movie storage

Trackrig wrote:
When home, we get two movies per day from Net Flics and copy them to a small 1T drive made by Western Digital from Costco. The drive will plug directly into the back of the newer TVs making it very easy to use.

Bill

"Two movies per day from Net Flics"?

Having a few DVD's on hand is nice, but we have had great luck with downloading movies onto an iPad and playing it to the TV. You can buy movies and even rent them on iTunes. I sometimes rip my purchased movies on my iMac and drop them in iTunes for my iPad.

I use a network attached storage (NAS) drive that has a built in media server that is DLNA compliant. I have a Samsung Blu Ray player that can attach to the media server to play movies off the NAS as well as stream movies from NetFlix, Hulu Plus (among others) and music from Pandora. So with two devices I have the ability to play DVDs, music CDs, stream movies/music from the Internet as well as stream music/movies/photos from the DLNA media server. It sounds moire complicated than it is.

Many newer TV sets have the ability to play video files from a USB hard drive. Getting movies onto the drive is the major challenge. DVDs can be ripped using a computer. The problem with this is that almost all DVDs are copy protected. There are ways to circumvent this and the consensus is that it's legal to do for DVDs that you own.

If you have access to services like Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Prime you can stream movies and TV shows to a computer, TV, or devices like Roku or DVD/Bluray players. The problem though is that this does not get saved for viewing later. Here's an article from PCWorld discussing ways to save streaming video: How to download streaming media and watch it anywhere, anytime

Robin1953 wrote:
I use a network attached storage (NAS) drive that has a built in media server that is DLNA compliant. I have a Samsung Blu Ray player that can attach to the media server to play movies off the NAS as well as stream movies from NetFlix, Hulu Plus (among others) and music from Pandora. So with two devices I have the ability to play DVDs, music CDs, stream movies/music from the Internet as well as stream music/movies/photos from the DLNA media server. It sounds moire complicated than it is.

This is in your RV ?

I don't have NAS but I do have three external hard drives
A Sony media player, and a digital tuner PVR

But the OP is asking about movie storage to take in his RV

MrWizard wrote:

Robin1953 wrote:
I use a network attached storage (NAS) drive that has a built in media server that is DLNA compliant. I have a Samsung Blu Ray player that can attach to the media server to play movies off the NAS as well as stream movies from NetFlix, Hulu Plus (among others) and music from Pandora. So with two devices I have the ability to play DVDs, music CDs, stream movies/music from the Internet as well as stream music/movies/photos from the DLNA media server. It sounds moire complicated than it is.

This is in your RV ?

I don't have NAS but I do have three external hard drives
A Sony media player, and a digital tuner PVR

But the OP is asking about movie storage to take in his RV

Yes it is in my RV. It is a 1TB NAS, I cheaped out and just bought the NAS shell since I already had the SATA drives for it, attached to a PepWave SOHO router. The NAS has the media server built into the firmware and it is Twonky Vision software. All of this is stored in a small cubby hole in the closet where the antenna booster is located. It also has the outlets for the sat/cable connection there for the bedroom TV as well. Since there was a 120V electrical outlet already there it made it the logical choice for the NAS/router. I have another 1TB NAS that I bring into the RV occasionally and duplicate the NAS that is on board the RV. This second NAS is stored off site. The NAS that I keep in the RV can be expanded to 4TB by changing out the two 500MB drives for two 2TB drives.

BTW the SOHO can tether a hotspot and also has the WiFi as WAN capability for Internet connectivity in addition to the access to the NAS where the OP could store his movies as well as serve them up to his players.

Like I said it all sounds more complicated than what it really is.

Nice setup

My 6-core Mac Pro with LaCie 1TB Little Big Disk Thunderbolt-2 Solid State Drive is very compact and many of my 4K UHD home movies are on it and a 4TB ext USB 3.0 HDD. It could also be used to hold movies ripped from DVDs.

Trackrig wrote:
When home, we get two movies per day from Net Flics and copy them to a small 1T drive made by Western Digital from Costco. The drive will plug directly into the back of the newer TVs making it very easy to use.

Bill

Umm.. making a copy of a "rented" movie for any reason is "pirating".

I would recommend you read the TOS (terms of Service)from NetFlix..

Even making a backup copy of a DVD you buy is pretty much a grey area crossing over to actual pirating depending on how one interprets the "Fair Usage" law.

It is definitely pirating if the commercial DVD has been encrypted to PREVENT you from doing what you are doing! Bypassing the encryption via software is not legal which is why some of the software companies that "broke" DVD and BluRay encryption have been shut down..

Consider yourself warned..

By the way not ALL TVs which have USB ports are able to read ALL video file Codecs. Many of these TVs have very restricted file formats making it a real big frustrating hassle for those who are not into processing and converting video files.

My suggestion is to not use the USB ports on the TV, instead buy a small device called a MEDIA PLAYER.

Media Players support MORE video, audio and even still picture files and codecs and you can buy them with internal HDs built in. The ones with built in HDs can be plugged into a PC like an external HD and you can simply copy the flies to the Media Player.

Many Media Players also offer streaming capability and even WiFi connections. Much more versatile!

It is definitely pirating if the commercial DVD has been encrypted to PREVENT you from doing what you are doing! Bypassing the encryption via software is not legal which is why some of the software companies that "broke" DVD and BluRay encryption have been shut down..

Consider yourself warned..

I like to live on the edge. Prison food is getting better, anyway. One time I drove over the speed limit, too. But I digress..

All my DVD movies and TV shows, which I OWN, are copied (no, wait: "backed up") onto a USB drive. We never lack for something to watch in the RV when needed.