Which OS for Movie PC?

[lorddrake]

Given the current price of 2TB hard drives, and the fact that I have roughly 800 movies, I want to finally build a "Movie Box" for my living room and rip all my movies to it. Im pretty good with hardware, and have built a new gaming rig almost every year since 1994...

The thing Im not up to speed on is which would be the best way to view all those movies quickly and easily. Should I just get Windows 7 and run Windows Media Player? I dont need this box to do normal computer things, I dont even care if I can surf the internet on it.

Id like to be able to plop down on the couch, switch my 60" 1080 TV to the movie box input on the TV, and be looking at a giant index of my movies. With the option to type in a title or "flip" through some kind of interface kinda like iTunes has for its CD/DVD library.

Also, whats the best software to rip the DVDs without loosing any video or audio quality?

Any help from anyone who has a box like this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Emperus]

I personally use AVS video converter (yes it can rip DVD's also) and find it good for the purpose.. If you are looking at free solutions then i would recommend HANDBRAKE..

As for watching movies on your TV, you've a couple of options.. If you've the entire collection on your PC hard drive, you can install a TV tuner card and connect it to the TV and watch movies.. Most TV tuner cards come with a remote.. You can use windows media center to scroll through your collection directly on the TV.. It accepts text input also so, you can just search through your contents to find anything specific.. Happauge is a good brand when it comes to TV tuners..

As a second option, you'd need to buy some external media center solution (they too come with remote).. You need to just copy your movies and then connect it to the TV.. This solution does not requires your PC to be running while you watch movies..

Lastly, the recommended OS is Windows 7 Home Premium..

 

[Pyroflea]

I'm check out MythTV if you're comfortable using Linux. There are specific distributions (MythBuntu, MythDora, etc.) that have it all pre-installed.

If you're not comfortable with this, or don't think that it suits your needs, W7 should do just fine.

 

[Proximon]

You have to consider Blu-ray, and the best software for that uses Win 7 I think. You can easily google up Blu-ray software reviews.