Media players?

[RVcrazy]

I see people referring to media players. What are they exactly? We have 2 cabinets of DVDs & CDs and would like to be able to take them on the road without using up all of our space. We will have a TV, DVD player, laptop computer & HDMI cable. What do we need to consider or do to use a media player (and to get all of our stuff on it)? Thanks!

[Tom_M1]

Most newer TV sets will play content directly from a USB drive. Once you have the video copied to the drive, just plug it into the USB port of the TV. The trickiest and time consuming part is getting a DVD ripped to the hard drive.

[austinjenna]

RVcrazy wrote:

I see people referring to media players. What are they exactly? We have 2 cabinets of DVDs & CDs and would like to be able to take them on the road without using up all of our space. We will have a TV, DVD player, laptop computer & HDMI cable. What do we need to consider or do to use a media player (and to get all of our stuff on it)? Thanks!

I think I'd opt for a WD TV Live from Western Digital. Here's a review.

I use a WD media player that I just keep in the trailer. I can plug an external HD into it and play movies from that so I bought a small 1TB external HD that is just USB powered and bring that home and add my newest movies onto that. Works great for me and have a few hundred movies on it

[ReadyToGo]

The media player of choice by many software sites is
VLC or Videolan
Just select the installer download option and away you go.
Myself, I keep all my movies in the original Vob format.

[TechWriter]

RVcrazy wrote:
I see people referring to media players. What are they exactly? We have 2 cabinets of DVDs & CDs and would like to be able to take them on the road without using up all of our space. We will have a TV, DVD player, laptop computer & HDMI cable. What do we need to consider or do to use a media player (and to get all of our stuff on it)? Thanks!

I think I'd opt for a WD TV Live from Western Digital. Here's a review.

[MrWizard]

yes hardware is physical media

Today the word "Media" is used as the abbreviation for "Media Files" , most often video files

[wa8yxm]

Media player can be any of a number of things

MP3, that's media
MP4 (Video version of mp3) or MP2 (likewise) these are Media
CD, DVD, Blue Ray, FLV, ___(fill in video/audio format) All MEDIA

A player .. Plays one or more of the above

I have some that are ATRAC Wish I could get a copy of sonic stage so I could play with 'em better.. (or fix a computer that has SS on it).

Actually I lied, MPEGs (Whatever the level) and other files are NOT media.. What they are recorded on, be it a memory chip, or a Disc of one kind or another.. That is the media.

Old 33.333 RPM vinyl recordings.... Yup, that's media

[Gdetrailer]

MrWizard wrote:
The whole idea behind a "media player" it's too use another digital format and do away with carrying DVD's around
So yes they have to be copied, conversion just means more movies stored in the same space

Some media players do not play DVD folders
My Sony does not directly play the DVD folder, it does play the DVD "VOB" files inside the folder,
but I have to navigate and open the folder and choose the first VOB of the multiple files

One mp4 file keeps the filing system cleaner and operation smoother and faster

And please do Not let this thread degenerate into a copyright vs privacy issue

The question was what is a media player..

Pretty much any "media player" will play the DVD VOB data stream as it is since a DVD is a MPEG2 data stream. However media players tend to not be able to read or use the DVD menu structure.

In most cases not a real problem and you simply point the player to the VOB folder.

The only reason one would "want" to convert the DVD video file to a MP4 "container" is if you are wanting to put a bunch of movies on a flash drive. One of the downfalls of doing this is you will be re encoding the video from one lossy format (MPEG2) to ANOTHER LOSSY HIGHER COMPRESSION format. MP4 is simply a "container" but you have to choose a "codec" which has higher compression and or you will need to REDUCE MB/minute rates which basically tosses out DETAIL.

Overall it will take considerable amount of time to make the conversion, reduce detail and possibly add more lossy artifacts to the pix.

With the large size of HDs now days You can fit a lot of movies on a hard drive so re encoding from DVD files to MP4 is not really all that great of a idea.

[AlGreg]

Every Windows computer comes with Windows Media Player which you can use to convert your music CDs to mp3 format and store them on your hard drive. It is an easy process. DVD's can be ripped to your hard drive with any number of free DVD rippers. Newer laptops with HDMI outputs can be hooked to a flat screen TV for video and audio. If you have an older computer, inexpensive hardware can be bought that will allow you to hook a hard drive or flash drive to your TV and play your MP3s and MP4s from them.

[MrWizard]

The whole idea behind a "media player" it's too use another digital format and do away with carrying DVD's around
So yes they have to be copied, conversion just means more movies stored in the same space

Some media players do not play DVD folders
My Sony does not directly play the DVD folder, it does play the DVD "VOB" files inside the folder,
but I have to navigate and open the folder and choose the first VOB of the multiple files

One mp4 file keeps the filing system cleaner and operation smoother and faster

And please do Not let this thread degenerate into a copyright vs privacy issue

The question was what is a media player..

[Gdetrailer]

FXSTOHIO wrote:
The first thing you need to do is convert all your dvd’s to digital mp4 or other video format, for that you need a DVD copy program that will copy any DVD, then you need a portable hard drive to store your movies on then you need a media player that converts your digital movies to play on your TV. I have over 400 movies and TV shows stored on a hard drive that we take with us when we go camping.

No, there is no "need" to "convert" a DVD or any other already digital file to MP4.

Simply put, a standalone "media" player is a completely self contained mini PC running a highly customized version of Linux in the background as the OS.

These players in most cases can and will play NEARLY EVERY FILE FORMAT known to man including audio, video and even photo files. If you get one which a HD version it will play the newer HD files which use the H264 "codec".

Media players can be bought with internal HDs or real simple ones that you use USB HDs, or flash drives.

No keyboard or mouse needed, just navigate using the remote control.

Can be had for as low as $40.

Here is one example with no internal HD..

HERE

Some can do streaming also..

The only problem you are going to run into is MANY COMMERCIAL DVDs and nearly ALL BluRays are copy protected.

This often causes failed "rips" unless you have software which can bypass the protection, these software companies as recent times have been actively been hunted down by the MPAA. Not long ago DVDFAB website was blocked to stop it from being reachable in the US.

One should note, that it HAS been ruled that "Fair Use" rules DO NOT APPLY to DVDs or BluRay movies and therefore the common person is not allowed to make a backup..

[Janss]

I just remove my CDs and DVDs from their plastic cases and put them all in a wallet style case like this:
CD/DVD Binder

Takes up a lot less room in the RV.

[MrWizard]

Roku ..Sony.. many more

basically a (hardware) media player , is a box that accepts a external hard drive or USB memory stick or network connection and plays your media files directly to the TV thru A/V or HDMI cables

my Sony uses HDMI cable, connects to HD via USB, and will connect to internet via Wifi and plays my stored video OR my Amazon ..NetFlix accounts

when i first got it in early 2012, i used it extensively to watch movies from Amazon on my TV

last year i purchased i "HomeWorx" brand TV tuner/PVR
it records OTA HiDef TV broadcasts in HiDef onto an external drive
it will also play avi and mp4 files stored on the external drive
so i have two ways of watching movies NOT using the DVD player or laptop

std DVD movies are 4gig to 7gig in size
compressed and stored to MP4 they are 1gig to 2gig in size
one hour of really good video is about 1gig

some people compress to a smaller size say 350mb..but that loses quality

a 1TB hard drive can store about 1000hrs at 1gigabyte per hour
or roughly 500 std DVD movies converted to MP4

or 200 ripped full sized NOT compressed copied DVD movie folders

[FXSTOHIO]

The first thing you need to do is convert all your dvd’s to digital mp4 or other video format, for that you need a DVD copy program that will copy any DVD, then you need a portable hard drive to store your movies on then you need a media player that converts your digital movies to play on your TV. I have over 400 movies and TV shows stored on a hard drive that we take with us when we go camping.

[RoyB]

I haven't really thought about how much space a movie might be but I bet it is in the 10-20GB size if the movies are full blown HD.

They will be large for sure so expect most of your computer hard drive space being consumed by your movies...

Definitely would require an external hard drive setup. I know my daughters TIVO DMR stores many 1 hour TV Shows. I think I remember it being around 75 hours of recorded TV shows and maybe the hard drive is a 600GB size hard drive???? These are probably standard definitions format shows...

Just more things to think about getting all of your disc stored on a hard drive...

Roy Ken