Sage TV/WHS question

[Karkas]

I want to set up a WHS with Sage TV & media extenders so I can record live TV and stream my movies/TV to the extenders. However, I don't really have the money atm to build it all at once.

So what I would like to do is buy an internal HDD toss it in my main rig (runnning XP) and rip all my movies to .iso there, then drop that into WHS when I have it built.

Am I able to do that or does placing a HDD that was formatted in XP with the movies require a reformat or something by WHS before it will recognise the files?

Sorry if I should have posted this question somewhere else, I just thought this seemed like the best place.

Thanks in advance!

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Karkas

So what I would like to do is buy an internal HDD toss it in my main rig (runnning XP) and rip all my movies to .iso there, then drop that into WHS when I have it built.

Am I able to do that or does placing a HDD that was formatted in XP with the movies require a reformat or something by WHS before it will recognise the files?

I'm not sure that SageTV likes the .iso format so much, there are threads here with people complaining about that.

Any drive in WHS at install time is formatted. Also any drive added to the WHS pool is formatted but if you build the WHS with more than one drive you can add the "XP drive" AFTER you install WHS and copy the data to the WHS pool then add the now empty drive to the pool too.

[Karkas]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

I'm not sure that SageTV likes the .iso format so much, there are threads here with people complaining about that.

Any drive in WHS at install time is formatted. Also any drive added to the WHS pool is formatted but if you build the WHS with more than one drive you can add the "XP drive" AFTER you install WHS and copy the data to the WHS pool then add the now empty drive to the pool too.

Oh great, that is fine... so long as there is a workaround.

I thought the best way to rip DVD's if you can spare the file size was .iso, because it preserves everything you might want eventually (extras, subtitles, etc.). Besides, I thought HD theatre could read .iso? Couldn't I just browse the .iso's from the media extender?

[S_M_E]

Actually the Sage manual suggests that you rip to .vob using the standard moviename\VIDEO_TS\ folder structure. That also preserves menus, extras, etc. You'll only need to remove the macrovision/css stuff using something like dvd decrypter.

[Karkas]

Not trying to get off track, but converting my HD-DVDs to video TS files has been a huge PITA with the little I have tried. I was hoping simple .iso's would be easier...

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Karkas

I was hoping simple .iso's would be easier...

It might be easier if they worked...

You'll want .vobs for dvd and .ts and .m2ts are supported for HD, IIRC.

[Karkas]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

It might be easier if they worked...

You'll want .vobs for dvd and .ts and .m2ts are supported for HD, IIRC.

Then why does the HD theater say it supports it? Is this referring to somethign else? Am I missing something?...

SageTV HD Theater Specifications

File formats supported: AVI, ASF, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, MPEG-2 TS, M2TS, DVD ISO, DVD VIDEO_TS, VOB, M4A, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, WMA

Video formats supported: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, XVID, H.264 up to 1080p, WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Karkas

Then why does the HD theater say it supports it? Is this referring to somethign else? Am I missing something?...

Like I said, some people are having problems with iso, you can search for iso and find a number of threads and, also like I said, the manual suggests the VIDEO_TS file structure. You can rip everything to iso but don't act surprised if they don't work. You might get lucky.

[Karkas]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Like I said, some people are having problems with iso, you can search for iso and find a number of threads and, also like I said, the manual suggests the VIDEO_TS file structure. You can rip everything to iso but don't act surprised if they don't work. You might get lucky.

Thanks for your time, I just don't see why they can advertise supporting iso if it is hit or miss.

I'm just don't see why everything has to be so darn hard & confusing when trying to set this stuff up in the home...

[S_M_E]

It doesn't have to be hard, ripping to vobs is easy...

[Karkas]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

It doesn't have to be hard, ripping to vobs is easy...

I dunno about standard DVD's, but HD DVD walk thru's have me typing tons of commands into cmd prompt, muxing this and that, extracting here & there... makes my head spin and almost give up the whole persuit... if you know of an easier tutorial than what I've been using I'd be thrilled to read it.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Karkas

I dunno about standard DVD's, but HD DVD walk thru's have me typing tons of commands into cmd prompt, muxing this and that, extracting here & there... makes my head spin and almost give up the whole persuit... if you know of an easier tutorial than what I've been using I'd be thrilled to read it.

Well, they never even claimed to support HDDVD/Blu-ray as iso, so that's another story alltogether. Evidently there's a bug with some DVD iso (maybe it's the app used, maybe it's the region or maybe it's something else) so you can make it harder on yourself by ripping to iso and maybe they work or maybe they don't until they fix the bugs *or* you can rip to vob which always work.

Yes there are a number of threads that talk about ripping HD to files too. Most talk about bluray (that seems to be more popular) but some discuss HDDVD too.

Try this one:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=watched+blu

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Karkas

Then why does the HD theater say it supports it? Is this referring to somethign else? Am I missing something?...

I believe it works in "Standalone" mode, for regular DVDs (HD-DVD is something else entirely), for whatever that's worth. Stick with VOB for DVDs, and get a HD-DVD/BD player if you want menus and extras with those formats...