Building Another HTPC

[six_storm]

Originally Posted by WeReWoLf

Open up dvdfab, choose the disc location (disc source, up top in the centre) then on the left side, down in the second selection part under DVD to Mobile, click generic.

It'll give you a list of video locations from the disc, and have the largest one (the movie) selected. Then select audio input (should have the first one ticked), then underneath audio, it'll have the Sub selections. Untick those if you don't want subs on your movie.

Click next, then click configure. Up the top, next to generic is a dropdown list of your audio selections. Choose either H.264 Mp3 or AAC, then name it as you wish. Under that is your options for screen size and encoding size.

I usually use Fixed bitrate and use between 1024 - 1280 for best results. Select your screen size and sized aspect ratio. Leave framerate same as source. With Audio format, select the largest one, which provides best audio quality, and you can even increase the amount of volume from the original disc. If you deselected the Subs in movie selection screen, then subpicture is not configurable.

When all done with that, hit OK, then hit start.

When all is finished, Output file goes to "C:\Users\*****\Documents\DVDFab\"

Thanks! I'll give it a shot now.

[six_storm]

Just tried ripping the Wedding Singer in an avi (h264, aac) and honestly, I don't think it will be worth it doing it this way. I think I'd rather just do a straight rip of the main movie in VIDEO_TS folders and let Vista Media Center pick it up that way. Yeah, it will be a waste of space in a sense, but I want to have a good, clean looking UI in VMC; want it to be easy to use for the wifey and guest. For example, I want to be able to use the MyMovies plugin or the DVD Library section in VMC, be able to look at movie posters and decide on which movie to select.

As for the music, I was pretty sure that I couldn't "enhance" it anymore so I'll just leave it as is. I'll try and export all of it to MP3s for my HTPC since VMC won't play M4P formatted songs. Thanks for all the info guys! I'll keep you up to date on this build. The parts should be here Wednesday, but it will be another month before I can buy a case and hard drive.

[WeReWoLf]

As i said, give Wavepad a try. You can convert just about anything under the sun to Mp3 with it.

[six_storm]

Got all of my ordered parts today, can't wait to plug it all up and get things rolling. Now I just need a case and a new HDD to store all my stuff on. More than likely, I'll order the Silverstone case. I just can't find anything that really matches what I really want in a case.

[npras42]

Do me a favour mate and let me know how it goes with the case. As I said I've seen a couple of Silverstone HTPC cases already and thought they were awful, but they must be at least 2 years old each and I'd like to see whether they're any better nowadays. Can't believe that there aren't a bunch of desktop-style HTPC cases out there for full ATX boards, I thought they would be really popular!

[six_storm]

Originally Posted by npras42

Do me a favour mate and let me know how it goes with the case. As I said I've seen a couple of Silverstone HTPC cases already and thought they were awful, but they must be at least 2 years old each and I'd like to see whether they're any better nowadays. Can't believe that there aren't a bunch of desktop-style HTPC cases out there for full ATX boards, I thought they would be really popular!

Yeah, I'm a little surprised there isn't much of a selection when buying a budget HTPC case.

[six_storm]

Just installed Windows Vista Home Premium and started downloading Windows updates. Since I only have 34 GB of free space for movies right now, I'm going to transfer a DVD rip, some AVIs, some music and some pictures over so I can get all the right codecs set up properly.

[six_storm]

I finally got everything up and running. Cut my Raptor drive in half, Vista's partition taking 34GB while the Data drive is taking 35GB. I transferred a few movies, both AVI and DVD rips, and a few MP3s. Amazingly, all of the codecs I downloaded (see below) work like a charm! The MCE remote works really well and is easy to use, however, it has a little lag when changing the volume. Oh well.

Codecs:
QTLite
AC3 Filter
xViD
FFDShow
CoreAVC 1.0.6

Now I need to transfer all of my iTunes music to MP3.

[mullet]

XP
PowerDVD
Media Portal
daemon tools
DVDFab to .ISO @100% Quality
2 x 1TB drives = 400 standard DVD's

DONE.

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by six_storm

I finally got everything up and running. Cut my Raptor drive in half, Vista's partition taking 34GB while the Data drive is taking 35GB. I transferred a few movies, both AVI and DVD rips, and a few MP3s. Amazingly, all of the codecs I downloaded (see below) work like a charm! The MCE remote works really well and is easy to use, however, it has a little lag when changing the volume. Oh well.

Codecs:
QTLite
AC3 Filter
xViD
FFDShow
CoreAVC 1.0.6

Now I need to transfer all of my iTunes music to MP3.

I would recommend Vista Codec Pack, but if you don't want that, then at least install Halli Media Splitter, some files like MKV, TS, M2TS etc.. might not play at all without it

[six_storm]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

I would recommend Vista Codec Pack, but if you don't want that, then at least install Halli Media Splitter, some files like MKV, TS, M2TS etc.. might not play at all without it

Halli Media Splitter is included with CoreAVC

Well, I knew this would come up but I'm going to have to cut some spending on the remaining parts. I really really doubt I'll be able to come up with the $160 to have the Silverstone case shipped. So now, I'll just get a cheap case for the time being and use it until I can scrape the money to get it (Christmas probably). I'll still buy the 500GB or 640GB hard drive but I will also have to wait on Blu-Ray for another month or two.

[nekrosoft13]

mine is kind of on hold as well. I'n trying to find decent case for about 50-70.

I got this old ugly looking beige Antec case, don't want to use that.