How to watch DVD's with an extender?

[sunlover]

I've been using Sage for 2 years. I currently have 1 machine that I record and watch on. I am considering building a server, and going with extenders.

For those of you that are using extenders, and have your server in the basement, how do you watch DVD's? What is your setup? Thanks.

[QueOnda]

I watch dvd's with my xbox 360. Or I just Rip the dvd's to my server to watch later.

[stanger89]

I use my DVD or Blu-ray player.

[toony]

Originally Posted by sunlover

I've been using Sage for 2 years. I currently have 1 machine that I record and watch on. I am considering building a server, and going with extenders.

For those of you that are using extenders, and have your server in the basement, how do you watch DVD's? What is your setup? Thanks.

Simply rip your dvd's using any available software, keep the files in it's own folder, copy that folder to a directory on your server where you want to store them and watch away. If you want a picture showing up in the directory when you view it take the picture rename it folder.jog and throw it in the dvd folder.

I keep each dvd in it's own folder within a genre folder within a formet folder, as I am sure most people do.

eg
sage ->
Movies -> action
-> drama
-> comedy etc...
TV -> action
-> drama
-> comedy etc...

[HawgGuy]

For DVD's that I want to watch, but do not wish to RIP I have the BR/DVD drive on my server set to share and list them as a media import directory in detailed setup. I then load the DVD on the server and browse to them on the extender for playback. Same for Blu-Ray, though that is a bit more tricky as I have to browse the the STREAMS directory to find the largest .M2TS file. Using AnyDVD or similar program is assumed for protected media.

[dislecksea]

I have Sage MC on a WHS and a 100 extender.

For watching actual DVDs - e.g., rentals - I guess I am pretty simple. I use a DVD player.

For movies in my collection - i.e., ones that I want to keep and access around the house - basically I just rip the DVDs to a "DVDs" folder on the server using DVD Fab. Each movie goes into a folder with the name of the DVD. Since Sage is set to rescan my media folders, it brings up the movies and puts them into my "unsorted" genre folder. I then IMDB the movie (sometimes I have to correct the title to get IMDB to recognize it) and it adds all of the details including the correct genre. When I want to watch, I just select the movie and press play.

Note: I am not messing around with Blue Ray at this point.

Good luck.

[toony]

Originally Posted by dislecksea

I then IMDB the movie (sometimes I have to correct the title to get IMDB to recognize it) and it adds all of the details including the correct genre.

Sorry, what do you mean you IMDB a movie? I know what IMDB.com is, I id not know sage had the abbility to retrive info from imdb.com, is this built in or is it an add on?

[vexhold]

It is built in, at least it is when using SageMC. Choose a movie in your Videos section and edit details. Theres an option to update IMDB.

I dont personally use this anymore as
i found DVDProfiler offers high rez cover art, better movie info and its all stored seperatly from sage so If you bomb, it is easy to replace instead of one by one. Of course IMDB is free and DVDProfiler is not.. so its up to you.

[Brent]

I rip nearly all movies to the hard drive with the exception of the occasional rental which I just watch using my standalone DVD player or on my HTPC client (not extender).

Ripping takes me about 15-30 minutes give or take, I store them in my import directory like this:
movies/Title1/Video_TS/(video files)

I keep the ones I think I may watch again and delete the others from the hard drive. I use the SageMC add-on and the built-in DVD Profiler support for metadata and HQ covers.

What I would Love to see some day:
The ideal higher-cost extender (keep a lower cost non-blu-ray and the higher one described here as another option) in my opinion would be the Blu-ray player with SageTV extender built-in. I'd pay a premium for that and it would solve the DRM issues with playing DVDs and Blu-Ray's locally at the extender level. Man that would be nice.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by Brent

What I would Love to see some day:
The ideal higher-cost extender (keep a lower cost non-blu-ray and the higher one described here as another option) in my opinion would be the Blu-ray player with SageTV extender built-in. I'd pay a premium for that and it would solve the DRM issues with playing DVDs and Blu-Ray's locally at the extender level. Man that would be nice.

Ditto sums it up. Internal Blu-ray drives are down to around $100.00 for players and I'd gladly pay $350.00-$400.00 for an HD-300 that contained a Blu-ray player (and maybe gigabit networking).

The HD-200 handles everything I throw at it except maybe 5% of my HiDef disc backups. A built-in player would save me lots of time and solve this problem.

EDIT: I don't even care about BD-Live - just watching movies.