Modernize my home theater

Three years ago when I bought my house I wanted a good home theater.  I built two sets of C-notes, bought a Polk center channel (that was before the C-note centers were available), and an Image Dynamics sub.  It is all driven by a Yamaha RX-V383 with bluetooth.  The TV is a 4k smart TV.  I don't see any need for upgrading any of that stuff because it rocks in my small living room.  Modern, it is not, but very capable and I was able to do it inexpensively and within my knowledge set at the time.  Now I'm replacing the entertainment center with a fireplace so I want to condense things.  I can easily find a spot to stash all of this stuff, but it won't be pretty.  I'm a bit of a decorating minimalist, and DVDs are ugly.

I also bought a smart blu-ray player which I have used about 4 times.  I own a ton of DVDs and a few blue ray discs, but with all the apps on the TV, I rarely find myself wanting to watch them.  The DVDs I have are of movies that are special to me, so I'll watch them if SWMBO says something like "I've never seen Big Fish," to which I reply "oh dear god, sit down right now," and I'll pop it in.

My thought is to rip all the DVDs to a hard drive... but then how do I play them?  I did read about being able to play them through a PlayStation, but I would never use a game console.  The only game console I actually did use a tiny bit was a Wii, but I lost it in the divorce and I don't miss it.  (the console OR the wife).

So I'm looking for a more modern way to have my library of DVDs available for the just-in-case times without the need for the bulky physical library of DVDs.  Then I can move the smart blu-ray to the guest room which has a non-smart TV so guests can have their own smart watching.

I have:  receiver, sub, 5.1 speakers, smart TV, blu-ray, DVDs.  Of all of that, the blu-ray and associated DVDs take up the most space.  School me.

Easiest answer is a cheap media PC. Build something with a gpu that can push 4k. Storage is cheap. 

Mndsm said:

Easiest answer is a cheap media PC. Build something with a gpu that can push 4k. Storage is cheap. 

Seconded. I have 2 Xbox ones because split screen is bullE36 M3 (I play co-op with the wife 99% of the time). In addition to this I built a media PC. Depending on what we want to watch it's either through the Xbox or media PC. 

You can sail the pirate seas for whatever content you desire or have the appropriate apps to play whatever you want to stream etc.

Pi4 + Hard drive of some sort + Kodi

https://kodi.wiki/view/LibreELEC

I've had a Pi2 running Kodi for what feels like forever now.  Its perfect for this usage.  And it is tiny, always on, consumes nearly no power, and dead silent.

clutchsmoke said:

Mndsm said:

Easiest answer is a cheap media PC. Build something with a gpu that can push 4k. Storage is cheap. 

Seconded. I have 2 Xbox ones because split screen is bullE36 M3 (I play co-op with the wife 99% of the time). In addition to this I built a media PC. Depending on what we want to watch it's either through the Xbox or media PC. 

You can sail the pirate seas for whatever content you desire or have the appropriate apps to play whatever you want to stream etc.

I have almost the exact same setup. Especially the two Xboxes because split screen is in fact, bullE36 M3. 

3 years later "modern" is out of date??

Uggh. Carry on. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

3 years later "modern" is out of date??

Uggh. Carry on. 

 I did not read it that way.  Seems that stuff is all great, but he's looking for a way to not have his DVD collection take up a bunch of space.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Three years ago when I bought my house I wanted a good home theater.  I built two sets of C-notes, bought a Polk center channel (that was before the C-note centers were available), and an Image Dynamics sub.  It is all driven by a Yamaha RX-V383 with bluetooth.  The TV is a 4k smart TV.  I don't see any need for upgrading any of that stuff because it rocks in my small living room. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

3 years later "modern" is out of date??

Uggh. Carry on. 

Well... if by "modern" you accept that a big receiver and a blu-ray player is modern, then yes.  My "modern" is anything after 90s tech.

Ok, so Kodi and Pi.  Sounds like something I can figure out.

How do I GUI it?  Does the TV become the interface?

And how much hard drive?  I know an average 1080p movie is about 1.5gb, but what about 4k? blu-ray?  A 1tb SSD isn't exactly cheap, and I'm not sure I want the power consumption and noise of an HDD, nor will I likely get much life out of it at that throughput without a cooling fan, right?  I'm assuming and drive I get would have to be powered.  I doubt a Pi could supply enough USB power to drive that kind of data?

Jeez I'm clueless on this stuff.

I hear a lot of people giddy about using Plex over Kodi

GUI:  TV becomes interface.  Your remote can control it and you can also do so from your phone (faster for typing & whatnot).  You can customize the crap out of it (think Winamp skins lol), or just leave it alone.

I'd get a multi-tb normal hard drive in an external enclosure (that's what I have).  No fan needed.  Really you can use any shared network drive, or you can plug into the Pi and let the Pi turn it into a network drive.  This used to be super slow on the old Pis, but Pi 4 network performance is leaps and bounds better.

Plex is the answer if you have multiple places you want to view from.  I haven't messed with the Pi as a server for that, but I heard performance was not great (encoding a stream is a lot more processor intensive than decoding or something).  For a single TV, Kodi works great.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I have hifi audio but no theater stuff set up, and the last time I did do these things it was when we got brand new DVD players. 

The Plex/Pi/whatever setup that you're all talking about... Does this mean that he would rip the DVD's to a hard drive, then use Plex to view them on the TV? If so, how would he rip them to the hard drive?

Yes.  Rip them to a hard drive, view on TV.  

Get a piece of software for that.  Handbrake works well on DVDs that are not copy protected.  If its copy protected you need to get a different piece of software or an add-in.  I haven't done it in a while and I don't know what the best programs are.  The last time I did was to convert my Venture Brothers DVDs and Handbrake worked fine on those.

I'm not going to offer much advice here.  But Pi, Kodi, Plex, Xbox, whatever digitial media player path is chosen, you will need to find a way to get them onto the hard drive.

I should also note, ripping a DVD to a hard drive is just as illegal as downloading it, even if you own the movie.  One might draw more attention than the other though.

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

The Plex/Pi/whatever setup that you're all talking about... Does this mean that he would rip the DVD's to a hard drive, then use Plex to view them on the TV? If so, how would he rip them to the hard drive?

https://www.makemkv.com/

Plex is the way to go for sure.  You need a decent PC running the server unless files are direct-play, if it has to transcode this is where processing power is needed.  I tried with a Pi-3 running Plex as server and it did not work well, maybe a Pi4 would be OK now?

Chromecast, any PC, many other devices can run the Plex client.

ProDarwin said:

Yes.  Rip them to a hard drive, view on TV.  

Get a piece of software for that.  Handbrake works well on DVDs that are not copy protected.  If its copy protected you need to get a different piece of software or an add-in.  I haven't done it in a while and I don't know what the best programs are.  The last time I did was to convert my Venture Brothers DVDs and Handbrake worked fine on those.

I'm not going to offer much advice here.  But Pi, Kodi, Plex, Xbox, whatever digitial media player path is chosen, you will need to find a way to get them onto the hard drive.

 

I should also note, ripping a DVD to a hard drive is just as illegal as downloading it, even if you own the movie.  One might draw more attention than the other though.

Thanks. 

Your last note brought a smile to my face. My favorite uncle, who passed away a few years ago, was an early adopter of Napster. My dad said "thats illegal, you're stealing, etc." At the time, I think we were listening to Cosmo's Factory, illegally downloaded. My uncle disappeared to his basement for about 10 minutes. He came back with the vinyl record, 8 track, cassette tape, and CD of the album. "John Fogerty isn't getting a dime more of my money for me to listen to him sing about a Grapvine"

On the legality thing... I'm pretty sensitive to copyright laws as I am an artist myself (actor/singer).  Imagine my surprise when my face was suddenly plastered all over L.A. Metro buses from an old print ad I did and they never got my permission.  By the time I called my agent, he had already seen it and a check was in the mail.

On the subject of morality I don't quibble with how I watch it.  Legally watching it from a DVD vs ripping to a hard drive and storing the DVD in the attic is just a convenience thing.  I used to use Shush to watch pirated stuff when I was in housing that shared one ISP for 300 apartments until I watched a movie that I forgot I was in.  There I was staring back at myself.  I wasn't union, so it's not like I was getting checks from its distribution, but I did think about the thousands of people in that production who DO get residual checks.  Not the super-rich stars, but the hundreds of very talented and struggling $100/day SAG actors, PAs, assistants, and runners/drivers who live in a van down by the river and beg for their next job.  I know... cry me a river, but getting paid to act in L.A. is no joke.

I'm not poor, so I don't mind buying DVDs of movies I want to own... then illegally rip them to a hard drive.  At least then my friends get their 13 cents.

engiekev said:

Plex is the way to go for sure.  You need a decent PC running the server unless files are direct-play, if it has to transcode this is where processing power is needed.  I tried with a Pi-3 running Plex as server and it did not work well, maybe a Pi4 would be OK now?

Chromecast, any PC, many other devices can run the Plex client.

I would go a little more complex like that, but I don't think there is a need.  I don't mind if something has TOO much to offer, but I live in a tiny little house with one TV and a laptop on wifi.  I have one network connection near the TV that has my router on it and everything is wifi.  I had the TV hard wired for a while, but I didn't have anywhere to hide the ugly cord and it offered no advantage.  I could expand that hard network to other rooms, but that seems like a lot of work for a guest room that rarely gets used.

I figure if I have my media on a drive in the living room and then put another TV I have in the guest room with the smart blu-ray and a few DVDs, the netflix, prime, and free apps should let them get their fix.  If they absolutely need more movies, they are welcome to fire up the TV in the living room.  I don't see a need to use this apparatus in multiple locations.  A nice luxury, yes, but in the three years I've owned this house I don't think the guest room has been used more than a dozen times with overnight friends or family.

I was only noting the thing legal thing, not here to take the moral high ground.  I certainly have no issues with buying a movie then ripping it for convenience.  Or downloading a movie you already own for that matter.

Based on your description I would go with a Pi4 + Kodi + External 3.5" HD.  Its a pretty straight forward setup.  Almost plug and play.  After you plug in the SD card and boot it, the only 2 things you will likely want to 'configure' are 1) the location of your media (duh), and 2) configure the /boot/config.txt for your TV's native resolution (the PI will autodetect through HDMI, but not if your TV is off.  In the case of a power outage, the Pi will boot up again, but your TV will be off... no signal to detect proper resolution).  #2 is purely a convenience thing and honestly I haven't done it since I last reformatted the card and its been a year or so.

I wasn't thinking you were taking the moral high ground.  Heck, take a video camera into the movie theater for all I care.  I just was wearing a tin foil hat so the FBI had something nice to read.

Thanks for all your help.  I might splurge on an SSD, but prices get pretty crazy once you leave the 1tb range.  If I splurge, I'll be back so you can help me make it a network drive as a backup/external/server drive thingy without giving access to all my stuff to the world.

Yeah, no problem, my comment was more of a general statement, not directed at you.

Keep me in the loop, happy to help.

If you're not in a hurry setup an account on Slickdeals.net and set alerts for deals on big storage drives and Pi4. I saved hundreds by doing that when I built my last PC.

ProDarwin said:

I'd get a multi-tb normal hard drive in an external enclosure (that's what I have).  No fan needed.  Really you can use any shared network drive, or you can plug into the Pi and let the Pi turn it into a network drive.  This used to be super slow on the old Pis, but Pi 4 network performance is leaps and bounds better.

Just to clarify... reading between the lines... You're suggesting an HD with it's own power source, not one that is powered over USB?  So I'm searching for a "desktop" external as opposed to a laptop/portable style?  Shopping now.  Looks like I can get 5tb for just over $100.

Is USB fast enough, or should it be some other protocol like SATA?

In the future, I'm thinking about making this a network drive over wifi.  Is there anything else I should be considering? For instance, I don't want to buy all this stuff for my media storage only to realize it isn't the right stuff to make it a network-able drive.

In other words, at some point, I want to make this drive my own personal cloud server.  It would be nice to access it remotely (like while I'm at work or on vacation) but understand if that can't happen without serious security issues.

USB is plenty fast.  Yes, I mean one that has an enclosure + power supply.  "Desktop" or 3.5"HD is what they would normally be referred to as.  This is the one I have.

There are a number of routes you can go to make a network drive:

1) Plug an external into the Pi, turn on sharing.

2) Plug an external into your router (if it has this capability), turn on sharing.  This is not recommended unless you have a good router.  Mine uses some old protocol that is no longer supported by Win10 so its a bit of a pain.

3) Get a NAS instead of an external drive.  Its basically an external drive + the hardware required for sharing.  

Once its shared on your network, anything else on the network can access from Wifi or ethernet.  I would recommend you make the connection between the Pi and the drive hardwired.

If you want to access it from outside your home, it gets more complex.  I am far from an expert on that, but I would probably lean toward some off the shelf solution like WD My Cloud or similar.