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[tjkeller]

Heaven help me the day I need one of these:

1 Terabyte External Hard Drive $118.99

[Brianzz]

The deal of the day today was pretty good

[dpalmi]

That price is a little high - here's a 1TB for $99...http://www.buy.com/prod/fantom-1tb-g-force-hard-drive-dual-interface-esata-usb-2-0-7200rpm/q/loc/101/206821006.html.

Dan #2

[dpalmi]

and it's dual interface (USB and eSATA).

Dan #2

[jdkmunch]

Think of how many games could backed up on 1Tb drive!
 

[rickhunter]

This is interesting, first time I've ever seen a LED projector.  Ultra low res (480 x 240 weird aspect ratio as well), but according to the picture, it's about the size of a coffee mug and it runs on only 9Vots and 2 amps (that's 18 watts!!!!).  21 to 80 inch screen.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MINIAV-LED-PROJ&cat=CON

[jdkmunch]

That's crazy - I wonder what the lumens are for that thing? 

Probably 18 

[stayouttadabunker]

Try lighting up a match on a bright sunny day and see if you can spot it from about 40 miles away

[Bettor Slots]

I actually found use for that big of a hard drive.  I have saved digitally about 150 DVD's onto an external 1.5 terabyte Maxtor with USB connection.  An average standard definition movie takes between 5 GB and 8 GB to save. These are of course movies I own, but nice to index them on screen.  Take that, and link it to a Media Center PC, add the subprogram MyMovies and you have a pretty slick set up.  Aside from being able to watch your DVD right off the hard drive, it has an on screen display that looks very much like MyMusic in Media Center.  You can play trailers, get cast biographies, bonus DVD stuff, and so on.

Here are a couple of pics of what it looks like in case you have not seen this set up.

[Bettor Slots]

Here's a couple more pics:

[jay]

Slick.....
What application are you using to rip the movies ?
I presume you have a good HDMI out card ? does your card support 1.3b with the Audio or are you running a separate audio out ?
What app / hardware are you using for the Infrared remote

[Bettor Slots]

Jay,

Hardware configuration is:

Hewlett Packard Digital Entertainment PC with HDMI out and built in IR (they have a cheaper version HP Pavillion also)
Maxtor One Touch 1.5 Terabyte external hard drive

Software:

Windows Vista Home Premium (utilizing the built-in Media Center)

MyMovies  http://www.mymovies.dk/  (this is the sub-program that works within Media Center)

AnyDVD    http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html  (this is a decoder)

Note:

Copying DVD's is highly illegal, I would only copy movies that you have purchased and keep within your household AND do not distribute !!!

[jay]

I have a Sony Carousel.
Its an older version of this one that holds 300 dvds.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-DVP-CX985V-Disc-Progressive-Player/dp/B0000DIK0U/ref=tag_tdp_sv_edpp_pop_t

I have just over 2k DVDs (6 ikea double book cases full) and ideally would like to be able to scale up.
One of my projects is to move the movies from their cases to media binders and cut the occupied space down to 1 cabinet.

My media case has 4 shelves, curently occupied by two amps, the Carousel, a PS3 (doubles as my blue ray player) and a Wii.
This closed cabinet has been outfitted with two ultra quiet fans that suck out and disipate the heat, I picked up an inline cooling thermostat that turns the fans on/off automatically.

The video output feeds into a Panasonic projector with a 120" screen.

The main amp outputs into the 7.1 surround system with a 15" sub.
The other amps drives 6 bass shakers mounted into the 6 theater style seats, and my 10" sub.

I don't like the idea of ripping DVDs at all, because the encryption varies by manufacturer and depending on the sampling rate (blah blah blah) the quality and sound differs greatly. You can probably guess with the above setup I am somewhat picky about driving good sound and video and any glitches would just drive me around the bend.

With BlueRay they have just scratched the surface of what they can do with encryption etc. So I don't really want to start down a path and then find out its not scaleable because I can no longer easily manage my content. Sony has even caused problems with their own hardware by introducing new copy protection (on non-blueray).
http://sonystrikesagain.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/hello-world/

There are 101 blogs on all of the firmware upgrades people have had to make on the their blueray players.
One of our neighbors bought a blueray player at christmas, and then took it back because some movies were pausing (like video buffering with a slow internet link) the next one they got was the same problem. I went to the web site, got a ISO image, burned it to a CD-RW and turned on the unit holding down the play button when we hit the power on. It loaded the new firmware and the problem was fixed. She almost had a fit as she said if they expected "her" to do that they were ^&*()!* crazy. I told her to keep an eye on it and I suspect I will be doing upgrades every 6 to 8 months for the next three years.

Right now the carousel is pretty idiot proof (appliance like) and the family just picks a movie like it is PPV, if its not loaded in the unit then they use the PS3. I am also concerned about the boot time for the PC. I am convinced what has made the BlackBerry and Palm devices popular vs micro-mini PCs is the instant on, as much as the size.

Marantz has a 301 DVD changer that can slave a second unit to it. For a total of 602, but at $1800/ea without BlueRay is a bit rich.
If I had that kind of cash and was choosing to spend it on something other than a GameKing this is still below my capacity needs.

The new 400 disc sony is only $319. I would be better off buying 4 of these, but then I am dealing with 4 interfaces and a problem of where would I stack these things as they are not small.

[Bettor Slots]

Your set up sounds similar to mine...120" screen and in my case utilizing a BenQ DLP projector, Buttkickers, Niles Audio HD 5.1 surround, DVDO VP-50 Scaler, etc. etc,...

I will admit I am not much of an audiofile, but to me the sound is excellent with this set up and to the average listener the ripped DVD's for most would not notice any difference at all.  For sure I am getting 5.1 sound distribution.  I do however have a good eye for video quality and I can tell you there is no difference at all...I am pretty happy really with the results.  There is something really satisfying about looking up at the big screen and being able to thumb through your entire collection without getting out of your seat, tripping in the dark, and fumbling with a DVD player.  I especially like the ability of looking up cast and director biography information right on screen as I am a bit celebrity buff....this information constantly updates itself also via the internet connection to a PC.

Heh...one thing I would caution anyone looking into this is the time it takes to ripp a single DVD....around 15 minutes on average...so in your case with that quanitity....a pretty big endeavor...

[stayouttadabunker]

15 minutes a DVD....not bad...I spent the better part of my late forties transforming an entire cassette music tape library into
MP3 form.....arghhhh!   time to do a single cassette tape? about 90 minutes each...

[Bettor Slots]

By the way, the MyMovies program works with several media changers out there....where you do not have to ripp to a hard drive at all.....you use and play from the original DVD....and are still able to catorgorize, select, and play from your collection from on screen like the images above. There is a quite a lot more information about this on the My Movies website.

Here are a few changers that work with this program:

- Sony Vaio XL1B
- Sony Vaio XL1B2
- Sony Vaio XL1B3
- Niveus IceVault

[KirkLasVegas]

Did you guys see the 23" HP flat panel LCD display for $149?
Here is one, in Landscape and Portrait....
I couldnt pass this up.

Kirk

[jdkmunch]

What a great price... I remember paying $500 for a 24"

[stayouttadabunker]

Pretty soon those monitors will be bigger than my tv

[rickhunter]

I've amassed a good collection of DVD's for my 6 year old (not quite Jay's size).  I have about 200 or so movies that are his library.  I just finished ripping and encoding into itunes/Ipod format (h.264) and was able to fit about 170 or so of his most watched DVD's into a 160GB ipod classic.  So now I travel with that an a DVD/Ipod Dock portable player so he can watch his movies.  I also put a MacMini in his room hooked up to his tv and he just uses the Apple remote with Front Row and he's all set to go.  He just "thumbs" through the movie covers and picks the one he wants and voila, no more "Daddy, where's the DVD for ......"

As "gadget project" I've been looking at these two other Pico Projectors that look to be a nice take along with the Ipod for a "theater anywhere" experience.  Only about 12 Ansi lumens, but on a dark room, you can project to about 40 inches with no problems.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/04/optoma-pico-projector-gets-pictured-specced-and-priced/

http://www.3mmpro.com/

They are both around $350 or so street price.

[tjkeller]

7" Netbook w/Webcam only $199.99 from Geeks.com (refurb)

CenDyne 7" Netbook