program you run but if Fusion or Sandy Bridge offered something better it'd be nice to give a little time and see if one of them gets a comparable level of support from the community as well. But regardless, it's not like if Fusion or Sandy Bridge took off in the HTPC world that they'd remove all the work they've done on the Nvidia side so it's not a bad purchase.

But that's the route I'm going, dedicated small box HTPC paired with a NAS. Heck, with that setup the dedicated NAS can even do the ripping and store it on the NAS without me even bothering the main desktop. I'd like to also run it on whatever runs Ubuntu and XBMC the best too so I don't have to spend another hundred dollars or so on another Windows 7 license. The only thing I'm unsure of is FLAC support, I know I can make Windows Media Center play FLACs but I abandoned FLAC long ago, well before Windows 7 came out, as nothing else but my PC could use it and the storage space wasn't feasible with HD prices and size at the time and instead went with high bitrate AACs which I could get everything to play and took up less space. I'm unaware of whether XBMC, Media Portal and other Media Center's ability to play back FLACs. Considering FLACs age I would assume they can, but that's an assumption. I would actually like to move back to FLAC as I do own a decent receiver and would like to have all my media permanently stored in a loss-less format but I'm a little lazy to start re-ripping all my cds as that's a huge endeavor.