Rotel, no more DVD players?
I'm also curious to know reasons behind not considering a hard drive based system. Most of the people I've noticed that have negative views of HD Based systems, are the ones that haven't tried it.Yes there's always a chance of losing a drive.But this is what backups are made for. Once solid state HDs become the norm and cheap. I believe more will be willing to change over to HD based systems. I can tell you once you go that way..there's no going back to a disc player. I don't own a disc player in the entire place! These days you can stream your content in HiDef to the display of choice. Everyone in my household has access to the media collection! That's 10,000 songs and over 500 ripped Blu-rays and DVDs. I can watch a movie on the big-screen as my significant other watches a recorded TV show in the bedroom and the kids watch a movie of their choice in their rooms. All of this streamed from the same Media server at the same time. Shoot..throw the disc in the basement and surf the collection on HD. Or if you just can't let go of the Disc. Buy a changer and link it to the HD based system! Control the collection remotely! Although the last suggestion is very possible and some use this. I personally don't see the need for the extra mechanical wear , when it isn't necessary. |
You are correct Queefee. It is using PC's. It's actually quite easy to setup with a little patience. I have movies that are ripped at 720P and 1080P.Both look great playing back off hard drive. The quality is as good as using a single disc player, if not better in some cases. Using programs like MakeMKV to rip DVDs and Blurays with codecs such as FFDshow available. You can have your high quality sound and picture streamed where ever you want. As far as content info for movies, I've seen no DVD player than can match Windows 7 media player using the Media Browser plugin or XBMC media player hub software. All of which is free. Both are feature rich allowing you to customize your Media center to your liking! You get actor info, movie synopsis, Fan-art Poster displays all at the push of a button. To increase the home-theater feel. You can have HiDef Itunes trailers to play at the beginning of the movies before they start! Just like if you were sitting in a local theater. You can categorize or search your collection by alphabet, genre,actor,year,director and even by the production company that released the movie. I'm sure I left out a few. The options seem endless once you take a close look.lol Here's a few links that can open up a serious can of worms! Media Browser XBMC You can find a huge amount of info on this stuff over at the Avsforum. Just go to the Hometheater PC section. |
