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The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition
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Any Flaming Results in a Temp Ban or Worse. Your Choice!!!
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AfterDawn Addict
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5. September 2010 @ 04:02 |
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Here we go again LOL! Start of a new page...
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5. September 2010 @ 04:37 |
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Here's how i roll ~
Main PC in one of the bedrooms, my computer room. 6 internal 500GB hard drives, most space used by movies.
So..
Movies
Divided up into 4 network shares. The odd miscellaneous network share for any TV series i'm watching or documentaries etc.
Documentaries/favourite TV series/Laurel & Hardy etc etc
These live on external hard drives due to lack of drive space/drive bays in main PC.
Quite a few docu's, TV series and movies live only on DVD's due to lack of hard drive space (plus of course a lot of stuff would only get watched once so doesn't warrant taking up hard drive space, but if i had enough hard drives i could ditch all the DVD's and keep the 'live on DVD only' stuff on hard drives that are stored on a shelf or in a cupboard or something)
Music
Something like 250GB (probably a lot more, haven't checked it's size for ages, but i digress), one network share, each band/artist has own folder underneath said share.
There are various other shares, a utilities share, obviously all program updates/installs live here. A photo/pictures share. Other misc shares
Lounge
HTPC - Dual Core Optiplex 745 SFF. Slimline, powerful enough to play everything out there, and best of all, silent.
Old type xbox (500GB hard drive as this used to be my main 'HTPC' until 500GB became way too small and until i discovered 720p content. Old type xboxes can only play up to 480p). Still the machine that gets used most, for TV series, documentaries and general 'cabbage out and stick on a movie' watching.
Standard DVD player (rarely used as the xbox tends to be used for this most of the time).
Main bedroom
HTPC - Dual Core Optiplex 745 SFF.
Old type xbox (250GB hard drive).
Now forgetting the myriad of other games consoles and PC's around the place, the above machines are all networked, so i can just crank up the main PC then content can be watched over the network on any TV in the house. Or, i can fire up the main PC, then temporarily copy whatever i'm watching to one of the HTPC's or old type xboxes, once the copy is done the main PC can be shutdown. Or of course i can plug a USB stick or USB hard drive into a PC and watch stuff that way.
All that's left is to mention how i backup things.
Movies - as i say, most of my movies live on internal hard drives, shared on the network. Every single movie on internal drives is on an external drive as a backup, and is also burnt to DVD (these days i just burn data DVD's and cram on as many movies as i can - as i only use AVI's now this is more space/cost effective). Long gone are the wasteful days of one movie on a DVD in DVD format in my house, we're talking 1000's of movies, and whilst i totally agree with such a collection being user friendly if kept in a strict alphabetical or similar order, it's still 1000's of damn discs everywhere.
It is infinitely more user friendly (for me) to have movies on hard drives, with extra backups as i detailed above.
Now, the only flaw in my cunning plan, is an obvious one. If ever both copies of a given movie hard drive died, blew up, caught fire (or annihilated by a freak solar storm ie EMP pulse or whatever!), the thought of even looking for all the data DVD's for said movies would be a nightmare task, never mind the utterly mind-numbing task of copying them back from many hundreds of DVD's.
Music - everything on the internal hard drive lives on an external drive, but i no longer burn to CD or data DVD, there's just way too much stuff. Plus i don't use music CD's anymore, not with a handful of MP3 players, heck even my Blackberry can be used as an MP3 player.
Utilities etc - everything on the internal hard drive lives on an external drive, and also gets burnt to CD or data DVD
Anyways, that's the way i do things, each to their own, but i don't miss the days before movies on hard drives (even though i had less movies back then).
All i really need/want to do to upgrade the above setup, is to start buying 2TB hard drives (it would have to be a pair at a time) and start moving the contents of a given 500GB movie drive over to a new 2TB drive, then do the same for the external sister movie drive. I'd probably do it like that, leaving 1.5TB free on said pair, then buy another pair of 2TB drives, migrate another 500GB movie drive and external sister drive over, leaving another 1.5TB free. And so on. It'd just mean a heck of a lot less messing about i think. Plus (for a change) it would mean movie drives having enough free space to defrag the things, currently my movie drives are jam-packed solid, no wiggle room. Even when i delete stuff to cram new movies on, i still have no wiggle room.
So 2TB drives, here i come (well soon, anyway) :)
edit- i meant to say, my AVI's are usually of the following sizes ~
old movies, 700MB to 1.4GB, modern non-HiDef movies are usually the same-ish size, 480p movies are 700MB to about 1.4GB, sometimes more, 720p are usually 1.4GB to 2 or 3GB, sometimes up to 4.3GB. That way i can still avoid using dual layer DVD's for backing them up to DVD, have just never wanted to bother with the things.
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 08:19
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5. September 2010 @ 04:48 |
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That's rather impressive creaky. Good for you :) You have a 500Gb drive in a xbox? I thought 250 was the theoretical limit? Clearly I gave up reading too soon LOL!
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5. September 2010 @ 04:50 |
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You can have a lot more, can't remember if 750GB or 1TB was the limit now. My other old type xboxes have their original hard stock hard drives in them if they're used purely for network viewing
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 04:51
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5. September 2010 @ 04:51 |
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We're talking 360 units right? LOL!
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5. September 2010 @ 04:53 |
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No, old type xboxes, pre 360 ie the old fashioned looking ones. I do have two 360's but i only use them for gaming. Aside from the fact that every movie i played on 360's prompted me to accept Microsoft codecs (stuff that!), 360's are too prone to RROD and whatever other death to be used for more than light gaming. I'm not into modding 360's, my time is taken up with my other hobbies, no room for wasting time modding/fixing death-prone consoles :)
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 04:54
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5. September 2010 @ 04:55 |
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Indeed! I'm not impressed by the way they designed them. The factory settings are a friggin joke! I WON'T be buying one. They really should have taken some tips from the sony PS3 handbook. PS3 is very intelligent if you ask me...
Sorry about off topic :(
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5. September 2010 @ 05:02 |
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Naw, it's all enough on topic, i just don't post in here very often as i very rarely upgrade my PC's, if i do it's just new mice or whatever. Which reminds me, you might recall my 'where are you sat' pics, at work my main PC has a Logitech MX620 wireless mouse and the linux box has whatever wired mouse i'm using at the time. When i use my work laptop at home (most of the time now) i use a Logitech M205 wireless mouse with it. Cheap and cheerful, and a very good mouse. So much so that i've just bought another M205 for my main home PC (multiple wireless mice co-exist well, well the ones i buy do anyways), and might buy another M205 for my main linux box at home, so that'd be 3 wireless mouse on the same two desks. Other than that i don't do a lot of 'PC building', as you know i buy/build my stuff for (very) longterm use.
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 08:01
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5. September 2010 @ 05:07 |
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ah hah! So you don't have much of an upgrade twitch then eh? Not a bad thing really I guess. Keeps money in your pocket ;) I think I can be content after I upgrade to Bulldozer next year. I really won't see much need to upgrade after that. Bulldozer should handle BD conversion within reason. Which makes me happy. Especially if I have 2 of them ;)
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5. September 2010 @ 05:12 |
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No, i don't keep up with new up and coming tech, i never do until such time as i want or need to upgrade, i'd only forget all the details anyways :). I'm not interested in Bluray at all, not when there's 720p BR and BD content so easily available (for my eyes 720p is more than enough, a great compromise between quality and size). Why use my processing power/free time ripping/encoding stuff when so many people out there do it for us :), so my Q6600 still has many years left in her yet.
Actually myself and my boss were doing some PC building last week, of sorts. A simple task of adding a new disk into the main server's RAID array at one of our branches resulted in a mistaken keypress and it was bye-bye to ALL data, in just a few seconds. All Active Directory, user profiles, email, everything gone. That whole day/late night later, we had rebuilt and restored most data, we are still 2 days behind for local user files and emails as last full backup was 2 days old, and it'll stay that way as we haven't a newer backup. (Will be ensuring that all branches have better backups in future), we still have a day or two next week (we'd have to stop over, nice meals and booze ups as branch is quite a few hours away from us, oh the hardship LOL!) to finish off and get everyone back up and running. RAID is great and everything but press that wrong key and it's all over :). We have crazy amounts of gigabytes of engineering documentation still to restore, but this is easy as myself and the boss had almost finished building a centralised server that (overnight) copies all engineering documentation from each remote branch, over to our centralised storage. Eventually the branches can then keep their own local documentation as a temporary backup (for instance if network access to our branch is down) and just use our central server as the documentation resource. We use 'rsync' to incrementally copy over data, some branches have atrocious bandwidth so we have put in place different bandwidth limits for different rsyncs. Said storage server has a few 2TB drives, in fact our main branch backups use 2TB drives that we swap out each day, very fast and very compact. Restores are a breeze. We still have tape backups (LTO2) but we'll eventually migrate those to 2TB drives, tapes are great and everything but hard drives are better and they can be taken offsite (my old firm moved to HDD backups but they weren't offsiteable so not as secure as they might otherwise be). Other branches just use local DAT backups as their local important data is not huge in size.
I will have to crack the whip on some of the other branches (some are in far away foreign lands) as some branches backups are crap, frankly. Our main database data is centralised at our own branch, all other branches access it remotely, so basically all the important data is safe, so when branches lose data it's not usually catastrophic. We obviously have to ensure that branch to branch connectivity is kept on top of.
Anyways, enough of my rattling on, it's just that i've spent a few hours this weekend working on backups and backup reporting scripts, partly to prepare for the day or two at the broken branch on Monday.
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 08:09
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5. September 2010 @ 05:43 |
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I would just about $h!t a brick with such an involuntary keystroke. But it sounds like you have it figured out ;) Gotta love backups.
I can only imagine what programmers go through. One bad keystroke, and it's back to square one. I guess one day I'll see what that's about though ;) Need to get focused on it...
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5. September 2010 @ 05:54 |
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I actually really enjoy coding, that's why i have so many screens at work, i can put debug code in and have various command sessions open, tailing logfiles etc, it makes testing a breeze. Am currently writing scripts to report better on backups, to give a summary of the most important info, start/end/(and fail) time, gigabytes backed up, average throughput, stuff like that, in daily summaries via email. The way i always write code is such that all the data that goes into the emails is archived to local directories for later reference, i do this for each branch too so there's always a way to get at info, either remotely or locally. Yesterday our Portugese branch was inaccessible for some reason (the weekend so no problem) and this highlighted a bug in one of my scripts, the lack of access was causing all sorts of problems downstream in the code. I managed to solve it quite easily by adding a simple ping command with some result code checking/'if' loops, and am actually very pleased with the outcome. I even managed to have the summary report for an inaccessible branch contain a simple comment stating that the report is empty due to said inaccessibility.
Hopefully this is all on topic enough re all the backup talk :), however i must take the kids home so i'll stop rambling now :)
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 08:13
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5. September 2010 @ 06:40 |
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Originally posted by theonejrs:
Originally posted by FredBun:
I agree with omeg, I have over 3000 movies all on DVD's, to me it's no problem at all, I keep them marked, sleved, pictured, all in alphabetical order in cases, any time a family memeber wants to watch a movie it's no problem, they know a name of a movie and it's right there in alpha order, imagine my kids wanting to watch a movie from a hard drive, setting it up would be a nightmare to watch on TV especially in different rooms in the house, and nobody in this household would watch a movie on a PC monitor anyway yukk!
The disc's will outlast any HDD on the market today, you get to little amount to save on a HDD especially when you start to aquire many, than to be safe you need backup, you got to be kidding me that it's more convient to keep them on a HDD, of course each to his or her own, me I like the shortest, easiest, safest and the most convient way, no PC expert can tell me any different, if it swims like a duck etc. I have friends that do the HDD thingie with thier movies, Iv'e seen it in action, no thanks. Unless I see keeping them on HDD's turn simplistic my disc's stay put. Your still doing the right thing Omeg.
Fred,
I'm sorry, but that's just Bogus thinking Fred! Especially if you use a backup program, then it's no contest at all. I'm not even sure you can get a program that backs up to DVDs directly, but even if you can, all it would take to ruin the entire backup is a couple of bad sectors and your backup would be worthless. If you are direct copying to DVD it would take you a whole bunch of time. It's interesting, both True Image 8 and 9 claimed to back up to DVD, but They don't mention that there's no way that I know of to format a dvd to UDF format. Even if you could do it with a re-writable, I wouldn't. HDD backup is by far the safest method available today!
I've lost one HDD in 22 years that failed. One that was in a computer my Dentist gave me that was still under warranty, and one that a cheap $29 PSU blew out on me. I can't ever remember having to RMA a customer's HDD in a build I sold them. That's well over 400 builds. The only other drive I ever sent back was one "Air Mailed" about 40' into my front yard by Fedex! Fedex bought me a new drive!
Me, I'll stick with 500GB drives. I can store over 100 DVDs on one, and when it's full I'll pull it and get another 500. Even if I was to go larger, I don't think I would go larger than 1TB. There seems to be a lot of problems with the majority of larger drives. The 500GB drives seem get much better reviews, with far less reliability problems. The one I have is the WD5001AALS. It's quiet, runs cool and doesn't vibrate. Comes with a 32MB Cache. I like it!
Russ
Russ I think you misunderstood my post or didn't read it all, I have an innie and an outie to back up all my files etc. no question that's the way to go, I'm talking about backing up movies, whole different ball game, I would need ten 2TB's HDD's to do that at least, I still wouldn't do it if I needed just one not for movies for reasons as I posted above. That 1TB WD does look good especially for that price.
And don't forget I do have a 500 gig WD innie you recommended a year ago as a backup, just not for movies, absolutlely no way.
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5. September 2010 @ 07:26 |
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That was an interesting read by the Creak, impressive stuff, it also makes my point about PC experts, you guys are few and far between, just imagine family, friends or nieghbors wanting to watch or borrow a movie, they would be scratching thier heads, even what creaky has is way over my head, I mean it doesn't even have to be as elaborite as his, don't forget what would be involed trying to watch or switching in a family room or berdoom for the regular folk that would be a mess not to mention the cost to set up.
I also use my extra innie and outie for backup, (not movies) great for all my music especially, I still buy and collect cd's for my most favorite tunes you can't argue the quality is still better than mp3, but I love the mp3's also, it does make things so much easier, I installed a newer radio in our van with the aux input that the misses loves using our mp3 player, even though it's mp3 it still sounds good and makes things so much more convient.
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5. September 2010 @ 07:37 |
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Nothing 'over your head' i'd have thought Fred, what i have is extremely simple. Sure, modding old type xboxes to transform them into a media box is (even with the exact instructions) not for the faint hearted, but rest of the overall setup is extremely simple. It has to be, my other half is completely techn-unaware, and even i like to have things such that when it's actually time to sit down and watch something, it's literally a case of firing up the main PC and an xbox or HTPC in another room, and flick on the TV. There's always at least one PC on anyway, so for me it's a no brainer.
My kids are very tech-aware, but even if they weren't, the idea is that it's (almost) as straightforward as just opening a DVD player's tray and popping in a disc.
All kids movies i get still get converted to DVD format so they have their own takeaway copies that they can watch how they want at home or at a friend's house, but for myself the whole ripping actual DVD's or converting AVI's to DVD format is something i just don't bother with anymore (keeping what i have, current, takes up too much time as it is).
I do write epic posts sometimes (it's a bit like me being someone who doesn't say a lot in real life too often, then every now and then i have indepth epic discussions), glad if the posts are of help sometimes, i'm all about explaining things such that what might appear to be complicated stuff can actually be rather simple. And one of my favourite motto's is "i like simple", i guess i'm a techie that just lives in denial :)
As to the car, i stick to a good old factory tape player as i can leave my (99pence) tape player MP3 converter thingy in the player, to connect any of my MP3 players to, or my Blackberry can connect in the same way. There's never much of interest on the radio, i usually listen to podcasts in the car (and at work), my own music the rest of the time, i rarely ever listen to the radio. Good job as they're still planning to get rid of analogue radio and replace with crappy inferior digital crap, i certainly won't be junking my equipment and wasting money on expensive digital crap "in the name of saving the environment". Load of old hoax and nonsense. But i digress, i do like to keep things simple, i only use as much technology as is necessary, i don't junk good stuff or replace stuff when there's no valid reason to do so.
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 08:27
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5. September 2010 @ 10:01 |
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Originally posted by omegaman7:
I hate to seem like I'm arguing.
1300 discs ~6Tb
610 USD total using discs and envelopes, and 8 total optical drives used.
719.92 USD (redundancy) 1.5Tb x 8 Hard drives
719.94 USD (Redundancy) 2 Tb x 6 Hard drives
the 1300 discs cost me ~390$ at an average of 30 cents per disk. Usually less. The optical drives cost me roughly 25$ each. My current array of optical drives will probably not quit for quite some time. A pack of 1000 envelopes cost me 20$ (Windowless). I haven't transferred them all there yet.
The way I see it, is spend a little more, and not have to deal with the hassle of multiple optical drives, and the ease of a few clicks, and it's show time.
My experience with hard drives has been slightly less then perfect :S
That's with single layer disks, so every HD film has to be split on at least 2 disks, sometimes as many as 5. That's truly awful.
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5. September 2010 @ 11:13 |
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You guys are funny!!! It's the old discussion about car or truck!! NO one is right or wrong here it's just what meets an end if you ask me. LOL. I like the idea of HDD's as you can get 2TB or 1TB HDD's and house lots of space in a LITTLE space... lol.
Good luck which ever route you take... ;)
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5. September 2010 @ 11:32 |
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Quote:
imagine my kids wanting to watch a movie from a hard drive, setting it up would be a nightmare to watch on TV especially in different rooms in the house
Why would it? Our HTPC is in the living room hooked up to the HDTV.
Quote:
and nobody in this household would watch a movie on a PC monitor anyway yukk!
42" 1920x1080, nothing yukk about that, remember HDTvs can be used as PC monitors too.
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The disc's will outlast any HDD on the market today
I have considerable doubts about that.
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you get to little amount to save on a HDD especially when you start to aquire many,
Not sure what you mean there, but if you're saying they don't store enough, 2000GB is quite a lot. It'll store a good 120-400 HD films depending on bitrate and resolution.
Quote:
, than to be safe you need backup, you got to be kidding me that it's more convient to keep them on a HDD
- My server case would fit 26TB of HDDs, inside a normal PC case, no extra storage needed. All just a few double clicks and you're done, no combing through the box for the right disc, having to insert it, then remembering to put it away afterwards.
I see why people perhaps use DVDs for small film collections, that's a matter of opinion but people who say it's easier just aren't telling the truth, it's never the case.
Sorry if I seem a little rude here, but honestly, it just seems like the people who prefer DVDs aren't thinking straight! All that hassle and effort...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 12:19
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5. September 2010 @ 12:28 |
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quote,Sammy - My server case would fit 26TB of HDDs, inside a normal PC case, no extra storage needed. All just a few double clicks and you're done, no combing through the box for the right disc, having to insert it, then remembering to put it away afterwards.
I see why people perhaps use DVDs for small film collections, that's a matter of opinion but people who say it's easier just aren't telling the truth, it's never the case.
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LOL, You guys just aren't getting it, most people do not watch movies using pc's, and of course like the greenman mentioned each to his own, hey I'm glad for all you guys that use all your pc hardware to view and stack all your movies, it's just not practical for the regular folk, most people DO NOT watch tv that way, I clicked on creakys HTPC I didn't know what that was, after reading it I know what it is, if I was to show that to the regular folk that would be Chinese to them.
As far as easier, well let me put it this way, I can make copies on my dvd's faster than your downloads from torrent or whatever you guys use, yours are probably free mine are not so you guys got me there, keeping my movies on dvd's in sleeves and in my cases is also very easy, tracking them is even easier, take your kids, family or friends to 3 different rooms with your pc setups if you can afford that, I'll take mine and see who starts watching movies first, are you guys getting the picture lol, sammy please don't tell people it's not the truth, Iv'e seen pc setup movie watching in action, especially when I was in the UK, my nieces boyfriend has what you guys talk about, I watched him struggle setting up his labtop from room to room if it was needed let alone xboxes, playstations, servers or whatever, he can't bring his movies to my nieces Mom & Dad's house, those people are just not set up for that, on the other hand I can bring my dvd's over no problem.
I'm not defending myself on people preferences here, but I will argue about praticality, I never argue about anything here, I just read and learn, half the stuff yopu guys talk about I still don't understand but no matter I love reading everything you guys have to say, the smartest guys on PC's are right here on this and the AMD thread, Iv'e seen both ways work, and sorry guys your method for praticality is not even close.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 12:31
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5. September 2010 @ 12:36 |
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Well put it this way, you either watch solely standard def DVDs, or you use BluRay then, if you don't use a PC. BluRay players, apart from being quite considerably expensive, not much less so than an HTPC minus its drives, are an extra device required anyway, use no fewer cables than a PC, and then you've got to keep all the bluray discs themselves, assuming they're bought from retail.
I watch films/TV on my PC because I use a large monitor - not many people use large monitors, that's fair enough.
However, at our place in York, we have an HDTV. It hooks up to the PC in the exact same way as a DVD player or Bluray player. You aren't 'watching TVs on a PC' you're using an HTPC, the whole purpose of which is to function like a normal home device. The difference is, after that we can use the system like a PC, browse the web, run streaming videos, even play games in the living room. With an Xbox 360 wireless dongle attached it functions like a games console as well.
There's no difference between using an HTPC and using a DVD player on your TV, only the size of the box, and you can get some pretty compact HTPC cases these days.
If you're saying people don't understand HTPCs, then they don't understand how to use a PC either. No more difficult. If they don't understand how to use a computer, then they're not likely to be the sorts that have large collections of video anyway.
Firstly, why would you need access to your whole collection for all three rooms anyway.
Secondly, your friend is doing it entirely wrong. The whole point of having a PC with your collection on it, network shares.
That way, with cable, or even to some extent just using a wireless router - every PC in the house has access to the entire content of the server, wherever it is in the house. This as I say can be done wirelessly.
No need for messy cables, and no need to drag a laptop from room to room, it's dead easy.
With this system setup, I could have videos playing minutes before you could, in all three rooms at once.
For large collections, practicality DVDs are completely hopeless compared to HTPCs. If you only have a few DVDs then you don't really have grounds for anything else.
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Senior Member
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5. September 2010 @ 13:08 |
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My collection is all in one room, somebody wants one its a matter of a minute to watch wherever what room, everything you just explained as I said before most people do not understand nor even want to.
Many people can use a pc but won't understand your set up, because you have gotten so savvy and don't forget you were raised with pc's, many people have not, plus the fact your more savvy than most anyway when it comes to pc's, I still even know many youngsters are not even close to your knowledge and never will be, your method of explaining things is another language to most people, you seen to forget what is simple to you is not to them, I can get into construction work, auto mechanics and make your head spin if I were to explain things like you do, most people can't even understand the manual booklets on how to set those things up your talking about, it's mostly get a friend that does, or a friend of a friend or hire somebody, I see it happen all the time.
And about wireless routers, or networking especially, oh man, now thats really over peoples heads, you wanna talk about problematic I'm not even gonna go there, and today most people have 40 inch set or above, there not gonna watch movies on some 32 or lower inch set pc screen as a lot of you guys do, I would love to have the kind of set up like your talking about, it's still to far fitched for me some day maybe I will, as far as now dvd's are just fine and easy to use plus don't forget the fact they will outlast all your HDD especially if you use good media and take good care of it, as far as bluray, no thanks don't want it, seen it, anything under 40 inch is a waste, can't hardly see any difference, and my eye sight is still great.
I will never argue about your pc knowledge, I will just listen, read and learn, you got me there and always will, on practicality it's vise versa.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. September 2010 @ 13:26
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rick5446
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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5. September 2010 @ 13:37 |
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omegaman7 : It took me 2 days to move my movies on to a 2T HDD
75% were 700meg the rest 1.4 gig
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. September 2010 @ 13:53 |
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everything you just explained as I said before most people do not understand nor even want to.
Then it's their loss I guess. Not understanding something that can make your life easier is I suppose a common situation.
I have set things up for several people who have no computer knowledge whatsoever, I've had to guide them through it, but I got there, including teaching my 80 year old grandfather from scratch. Because he's willing to make an effort, it wasn't actually a monumental task to do. Left to his own devices, he's been quite willing to learn things about the PC and over the course of a few years has become quite proficient.
Not trying to lord over people with my PC knowledge at all, I have no right to, there are plenty of people in these threads know far more than I do, as a result of their heightened experience. Remember I have only owned a PC for 11 years, and only been using them for about 12.
You have to remember though, I'm explaining things quickly because this is a forum post. If I was there in the room with you or your family or whatever, I'd progress through things a lot slower and procedurally, assuming people don't refuse to learn, you can make their lives a lot easier ultimately, by teaching them the more basic side of computing.
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most people can't even understand the manual booklets on how to set those things up your talking about
I think it's fair to say that understanding a manual for something is often much more difficult than understanding the product itself :P
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and today most people have 40 inch set or above, there not gonna watch movies on some 32 or lower inch set pc screen as a lot of you guys do
Read my post again Fred, I did say we use a 42" HDTV. Don't be so quick to dismiss what I'm saying you overlook the details that explain the reasons for what I'm saying.
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I will never argue about your pc knowledge, I will just listen, read and learn, you got me there and always will, on practicality it's vise versa.
On practicality then you know everything and we're not allowed to argue? :S
I'm not taking offense at that, just hoping it's not what you really meant.
In terms of actually copying stuff over and backing it up, typically it's about 40-70MB/s transfer rate to a hard drive, 8 to 14 hours, so yeah, two days if you don't run the PC all day. Burning 426 single layer discs at 20x or Burning 223 dual layer discs at 12x (and most people seem to prefer using lower speeds to preserve burn integrity!) is going to take almost twice as long, as even 20x DVD speed is only 27.7MB/s, and then you have to lead in, lead out and change discs!
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Senior Member
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5. September 2010 @ 14:02 |
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Hey Sammy, I can refute every one of those, but I'm not going to, because no matter what I say your not getting it, so why go on, I'm also old enough to say you win, years ago I would go on and on with you till you gave up lol.
You and yours the minority have your ways, myself and others the majority have ours, thats not a cut on you from my standpoint, actually I'm elated to have people like you around, I admire smarts big time which you have to the max, I also admire commin sense, that comes with time and age mostly.
In closing I surrender, you win big guy.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. September 2010 @ 14:04 |
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Not trying to win anything, nor do I really expect to change people's ways, I'm just trying to get people to understand using PCs and hard disks for video really isn't that big a deal. People seem to get the idea I argue with people until they're forced to concede even though they don't agree, it's not what I intend, I'm just trying to get people to understand the facts of the matter, is all :)
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