Dvd Playback?

[emil10001]

In terms of the handbrake gui vs cli, I prefer the cli. I put the line I posted above into a script and ran it against over a hundred dvd images on my hard drive. It took about a week to do, but I ended up with a ton of perfect rips, with very little intervention by me. Now, when I get a physical dvd, I just pop it in the drive and run the script (modified for a single dvd instead of many). Though, I would probably say GUI if I had to do that on a Windows box. You just have to remember what you want everything set to in the GUI, I like the 'film' preset, where I change the audio so that it only does the ac3 track (this is important if you're pushing the media to a tivo HD or something and want surround sound).

Handbrake rips are about 2~2.5GB a piece, whereas the dvd image uncompressed is usually around 10GB. Rips are also much more pleasant to playback, since you can just click on it and it'll start playing in some media player. With an image or VIDEO_TS folder, you need to go through VLC and it's menus, or mplayer and a command line option.

 

[Mr.Gonzo]

Well i just drag and drop the Video folder inside vlc , work as well.

 

[Luminous]

so, with these Handbrake rips, it would not be good to rip a DVD full of TV episodes, since they would all run together, one after another, right? unless SWIM happened to make one of those chapters/playlist file ma bobs manually and put it in the same file for VLC or mplayer to read? SWIM really wants low file size since the format ill be storing everything on (HDD, some fat type) in order to be encrypted files all must be smaller than 4GB.
Thanks for any help/guidance for SWIM

 

[second exodous]

so, with these Handbrake rips, it would not be good to rip a DVD full of TV episodes, since they would all run together, one after another, right? unless SWIM happened to make one of those chapters/playlist file ma bobs manually and put it in the same file for VLC or mplayer to read? SWIM really wants low file size since the format ill be storing everything on (HDD, some fat type) in order to be encrypted files all must be smaller than 4GB.
Thanks for any help/guidance for SWIM

Handbrake is free so you can get it and play around with it. DVDFab isn't but the trial that only rips to a VIDEO_TS folder is and that's all you need anyway. Make sure it's DVD9, not DVD5 in the rip screen of DVDFab, DVD5 cuts quality to fit on one single layer DVD, you don't want that, you want to start with the highest quality to rip from.

As for TV season DVDs you can select each title individually, the episodes are each in their own title, that's what I do. Its pretty easy once you rip a few DVDs, it is confusing at first but these programs are free and you can just play around with them.

Like emil10001 said you can just double click the ripped vid file and your default video play will open and play it, that's what I do. When watching a season or multiple videos you can open the players playlist from there and drag everything to it in the order you want. Anyway, playing back the ripped video is basic computer usage, if you know how to do it on a PC or Mac you can figure it out on the Pandora.

As for the video ending up below 4 GB you're pretty safe no matter what format you rip it to. Full 1080/720p blu-ray rips are 6 on the large end but can be a lot smaller depending on compression and format.

If you have blu-ray then the DVDFab trial can rip those also, I've never encoded a Blu-ray disk but I'm sure Handbrake can do it.

 

[renegadechic]

its a LITTLE bigger, and 500 gb
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Portable-External-Drive-HXMU050DA/dp/B001IBI0A2/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IAE6KQKBZ7DZ5&colid=1D3WRW1FD62L4
This is going to be for my movie library

just saw this and couldnt resist an advanced purchase! cant wait! also got two class 4 8gig SD cards in readyness for The Day

 

[palmertech]

Not to be a huge downer or pessimist, but I would really, really suggest getting a real laptop, or at least a netbook. Living on a mobile computer can be very painful, I had to do it for a month or so on my N800 once. With all the gear you are proposing carrying, a small netbook or laptop would almost certainly be a better all-in-one solution.

 

[hch]

but how about the proprietary codecs? i know that they exist dor x86(_64) and PPC. but arm?

 

[Kramy]

Prebuilt external drives are a ripoff.

Buy a 1.5TB drive for $120 and stick it in a $20 enclosure. Easy way to get tons of cheap storage.

 

[Luminous]

Well Kramy, that sounds nice and all, but not just any hard drive will fit into my slightly-baggy pants front pocket. And then since that's not a standard sized HDD, there won't be a cheap enclosure for it.

Any ideas (remaining, within your vein of thinking)?

Edit: Thanks, 2nd Exodus, for your considerate and thorough post.

 

[darien]

Not to be a huge downer or pessimist, but I would really, really suggest getting a real laptop, or at least a netbook. Living on a mobile computer can be very painful, I had to do it for a month or so on my N800 once. With all the gear you are proposing carrying, a small netbook or laptop would almost certainly be a better all-in-one solution.

I'm with this guy. Sometimes being helpful is encouraging someone to do something contrary to what they intend to do.

 

[Joepostal]

Damn I just paid $109 for the same drive at NewEgg (edit the 250gb one). So I purchased the 500gb from Amazon and will keep them both f...-it. I will use them.

 

[marshal]

Prebuilt external drives are a ripoff.

Buy a 1.5TB drive for $120 and stick it in a $20 enclosure. Easy way to get tons of cheap storage.

Some Western digital prebuilt one are really quite cheap. You can get a 1.5TB for 130$.
Agreed that some are overpriced though. I personally wouldn't buy a separate enclosure just to save between 5-10$. Be aware of some cheap enclosure too...

 

[Joepostal]

"ripoff" - yeah I would just throw a 2tb in an external enclosure to save a few bucks and then I would need a power outlet.

The samsung s1 mini are 1.8" drives not 2.5" or 3.5". The controller is built into the drive, reducing power requirements. In standby they reduce power needs by 95%. They are about the size of two zippo lighters. Great for portability.

I could not find anywhere they specify the power required. When I looked at the hub properties in windows it said 2ma, yes two milliamps... This is while I am coping files to the drive and not in standby. I find that hard to believe, my mouse is using 100ma. Note: it is possible that windows detected the standby power at 2ma and will not refresh for some reason but that puts power at 200ma, far below the 500ma spec. CNET claims that they have a special spinup design that keeps power usage low as well. Anyhow they should use far less power than a 2.5" or 3.5" drive.

Now lets just hope they work with pandora

 

[Kramy]

Well Kramy, that sounds nice and all, but not just any hard drive will fit into my slightly-baggy pants front pocket. And then since that's not a standard sized HDD, there won't be a cheap enclosure for it.

HDD sizes are very standardized. There's 3.5 inch ones which are "desktop" models. You can pick up cheap enclosures for about $20 with eSATA/USB support that work fine in Windows/Linux/OSX.

Then there's 2.5 inch ones, which are "laptop" models. Much less space for the price - usually under a third. Enclosures usually cost more as well, especially if they support eSATA.

But as you put it, they fit in your pocket.

"ripoff" - yeah I would just throw a 2tb in an external enclosure to save a few bucks and then I would need a power outlet.

The samsung s1 mini are 1.8" drives not 2.5" or 3.5". The controller is built into the drive, reducing power requirements. In standby they reduce power needs by 95%. They are about the size of two zippo lighters. Great for portability.

The power issue doesn't really concern me. (2 USB plugs, or a small power brick) But maybe I just pick enclosures with tiny power adapters, so that's why.

I'd never go for a 1.8 inch drive. Not enough space for the price. To each his own - but when SSDs are remarkably close in price per GB, I don't think it's worth it. Sale prices on SSDs sometimes hit 60GB/$100 - that 1.8 inch Samsung Mini is on Amazon for 120GB/$100 - and with the SSD you get better performance and a lower chance of accidental damage.

I could not find anywhere they specify the power required. When I looked at the hub properties in windows it said 2ma, yes two milliamps... This is while I am coping files to the drive and not in standby. I find that hard to believe, my mouse is using 100ma. Note: it is possible that windows detected the standby power at 2ma and will not refresh for some reason but that puts power at 200ma, far below the 500ma spec. CNET claims that they have a special spinup design that keeps power usage low as well. Anyhow they should use far less power than a 2.5" or 3.5" drive.

Now lets just hope they work with pandora

I'm not aware of any motors that can spin a platter on just 2mA. It's safe to assume your OS was reporting it incorrectly.

 

[Pleng]

The power issue doesn't really concern me. (2 USB plugs, or a small power brick) But maybe I just pick enclosures with tiny power adapters, so that's why.

I'd imagine people are more concerned about the power drain on the Pandora's battery, as opposed to actually managing to get the drives to spin up.

I'd never go for a 1.8 inch drive. Not enough space for the price. To each his own - but when SSDs are remarkably close in price per GB, I don't think it's worth it. Sale prices on SSDs sometimes hit 60GB/$100 - that 1.8 inch Samsung Mini is on Amazon for 120GB/$100 - and with the SSD you get better performance and a lower chance of accidental damage.

So there's not enough space for the price and you'd rather buy something with half the capacity for the same price?

 

[marshal]

You can buy a 1.8' Samsung S1 mini 250GB for 126$ on amazon. You're not going to get 250GB on a storage at an affordable price for some time on SSD.
Sure they are a tad expensive compare to 2.5' hard drive but they are smaller and more power efficient.

 

[Kramy]

So there's not enough space for the price and you'd rather buy something with half the capacity for the same price?

Yes. I was very clear about my reasons. Better performance, shock immune, etc. etc.

Why are we arguing? I presented my reasoning and said to go with whatever suits you.

You can buy a 1.8' Samsung S1 mini 250GB for 126$ on amazon.

Ahh, I missed that. But I still wouldn't buy it.