Conclusion
The goal of creating a home video jukebox is certainly a noble one, and we are just now on the leading edge of its possibility. The first two pieces of the puzzle, ripping and encoding, are mature enough that this article can give you cookbook steps towards creating DivX files on your server.
DivX should be the correct format for this venture – it compresses well enough to not place too many demands on your hard disk space and your network, and it is within reach of cheap client players. In a few years DivX might be supplanted by H.264 (aka MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC,) but that is not yet visible over the horizon.
The client player situation is still a bit murky. If you’re sitting on a giant pile of Microsoft stock and money means nothing, don’t think twice about buying a Media Center PC. You’ll be happy. The rest of us have to make some compromises, which in my mind lead to three alternatives:
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A cheap PC in a small form factor. Put some time into engineering noise and form factor issues, and then use Windows Media Player to stream video across the network to your TV.
The KiSS DP-500. A nice looking component, you just have to put up with a few bugs and an annoying dearth of features and usability.
A modded Xbox. Not only does it play your DivX files, you can game with it as well. Keep a quarter in your pocket at all times so you call your lawyer after Jack Valenti and Bill Gates break down the door and haul you off to jail.
Resources
| DVD Decrypter Web Site | This is a great piece of free software. It reads the VOB files from your DVD and decrypts them at the same time. There are a lot of programs that do this, but few that are as friendly and well-designed. |
| Adaptec ASPI driver download site | If you’re using a Windows 9X PC, you will probably need ASPI drivers to allow DVD Decrypter (or other ripping software) to access your DVD drive. With Windows XP (and perhaps 2K) you may able to avoid the installation of these drivers. |
| Videolan.org | The VideoLAN project has quite a few different pieces of work in progress, but the one I’m interested in here is their media player. It’s a free player that runs under just about every O/S you can name, allowing you to easily preview and inspect DVD content. |
| DivX.com | The home page of DivXNetworks, the company that sells and supports the most popular codec for the DivX format. There is generally very good information on this page, particularly in the support forums |
| Dr. DivX Page | The page on the DivXNetworks web site where you can download a trial copy of Dr. DivX. At this time, you get a 15-day trial run with a full feature set. Thats plenty of time to experiment with this great video encoding tool. |
| DivX.com How-to Guides | A nice informative set of documents describing various aspects of the video encoding and decoding process. At a minimum you should browse through “The Official DivX Guide” |
| AC3Filter home page | Home page for the free AC3Filter package. This DirectShow filter allows programs such as Dr. DivX to decode the AAC streams encoded in your DVD VOB files. |
| Microsoft’s XP Media Center page | Microsoft has a nice page here describing how much you’re going to enjoy your XP Media Center PC. This page has links to some of the vendors selling Media Center PCs. |
| KiSS Technology home page | KiSS Technology makes the DP-500 networked video player discussed in this article, as well as a wide variety of other digital media products. |
| Kaleidescape | If it’s too much trouble to create this system on your own, you can now buy a hard-disk based system from Kaleidescape. It sucks in your DVDs and commits them to a hard drive. The base system can hold 160 DVDs, and will only set you back $27,000! |
| Home site for Play@TV | The English language page for the Korean company that makes Play@TV. I didn’t cover it in the article, but they also make a package that lets you control your PC via a remote control, with the goal of making sort of a poor-man’s version of the Windows Media Center PC. If the software is as good as what I saw for the NMP-400, this might be a nice product. |
| Leadman Electronics | Leadman is the US distributor for the Play@TV. You can use their site to locate dealers. |
5 users commented in " Building Your Home Video Jukebox "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI disagree on your use of a pc jukebox- see a film once, how long b4 you want to see it again -most likly years . The best material for a VJB is music – Rip that into individual tracks from DVD’s videos, TV, or download it from the net. Store your tracks on a massive hard drive (1TB HD= 20,000 tracks) linked directly to a pc via say winamp . Press the shuffle and suddenly your music video collection come alive . Its far superior to the original formats when you are expected to listern to 90 minutes by 1 artist . Many videos have never been released on dvd and can now be picked up and converted for next to nothing.
However are you looking at your own VJB or is it really your own music video channel that only plays what you want without interferance from VJs, DJ’s and adverts
@record collector:
I’m with you on the movie watching habits, most people video along the lines of a Tivo – strictly for time shifting.
However, people with kids can tell you a different story about repreat viewings!
Great info, DVD Decrypter is a great program, thos it takes a good 90-100 minutes for the complete process to finish, which isn’t a problem when you have a 2nd machine to work on. Also try AutoGK Assistant http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AutoGK.htm
which works in unison with Decrypter. The time of storing music/video on plastic disks is over. I will oneday have a HDTV connected to a PC with a huge hardrive and internet capabilities, thus also getting rid of my cable companies forced programming that i dont watch or ever wanted, so i can surf the net for tv programs “I” want without commercials as well.
I can’t see going through all that crap just to make a low quality version of your DVD files. There’s no good reason to use Wi-Fi to distribute your movies. You’d be better off using something like Powerline Networking or a spare (new or used) PC/notebook to connect directly to your TV with. I bought two WD 500 GB external HDDs for a lot less than $200.00 a piece back in 2008.
@AllFractUp:
Dude, the article is from 2004.
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