Discussion Storage options (at least what I do)

[infamous TMFB]

So I know this is kind of odd and old school, but for storage purposes I simply burn the files to BD-R media. I have long experimented with authoring software and the greatest thing about this program for me is that I no longer need to. I have found that if I burn the files downloaded in AVC CVBR straight to disc they play just fine in my blu-ray players. They will not however play in Playstation or XBOX. the only caveat to this is that in my Sony player I have to switch my tv to filmmaker mode to display the 24fps without frame stutter. On my Samsung they play smoothly no matter which picture mode my tv is in. This is fantastic for me since my theater set up is out in the garage and now I don't have to worry about wi-fi coverage to watch something on the projector. I plan on buying a UHD blu-ray player in the very near future and I'm willing to bet it will play the 4K HVEC files straight from disc as well. Even better is few I have downloaded so far(Black Adam, WW, and Prey) all come in well under 25 GB so they will fit on a single layer BD.

 

[Lowpro]

I kick it old school as well. Everything I download with AnyStream ends up on BD-R. In my case I author to Blu-ray though, all using free tools (MediaInfo, SubtitleEdit, BDSup2Sub, multiAVCHD, BD Rebuilder, BDedit, ImgBurn) with the exception of Photoshop and PowerDVD, the Blu-ray then serving as a placeholder until a retail Blu-ray is available for purchase. This is the primary reason I use AnyStream. With rare expection I only download titles that aren't available on Blu-ray yet. And yeah, on average you can fit 2-3 movies on a BD25. I purchase BD-R's by the 100 count. After shipping the BD25's average 60 cents per disc, BD50's a dollar more at $1.60 per disc.

That being said, feel free to check out my Doom9 forum thread here if you like. The thread chronicles my journey down the Blu-ray authoring rabbit hole. It's been quite a journey I must say, a very rewarding one. It took some time, but I eventually mastered the art of HDMV based Blu-ray creation. If only HDMV based Blu-ray menus weren't limited to 8-bit indexed color. The limitation can be frustrating at times, but then again, I don't have the type of disposable income required to acquire professional grade Blu-ray authoring software that supports BD-J so. First world problems I suppose.

 

[BCloud]

They will not however play in Playstation or XBOX.

I'm not sure but the CVBR is maybe not compatible with these kind of players, the CBR streams are maybe more appropriate as they have an internal profile more compatible. The BD players read at a constant speed and the CVBR streams willl struggle the playback.

 

[DeepSpace]

I purchase BD-R's by the 100 count. After shipping the BD25's average 60 cents per disc

Even then, they are more expensive, bigger and slower than the harddrives I buy (if my calculation waa correct). Also, it costa a lot of time to first create the Disc menu stuff files and then burn it. And then, the original files are lost.
So even if I had a good software to create discs, it's nothing for me. Easier to just copy the 100s GB to the drive and then plug it in when I need it. And also easier to copy something from it.
The only downside is that I currently have no idea what drive holds what lol. I have software to create a files list, but want to create my own list at some time (since over a year I think lol). With discs however, you can always write what's on them and then have one box for movies, one for seasons and another one for the watched stuff. But when the drive is full, I have to split it up to the next one. Thus, the first movie of the trilogy is on Drive 1, but since it wasn't included in Prime at that time (etc), the second movie already has to go on the second drive. So when I want both movies, I have to connect both drives (or copy stuff between them so it fits on the first drive). With discs however, you can just make a box that holds all three discs of that trilogy.
But I rather have to look at two drives with hundreds of movies on them instead of physically searching a pile of discs.

 

[RedFox 1]

Even then, they are more expensive, bigger and slower than the harddrives I buy (if my calculation waa correct). Also, it costa a lot of time to first create the Disc menu stuff files and then burn it. And then, the original files are lost.
So even if I had a good software to create discs, it's nothing for me. Easier to just copy the 100s GB to the drive and then plug it in when I need it. And also easier to copy something from it.
The only downside is that I currently have no idea what drive holds what lol. I have software to create a files list, but want to create my own list at some time (since over a year I think lol). With discs however, you can always write what's on them and then have one box for movies, one for seasons and another one for the watched stuff. But when the drive is full, I have to split it up to the next one. Thus, the first movie of the trilogy is on Drive 1, but since it wasn't included in Prime at that time (etc), the second movie already has to go on the second drive. So when I want both movies, I have to connect both drives (or copy stuff between them so it fits on the first drive). With discs however, you can just make a box that holds all three discs of that trilogy.
But I rather have to look at two drives with hundreds of movies on them instead of physically searching a pile of discs.

I agree discs are really old school and I would much rather have a hard drive with all my movies on it and just cast it to my TV

 

[cartman0208]

But I rather have to look at two drives with hundreds of movies on them instead of physically searching a pile of discs.

I know, Lowpro has a great ordering system and finds his disks within seconds.
I also had some of those disk storing devices stacked, but it still was too much wasted space for me.

I know you may be not fans, but your solution would be NAS
You can have available:
- all your content
- all the time
- anywhere (if you make it available)

Of course it is somehat more expensive than HDDs only (didn't calculate it compared to BDs yet), but you can have those for additional backup ... so nothing wasted

 

[Lowpro]

Even then, they are more expensive, bigger and slower than the harddrives I buy (if my calculation waa correct). Also, it costa a lot of time to first create the Disc menu stuff files and then burn it. And then, the original files are lost. So even if I had a good software to create discs, it's nothing for me. Easier to just copy the 100s GB to the drive and then plug it in when I need it. And also easier to copy something from it. The only downside is that I currently have no idea what drive holds what lol. I have software to create a files list, but want to create my own list at some time (since over a year I think lol). With discs however, you can always write what's on them and then have one box for movies, one for seasons and another one for the watched stuff. But when the drive is full, I have to split it up to the next one. Thus, the first movie of the trilogy is on Drive 1, but since it wasn't included in Prime at that time (etc), the second movie already has to go on the second drive. So when I want both movies, I have to connect both drives (or copy stuff between them so it fits on the first drive). With discs however, you can just make a box that holds all three discs of that trilogy. But I rather have to look at two drives with hundreds of movies on them instead of physically searching a pile of discs.

To each his own naturally. We all have our passions. And I must say, I couldn't agree more where piles of discs are concerned. The idea of having to physically search through a pile of discs to find what I want to watch is not appealing to me. That's why I store all my Blu-ray's for playback in the Sony 400-disc Blu-ray players pictured below, the retail packaging being stored in the garage never to see the light of day again.



Each disc in turn is cataloged in both DVD Profiler and My Movies, the locaton of each disc being called out. The cataloging software provides for browsing my collection by any number of criteria including things like "Watched Status". I'm able to do so from my PC, mobile devices, phpDVDProfiler based website or up on the big screen via My Movies for Windows Media Center. When I find something to watch I enter the disc location in my universal remote which takes care of the rest. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

(To learn more feel free to hit up my Blu-ray.com forum thread here.)

 

[testiles]

... I store all my Blu-ray's for playback in the Sony 400-disc Blu-ray players pictured below, the retail packaging being stored in the garage never to see the light of day again.

View attachment 70447

So ironic that it was the situation pictured here, multiple Sony MegaChangers in my house (in my case 5) and growing, that spurred me to look for a better solution in the early 2000's -- and ultimately lead me to AnyDVD and .iso's!!

I ramped up on external Hard Drives, replaced all the discs with .iso's (or folders) and didn't look back - lol.

During a big move 10 years ago, I threw out all my Megachangers and (perhaps overzealously) got rid of all the discs.


Now I'm max-ing out on Hard Drives. Too many and keep needing more!!!

So I've begun archiving some of the lesser titles from .iso to disc and packing them away.

These are titles I may never watch again, but should I need to, I can (eventually) find them and play them as needed.


Funny how life comes full circle like that -- discs to .iso's and in some cases back again now to discs. LOL!!



T

 

[Lowpro]

I also had some of those disk storing devices stacked, but it still was too much wasted space for me.

One of my friends has replicated what I've done, but uses numbered sleeves and a single disc Blu-ray player, the cataloging software calling out the location of each disc, i.e. numbered sleeve. (Having all the retail packaging in storage instead of lining the walls of the house makes the wife very happy evidently.) When they find something to watch they grab the disc from the numbered sleeve in question and drop it in their single disc Blu-ray player. It's not as sexy as my tripped out approach, but accomplishes the same thing in the end.

 

[cartman0208]

Hehe, as intriguing as it sounds ... I just scroll through my Plex collection, hit play on a selected item and enjoy instantaneous playback
No need for disks being in place and waiting for the player to be ready


Although I must admit, it is somewhat impressive, that picture of yours

 

[testiles]

One of my friends has replicated what I've done, but uses numbered sleeves and a single disc Blu-ray player, the cataloging software calling out the location of each disc, i.e. numbered sleeve.

LOL!

When I was using the MegaChangers, I wrote an app that given a title token would pull up all my movies with that token in the title and indicate the MegaChanger Number and slot position for each.

I just then needed to pick the selection I wanted, point the remote to the right MegaChanger, and punch in the slot number.


As I moved over to .iso's, I enhanced the app to not only tell me what computer and Hard Drive it resided on -- but to also initiate play of the movie right then and there!

I think even more than the space savings, it was that convenience that pushed me over to full .iso use so fast.


I still use that app for .iso play btw, but it has a lot more bells-and-whistles on it now, including playlists, play history, transferring movie (or music) play to a different destination computer, timer shut off of a title, etc.

Couldn't do without it!



T

 

[0x0x0x0x0]

I don't like to complicate things, with good indexing (aka plain text file that can be parsed by perl):

/dev/sdb         11T   11T  9.3G 100% /mnt/b
/dev/sdc        9.1T  8.9T  164G  99% /mnt/c
/dev/sdd        9.1T  8.8T  313G  97% /mnt/d
/dev/sdf        9.1T  9.0T  121G  99% /mnt/f
/dev/sdg         11T   11T  309G  98% /mnt/g
/dev/sdh        9.1T  9.0T   90G 100% /mnt/h
/dev/sdi        9.1T  9.0T   44G 100% /mnt/i
/dev/sdj        9.1T  9.0T  112G  99% /mnt/j
/dev/sdm        9.1T  8.9T  187G  98% /mnt/m
/dev/sdn         11T  9.8T  1.1T  91% /mnt/n
/dev/sdo        3.7T  3.7T  2.5G 100% /mnt/o
/dev/sdp         13T  4.9T  7.9T  39% /mnt/p
/dev/sdq         13T  9.3T  3.4T  74% /mnt/q
/dev/sdl         13T   13T  103G 100% /mnt/l
/dev/sdr         13T  8.3T  4.4T  66% /mnt/r
/dev/sde         11T   11T  104G 100% /mnt/e
/dev/sdk         11T   11T   21G 100% /mnt/k
/dev/sdt         13T  9.4T  3.4T  74% /mnt/t

 

[Lowpro]

Hehe, as intriguing as it sounds ... I just scroll through my Plex collection, hit play on a selected item and enjoy instantaneous playback
No need for disks being in place and waiting for the player to be ready

To each his own naturally. For me it's all about the journey. I've been geeking out with electronics as far back as I remember. The more hardware the better. The more moving parts the better. The more cables the better. Love me some cable management! Then there's the control system, turn-key solutions need not apply. Building a user interface and the programming that drives it, all that hardware working in perfect harmony as a result, the end user experience being precisely what you intend it to be, there's nothing more satisfying. There's also something to said for for parity. All the content I consume is cataloged and stored for playback in the same fashion. If I can't purchase or author a given title to DVD or Blu-ray I just do without. The benefits of using a fixed platform with a strict set of standards should also not be overlooked, i.e. the DVD or Blu-ray formats. When I look at a blu-ray player for instance I see a closed system. It does what it's designed to do, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, no questions asked, no strings attached, the rules don't change. There's something to be said for that. I purchase a new title on Blu-ray or author the Blu-ray myself, I know exactly what to expect. I catalog the title and disc locations, drop the discs in their designated changer slots and I'm done. Doesn't get much easier than that. I've been following this practice since the beginning of the DVD format. No need to fix what isn't broken.

Although I must admit, it is somewhat impressive, that picture of yours

Baby got back too! The picture from the rear is even sexier. Click here if you dare.

 

[cartman0208]

Baby got back too! The picture from the rear is even sexier. Click here if you dare.

Wow, it's even on wheels ... you could take it for a walk

 

[walstib]

Didn't know people still burned to disc! Cool... I still buy discs - except DVDs - and I do full backup rips. Anything I get via AS, if there is a disc, I'll still buy the BD or UHD even though I can download it. AS fills that void where studios refuse to release on disc, which is more and more common and is the inevitable future.

For storage, I'm using a 4U 24 bay drive array (each drive is 10TB though I am slowly replacing with higher storage). That is rack mounted in a 1/3 rack unit and served from a Dell 1U R720 off of eBay running VMWare ESXi and Ubuntu. All of it is available for me as long as I have a connection to the internet; the quality is as good as whatever device I am using to render can handle. So many media server options now!

Storage is cheap. The main downside is if you have a failure and need to replace (I use Snapraid). It can take a few days to restore 10TB HD. Makes it worth it to buy server class - a little more expensive, but better MTBF.

 

[RedFox 1]

Didn't know people still burned to disc! Cool... I still buy discs - except DVDs - and I do full backup rips. Anything I get via AS, if there is a disc, I'll still buy the BD or UHD even though I can download it.

You are not alone, we have loads of customers using AnyDVD HD UHD, to rip discs, and burn them. I think its really cool even though where II live I cant find any of those discs, I have to send away for everything.

 

[cartman0208]

It can take a few days to restore 10TB HD.

Woot?
I got my hands on 4 18TB HDDs recently and swapped all with the 4 12TB disks RAID5 in my Synology ... took about 24H for each disk

 

[0x0x0x0x0]

Woot?
I got my hands on 4 18TB HDDs recently and swapped all with the 4 12TB disks RAID5 in my Synology ... took about 24H for each disk

Sometimes it's just faster to re-download

and RAID (as well as ZFS) are greatly overrated

 

[BoomKapoow]

Each to his own I guess, but personally anything that can house a share whether local/online then I'm all good with Infuse, what a brilliant app that is

Filebot/Emby/Infuse & AppleTV + NAS as storage for my streaming needs and pleasant things like AS of course

Used to have my basement full of boxes with discs, it was a massive relief throwing it all away

 

[RedFox 1]

To each his own naturally. For me it's all about the journey. I've been geeking out with electronics as far back as I remember. The more hardware the better. The more moving parts the better. The more cables the better. Love me some cable management! Then there's the control system, turn-key solutions need not apply. Building a user interface and the programming that drives it, all that hardware working in perfect harmony as a result, the end user experience being precisely what you intend it to be, there's nothing more satisfying. There's also something to said for for parity. All the content I consume is cataloged and stored for playback in the same fashion. If I can't purchase or author a given title to DVD or Blu-ray I just do without. The benefits of using a fixed platform with a strict set of standards should also not be overlooked, i.e. the DVD or Blu-ray formats. When I look at a blu-ray player for instance I see a closed system. It does what it's designed to do, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, no questions asked, no strings attached, the rules don't change. There's something to be said for that. I purchase a new title on Blu-ray or author the Blu-ray myself, I know exactly what to expect. I catalog the title and disc locations, drop the discs in their designated changer slots and I'm done. Doesn't get much easier than that. I've been following this practice since the beginning of the DVD format. No need to fix what isn't broken.


Baby got back too! The picture from the rear is even sexier. Click here if you dare.

Holy moley, do you have an airconditioned computer floor to keep that cool?