Video streaming - how do i do it ?

Hi James

I struggled with ripping my DVD's as I like you was unsure how to do it.

I tried a few bits of software but the DVD's I tried seemed to be copy protected and I couldn't manage it. That was a while ago though now, and I haven't had chance to have another go at it since.

But once they have been ripped and stored on your NAS it will work a treat as long as your TV (or DVD player) is UPnP/network capable, and your NAS has UPnP capability too.

I know this because in my case I converted my VHS tapes to digital, and stored them on my QNAP NAS together with my other digital video files.

My Samsung TV supports UPnP, and my NAS has Twonky.

I tried the TV with the dongle for wireless streaming to start with, but in my house, wireless wasn't ultra reliable.

So when I ran Ethernet cable from my router (upstairs) for my Uniti, now Superuniti (downstairs), I ran a cable for the TV also.

Now it's rock solid.

The TV 'sees' Twonky on my NAS, and I just change the TV source from TV to Aux 'Twonky NASxxxx).

No problem streaming now, never anybuffering issues or anything.

Now if someone is able to give an idea how to rip the DVD's I could put the rest of my stuff on my NAS (with Back Ups of course!)!

Although most of my movies are on BluRay/DVD discs, I have ripped a few favourites which are stored on my Drobo HD (sorry, I really don't do NAS. Too much hassle and poor experiences in the past).

These are easily played via Apple TV into my AV system.

To rip, there are a number of choices but unfortunately AFAIK there's no Apple software that'll strip off copy protection. For this I use a laptop PC with an attached BluRay drive & a copy of Slysoft's "Any DVD HD", which is actually very simple. I then send the ripped files to my iMac by adding them to my iTunes library.

Many thanks both - that gives me a good starting point. 

Cheers

James

Thanks for the tip Tony, I'll check that out.

And thanks James for posting the thread which hopefully has given me a solution for my DVD's.

Like with music streaming James, I would suggest doing a couple of files first to make sure it works OK and you are happy with the way they show up, and once it all works, get stuck in to the rest of your collection!

For Mac DVDFab HD Decrypter works. It's free if you only want to rip DVDs and keep them in DVD-format or as an ISO-image. If you want your DVDs in another format Handbrake is great and free, altough maybe a bit complex if you're new to this. Handbrake kan convert to iTunes-compatible formats which means that you could import them into iTunes on your Mac and then play them on an Apple TV 3, this requires that your Mac is on when you watch films.

I'm not shure if Handbrake will remove the copy-protections but I know that DVDFab will.

Personally I rip my DVDs to ISO-images with DVDFab HD Decrypter, usually only the main movie to save some HDD-space, and store them on my Synology NAS. I then use a mediaplayer called Tvix to play them from my NAS.

I use Handbrake to convert the ISO-images to iPad-compatible files so I can have films on my iPad when I travel.

Yep, forgot to mention Handbrake for ripping DVDs on Mac/PC. Unfortunately, it won't always overcome copy protection.

Then I suggest that you try DVDFab HD Decrypter on those DVDs to rip the DVD to the HDD and then use Handbrake to convert them.

I would really like to see an App Store for Apple TV and then XBMC/Kodi or atleast VLC on that App Store. Then I could remove my Tvix players and only use my Apple TVs.

Dead easy James. Very little difference to streaming music.

I use PC so can't help with specific Mac software, but rip the disk and store it on your NAS. IME all you need is a folder for the movie, the movie itself, and a folder.jpg of the artwork. YMMV.

Point your UPnP server at the root folder of your movies. Make sure that your server is set to detect MP4, MKV, AVI, or whatever format you've chosen (I found this really tricky as my UPnP rendrers are not consistent, so don't support the same codecs). Wait for it to index. 

Use a UPnP renderer (e.g. a Smart TV, Blu-Ray player, Popcorn Hour, etc). to watch you favourite films.

Easy 

Thanks ITV - what is the best format to store in. Would rather go for best quality over size. What would you recommend - the device i'm looking at uses XBMC ?

James

That's quite tricky. DVD was easy but blu-ray a nightmare. I messed around for ages trying to find a codec that my son's PS3 and my two Samsung smart tv's could use. I failed; he lost 

I chose the .mts format for blu-ray and avi for DVD (the avi codec works on PS3).

Since then, ~three years ago, I changed my blu-ray player to one which had dlna included and (luckily) I can now stream through that to my projector too. So, all in all, a result.

I've no experience of the x-box media centre, but when I was looking for compatible formats most devices clearly listed the codec they supported.

Be prepared for some trial and error. If your ripping software supports it do a 5 minute rip in several formats and see which XBMC can read.

Tip: I ripped dozens of blu-rays, each taking around three hours, before I realised they were all in stereo . Check your rips before you commit yourself!

HTH

Avi is not a format it's a container. You can put more or less which video-format (and audio-format) you like in a container. Today mkv is one of the most common containers and a more modern one than avi.

I'm not sure but I think .mts also is a container.

DVDs use mpeg2 as a video format. 

BD use mpeg4.

If you care for quality and HDD-space is not an issue I would go for a pure rip without re-encoding your DVDs and keep the audio in AC3 or DTS. If you like you can store them in DVD-format (.vob-files in a VIDEO_TS-folder), ISO-image or make a .mkv-file.

If you like the .mkv-container there is aa program called MakeMKV that you can use. I haven't used it myself.

XBMC (now called Kobi) has a very good format support so I think almost what you decide on will work with Kobi.

Without booting everything up I can't be entirely sure but I believe Handbrake gives the option of encoding specifically for an Apple TV. I do find the ATV a very nice bit of kit for streaming movies.

Gentlemen - once again, thank you. Very useful info that's given me enough to go off an do a bit more research. 

Much appreciated.

James 

I have used MakeMKV to rip blurays without problems for a couple of years. The developer also updates the application quite quickly when new encryption algorithms are added to new releases.

DVDs I tend to store as .ISO images, Plex and XBMC should be able to view these and access the menus (something that is difficult to do with BluRay Rips). I use MacTheRipper to rip the DVDs and remove their region encoding.

I also create compressed .m4v versions using Handbrake to use on my mobile devices. If you google something like 'handbrake recommended settings' you'll find plenty of links to read. You'll have to pick some settings depending on the input & output resolution, size of file and sound encoding. I think the LifeHacker site has some good instructions on what the settings mean as does the developer's own site. One tip is to set up some presets in Handbrake e.g. 'Bluray for iPad'. Also, have a look at MetaX and MetaZ for metadata lookups if you want to play them on an iDevice and find them easily.

I found it all a bit confusing when I started looking at this a couple of years ago. Good luck.

I get very good pictures and sound streaming uncompressed MKV files to my Oppo 105.

Regards,

Richard

I use VLC to play DVDs and every kind of video.

I activate the AirPlay Monitor option on the Mac. It mirrors through the AppleTV, the screen + sound of the Mac on the TV.
It doesn't work with the Apple DVD player.

The AppleTV is a pretty good player.

I also have a Cambridge 752BD player (Oppo base)

With basic calibration using a SpyderTV 4HD Colormeter both units have exactly the same settings (brightness, color, hue) on the TV. 

One unit is absolutely impossible to distinguish from the other.

For environments that have Macs and Apple TVs, MakeMKV for ripping and Beamer to transcode on the fly and send to Apple TV is a pretty good combo; you can use the Apple TV remote too. 

-Mark

If you have a NAS the process is not disimilar to streaming audio in that you need to rip your disks into an appropriate format and then you need a device that will stream that format, I've been doing it for years using many different devices.  My favourite is the western digital TV live which is really cheap and streams almost any filetype you caare to name including video, music and photos and which includes the ability to access youtube, facebook, netflix etc etc.  It has outputs for video to a TV but also has digital outputs so that you can plug it into your name kit if you have a digital set up.  Highely recommended for the price, and it will pay any video format I have come across so you can chooose which of the file types yoou prefer when yoou rip.  If you want detail on rippers and file types etc let me know.   Regards  David

I can also recommend  MakeMKV  as a ripping tool.  There are versions for Mac and PC, its free (after trial expires, just re-download), very simple, and pretty reliable (I've only had a couple of DVDs it failed to resolve).

As the name suggests, it puts everything inside a .mkv container, which virtually all media players and modern TVs can handle, and is fully lossless.

Thereafter, and like others have said, the basic principle of streaming video is exactly the same as with audio.