Best way to play movies.

[mkstretch]

What works the best with the HD200. Movies on an external hard drive plugged directly into the HD200, Movies on a PC hard drive, a network attached storage device. I like using SageTV MC, but if i buy an external hard drive and plug it into the HD200 i wont be able to use it anymore. thanks

[flavius]

You can start storing your movies on the Sage server hard drive(s), if you have the space. Nothing wrong with that. You could also attach external hard drives to the server and use those, but if you intend to create a larger collection of movies for your HD200, you want to consider making a little investment in network storage. Those things don't cost the world anymore and work quite well. They are actually quite cheap if you don't mind clicking through a few configuration screens.
A lot of us here have freed up precious shelf space, ripped their sizable DVD collection to some NAS system.

[wrems]

I personally would keep the movies on a NAS or on your server’s hard drive. Adding internal hard drives is pretty cheap. 1TB < $80.

This way you can keep SageMC now and be prepared for any new incarnations to come…Ortus, Phoenix etc…

Also, if you start making this consolidation of hard disks/server you’ll be in great shape if you add another HD200 to the mix say in your bedroom or something. Everything will be instantly accessible rather than dealing with external USB drives…

If you do go the external HD route, consider buying a large internal hard drive and an external aluminum enclosure. This will probably get you by a little cheaper and gives you flexibility if you ever want to swap it for a larger hard drive in the future.

[mkstretch]

Thank you so much guys, much appreciated. I really like to use SageMC because of the features and the flexibility, and know I wouldnt be able to use it with a NAS or external drive connected to the HD200. I also found SageMC to work better the using the HD200 in standalone mode. I had problems playing Blu-rays in standalone mode, but with SageMc it plays the blu ray flawless. So right now Im storing my movies on my 2.4Ghz quad 4 PC on a 1TB drive. When using SageMC to serve my movies does it use PC resources while playing, or does the HD200 take the hit? I ask because I dont want it to interfere with me burning DVD's by taking away resources. How is the playback using an external drive connected to the HD200 does anyone know? Thanks

[wrems]

The HD200 does all the processing. Your server will be relegated to a streaming device. No transcoding is happening only transferring. You shouldn’t have any problems playing and burning off of your server.