Re: Pinnacle ShowCenter + PVR

["Graham Howe" <graham@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Tony Butler <lists@a...> wrote:
> Quoting keyvan2r <keyvan@e...>:
> > > I would be very interested to know what you think of the=20
> > ShowCenter,
>=20
> Not arrived yet :(
>=20
> > > > cat5 wired), but this one made me stop and reconsider.
I am=20
> > building a 2 Tb server to rip my dvd's onto.=20
>=20
> Nice!  Would you say disk prices have dropped enough to make this=20
viable?  I=20
> was gonna do that about 6 months ago, but it was still too=20
expensive to rip @=20
> dvd quality.  Am thinking of highest quality DivX or XDiv at the=20
moment for a=20
> lot of stuff (ie swmbo's and the kids!) as it does seem fairly=20
acceptable, with=20
> full strength DVD rips for proper films lit alien/t2/american=20
beauty :)
>=20

I am waiting for drives of at least 250Gb to hit =A3100 and then I'll=20
buy 10 of them for my server. I also considered ripping to Divx at=20
high quality, but came to the conclusion that this was false economy=20
if I took into account my own time. Even with a fast machine, I=20
belive that ripping to high video quality, maintaining 5.1 sound and=20
ensuring there are no sync problems is a time consuming task. Lets=20
say for the sake of arguement that it takes an hour to do this (it=20
probably takes a lot longer), and I would save 5Gb of storage (may=20
well be less than that for high quality divx). That means I am=20
saving less than 3 quid an hour, that's below minimum wage and even=20
though I am no longer a stinking rich contractor, I still don't work=20
for that ;-)

> > > How are you planning to use Showcenter??
> Music + dvd's mainly - dunno about the picture side of things.
> I know what you mean about ripping the dvd's to one format and=20
then needing=20
> another one - I had that problem with my audio collection.=20=20
Initially ripped in=20
> WMA because I found I preferred the sound and the Audiotron=20
supports it=20
> natively.
> Had to go through an exercise recently to re-rip because not=20
everything=20
> supports wma natively.  What I have done now is rip an
"Archive"=20
of WMA=20
> lossless files, and then batch converted them to MP3 for day to=20
day use.
> I also have low bitrate MP3 of some of the collection for playing=20
on my PDA....
> The price/space requirements of audio mean this doubling up=20
doesn't cost=20
> significantly more, and I can convert the lossless files to any=20
format I like=20
> in the future....
> DVD-wise is a different story altogether of course :(  Dunno wot=20
to do yet.
>=20

I keep meaning to re-rip my music collection to a lossless format,=20
probably FLAC as I use DDARs at home. At the moment I hav everything=20
ripped as MP3 @ 192 which is fine for my ears, but I am concerned=20
about future conversion to other formats. It is however another=20
reason why I am going down the full rip path for DVDs.