Posts tagged JPEG

***Beware that this How-To may not be entirely ‘legal’***

I purchased this media player earlier this year in the intention of getting rid of my DVD collection in favor of having the media on hard disk. Not only does this save space, but it allows me to easily make a backup in case of drive failure.

After some research and letting some buddies at work be the guinnea pigs, I decided to go with the WDTV HD Media Player.

There were pros and cons to each of the products I researched, but the WDTV had the fewest. In addition to having the features I was looking for (ability to plug in multiple drives, HDMI output, upgradeable firmware) it has a great user forum.

The other great feature is the ability to support multiple formats:

File Formats Supported
Music – MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
MTS, TP, TS
Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8), SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA
Note:
- MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920x1080p 24fps, 1920x1080i 30fps, 1280x720p 60fps resolution
- An audio receiver is required for surround sound output. AAC/Dolby Digital decodes in 2 channel output only
- JPEG does not support CMYK or loss less.
- BMP supports uncompressed format only.
- TIF/TIFF supports single layer only.

So enough of the technical stuff. Let me explain how I got my movies on a hard drive.

Prerequisites:
DVD reader/writer
High capacity USB 2.0 (older version of USB will work, but the performance isn’t as good IMHO) – Mine is a 420GB Western Digital drive that I got for $100.
Dual-Core processors at the minimum. I have a machine with dual Quad core processors and one full-length film takes ~30-40 minutes to convert (using the process that I use)
At least 40-60GB worth of free space on the internal hard drive (remember a full sized DVD will be between 3.5 and 5GB)
*DVD ripping software

Optional:
Video transcoder software
File Tagging Software

Here is exactly what I used:
Windows 7 Enterprise
Dell Precision Workstation 490

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Precision WorkStation 490
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5335 @ 2.00GHz, 1995 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5335 @ 2.00GHz, 1995 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB

AnyDVD – DVD ripping software (the de-facto DVD ripping software – also has a 21 day evaluation license)
Handbrake – Open-Source DVD transcoding software
MetaX for Windows – Open Source File Tagging software

Once you have all the software installed it’s time to start ripping. I will describe that process in my next post.

*Using DVD ripping software is not entirely legal, even if you pay for it. Read the license agreement of the DVDs you are ripping to find out the consequences of ripping a DVD, even if no profit is involved.