I am strongly considering getting more use out of my EX490 with the addition of a Popcorn Hour. I am in the process of ripping DVDs and Blu-ray discs, using SlySoft AnyDVD HD's built-in ripper. I'm not overly concerned with "modding" the files by stripping out content; I've had pretty crappy luck. I've used Xillisoft's converter software and oftentimes I find that the end product has that ever-so-slight-yet-noticeable disconnect in the audio/video--they are just slightly out of sync. Very annoying!

I ripped my complete series of CSI Vegas, Miami and NY, and mounted a sampling of the ISOs with Virtual Clone Drive to test them, especially since multiple different machines are concurrently used to conduct the ripping. I did not find a single problem in any of the dozen or so ISOs that I sampled. That said, I am going to assume that the files are probably in good shape.

That said, I am now pondering the acquisition of a Popcorn Hour A-210 or C-200. They seem to, for the most part, support the same feature set, and the latter is $100 more than the former. But when I check on PCH's own website feature comparison, it says the A-210 does not support Commercial BD or Commercial DVD. So does that mean the rips I made from SlySoft AnyDVD HD can't be mounted/played back on the PCH A-210? I'd really hate to shell out the extra $100 if I didn't have to, but if the A-210 can't mount and play back those ISOs, then I guess I don't have much choice.

Any other suggestions on what I should do to get the best playback performance? I have Gigabit Ethernet and storage aplenty on the EX490. It's still got the stock 2 GB of memory but I kicked the processor up to an E5300, and that's done quite well. I just don't want to run into the stuttering problems folks have pointed out with various gear, whether PCH, Dune or otherwise. Should I set up NFS on the WHS? Or can I just use the OOB file shares?

This is going to be new turf for me so I'd like to pick the brains of folks who have been down this road before!

Danke,
Matt

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

I have the A200 and the WD TV Live Hub. All my movies are on the server, however I do not use ISO. I use MakeMKV to make MKV files and I do strip out all the trailers. A-200 play iso. I think commercial BD/DVD is hooking up a USB player. I have had two PCH, A-110 and now the A-200. There new GIU interface is difficult, so I still run YAMJ for art work. I actuallly like the WD better, although the HUB has an internal 1 TB drive which I really do not use since I have a 8 TB server. However, lately I have been pushing the wifes TIVO stuff to the WD internal drive (Oprah, Regis, Grays ANatomy). I really like the interface and it will do art work from the internet.

I only use BD ISOs with my C200 and Boxee Boxes. The C200 also has full BD menu capability, which the A210 does not have. With full BD menu capabilty you will get the full disc experience or you can put the C200 in simple BD menu mode which is what the A210 uses.
A small number of BD ISO titles will not play properly in simple BD mode. On those you have to use full BD menus to be able to play them back properly. This is mainly what I use my C200 for now. With the rest of my BD ISOs played on my Boxee Boxes which also uses simple BD menus/BD lite menus.

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3TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory
57TB unRAID1a--49TB unRAID2--76TB unRAID3

Couple t hings you can do:

- Make sure you shut off demigrator during peak playback hours
- Test out playback via smb on the PCH (my smb setup here). This should work without issue. However, if you have any trouble try installing nfs (my nfs setup here)

Regarding your question about playback of commercial BRs/DVDs, they question I have is are you having AnyDVD remove the encryption? If you are then the discs will play fine (you will get BD Lite for BluRays and full DVD menus for DVDs with the PCH A210). If you are not removing the protection that you will be out of luck when trying to play back on the A210 (and you will need to instead get the C200). There really is no need to keep the protection in tact (after all, that is part of the reason we use AnyDVD).

As far as your setup, if you don't need the full menus I would recommend doing the following:

For DVDs use MakeMKV to make a single mkv of the main movie
For BluRays you can either use MakeMKV to create a single mkv or use AnyDVD + Clown_BDto create a BR Folder Structure with just the main movie (my preferred method)
For TV Show DVD/Box Sets I would use MakeMKV and create individual mkvs for each episode

Note that all of the above items require zero encoding, so you get the original quality and do not have to deal with any of teh a/v sync issues you were dealing with using Xilisoft.

Also, if you are going to get a PCH you are going to want to use a jukebox such as YAMJ + Aeon

Hopefully this gives you some good ideas, don't hesitate to ask any other questions.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Damian, thank you for your post, and likewise to aaronwt.

After reading aaronwt's post, I was starting to lean towards the pricier C-200 but after reading your post, it sounds like the A-210 should do me proud. The main reason I got AnyDVD HD was to convert my DVDs and Blu-rays (at least my favorites) into ISOs for ready playback on demand. And that includes removal of the encryption, so I should definitely be able to play back all of my content without fuss or trouble.

Unless I missed something, it sounds like the only thing getting the C-200 would do is give me full Blu-ray menus, and that is far from a show-stopper for me. As long as I can play back the main feature, and on some of the BD titles like Cars (my daughter loves that movie), I'd like to be able to access some of the special features or "featurettes." If the A-210 can do that on a decrypted BD or DVD then it sounds like that should work.

Outside of that, is there any real compelling reason to splurge and get the C-200?

I went ahead and enabled my Guest account and set up Samba shares per your instructions, and I'll probably set up the Demigrator.exe scheduled task too, or at the very least manual batch files. I noticed quite a bit of stuttering yesterday playing back a CSI DVD on my PC (mounted in Virtual Clone Drive). Although, I just copied about 100 GB worth of Star Trek TNG ISOs to the server just before trying to watch that title so no doubt Demigrator was working reeeeeeeealy hard. I worked the server really hard over the weekend with over 20 seasons of CSI (Vegas, NY and Miami), 7 seasons of STTNG and about a dozen or so full-length DVD movies and a couple BD titles. Today, I gave the server the day off and let the disks catch their breath.

Matt

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Hmm...this MakeMKV looks really intriguing. I think I'm going to have to check that out. I might even be willing to re-rip a bunch of my items if it'll save some space on the server. The need for further investigation is very clearly indicated.

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Matt,

Regarding accessing the featurettes you can access via the PCH A-210, however, since you will not have access to full BR menus what will be presented to you are a bunch of titles for you to choose from (it will say something like Title 1, Title 2, etc...). So as you can see it won't be clearly marked what each title is, so you will have to do a little guessing to get the featurette that you want.

If having full BR Menus is something that you still want I would also recommend in place of the C-200 one of the Dune smart players. I have the Smart D1 that we use all the time as well as a Dune BD Prime (Both the D1 and H1 come in pricewise in between the A210 and C200).

To give you a sense of my setup, I have a Dune Smart D1 in the bedroom, Dune BD Prime in the family room, PCH C-200 in the playroom, and the PCH A-200 set up for my mom for when my boys stay with her.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

MakeMKV is a solid program. I use it for all my DVDs. For my BluRays I don't use it because I don't like how it handles forced subs (instead I use Clown_BD + AnyDVD and create a BluRay Folder Rip of just the main movie)

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin