Help me with a home server

[KnightRid]

In short, I want to make a simple SIMPLE home server that I can store my massive dvd collection on, along with shows that I record from tv and be able to access them throughout the house. Oh music will probably go on there also, and photos.

My questions - what software should I use for it - Linux? Windows Home Server? Windows Vista? XP?

I do not think 802.11g is fast enough for streaming video to multiple rooms at once, so I would either have to run cat5/6 or get a wireless N setup - which would be your preference?

Would it just be simpler to put a media device on each tv rather than have a computer at each one?

I have over 550 dvd titles, which would probably be over 800 dvds, maybe even more ( mash is like 28 by itself ), so I would need a LOT of storage and I would like to be able to add more storage as I get more dvds.

Would you suggest ripping all of them to XVID and lose quality, or keeping the whole dvd intact?

dvd carousel?

LOTS of questions! Any ideas will be VERY helpful to me. I can give you a list of all the hardware I have, but it will take some time to get together since there is a ton in a cupboard

Mike

OH I would like to be able to do this as cheaply as possible! I also have a PS2 and a Wii, if any of those can be helpful.

I am looking around to see if anyone is giving away any old xboxes to use as media centers also, since that would be a simple way to go I believe. Let me know!

[bubba]

Ok, simple sever would be something like FreeNAS, its a breeze to set up and once set up doesn't need a monitor hooked to it.

Now for the storage its self, at 4-5gb each (ripped and shrunk), for talking we will go to the high side, 5gb x 550 titles = 2750gb of space, so we are looking at 5x 500gb hard drives just to cover what you have now. Thats a lot space man, you can cut that down by riping to Divx or Xvid and get the file down to ~1gb each and still have quality, crank up the compression and get it down to ~800mb each but loose a little on the quality. either way your looking at min 2TB of diskspace maybe more.

Streaming that 5gb across a WiFi is going to suck, wired will give you best performance, suck side to wire is... well the wire. If you go wire defiantly want to look at GBit NICs and Hub (not cheap).

If you compress down the vids then the WiFi wont be that bad. The issue comes into converting all the DVDs, just ripping and shrinking is an hour to hour and half each on a good day. Haven't converted a DVD to AVI in while, I know that AVI to DVD can take up to 4 hours depending on the quality you want. So how much free time you got LOL.

so short answer to your question, on the cheap. Free NAS, 5 or 6 500GB drives, RIP to DiVx, run good WiFi.

[Major_A]

Use AutoGK to rip your DVD to an .avi file. You can decide how big you want the file but I can't tell the difference between a 700MB DVD rip and a 1400MB DVD rip. What I generally do to rip a DVD movie to my HTPC is use DVDFab HD Decrypter and rip the main movie. Then I fire up AutoGK and set it 700MB. The whole process probably takes about an hour, your computer might be faster so it could take less time.

*EDIT*
If you have a single core/dual core use XviD as it is multithreaded for 2 CPUs. If you have a quad core use DivX because it is optimized up to four cores. What I forgot to add is you might want to download K-Lite Mega Codec Pack because it comes with the XviD codec and the professional DivX codec included in the pack.

[KnightRid]

Ok, well i have 2-500gb drives in this system I am on now, so the space isnt really the problem, its just the amount of drives I can have on 1 motherboard ;)

time - I am disabled, so I have TONS of time

Will FreeNAS work on wireless systems? I cant get my laptop nor my main system to work on Linux because af all the crap I would have to do - blacklisting drivers, getting other wrappers, then installing more programs just for the encryption, etc. I wont go through all that when windows does it out of the box ;) I will probably keep at least the kids computer as wireless, so sending 1 movie at a time through it shouldnt be bad.

What about setups for each tv? Should I try for the xbox's and make them media extender thingies? get a regular media extender? just put computers at each tv?

I used auto gordian knot before, and it works well, but whenever you compress you lose quality - especially in the black areas, thats why I am hesitant to compress them. I might compress the tv series and let the movies uncompressed, dunno yet.

Mike

I will have to check the freenas out since i want a nice interface also like Media Center has. Nice pictures of each dvd to select from, sort by catagories, names, etc....

Oh at least 2 of my systems already have gigabit built in, but I would need to replace the router and maybe add a hub....

[Darkstar]

I was going to mention that most MoBo's come with Giga built in these days, i just bought a Gigabit Switch for under $50 so with some Cat6 cables you should have that aspect taken care of.

[kenc51]

FreeNAS would be harder to set up using WiFi than Linux.

Have you thought about buying a small NAS server? I got a two drive NAS last week. All you need to do is plug in the HDD's and connect it to your router/switch.
No messing with OS's etc and if you connect it to your wireless router via ethernet, you get the best of both worlds.

The only problem is you're limited to only 2x HDD's (unless you want to spend more cash for a 4 drive NAS)

I wouldn't like to recommend using a "home-made" *Nix based NAS to anyone else unless they know the host OS very well. I couldn't imagine loosing all my data, never mind being responsible for someone else loosing theirs.

[KnightRid]

I was looking at the NAS solutions but I havent figured out wether i can use media extenders in the rooms or if I have to have full computers to pull the video down.

Also NAS enclosures are not very cheap ;) especially if you want at least 4 drives in them. I am also concerned about the heat from the drives. I will have to do more research!

Mike

It seems I wont have a choice but to compress all the movies to XVID Would save a TON of room, but I am just concerned with the quality.