2016 HTPC for Catfisch Cinema (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

I have potentially doing this harder than I needed to, the past five years. I've just learned that CloneBD works with AnyDVD to automatically identify the correct playlist for the maintitle *and* auto identifies other content such as trailers and menus and bonus features *and* lets you're easily select which items to export as MKV *and* with sensible human-readable names to help identify and correctly name for media server use.

RedFox CloneBD | Blu-ray Copy

CloneBD lets you copy your unprotected Blu-ray discs to all known disc formats such as ISO or BD, and all kind of devices like smartphones and tablets!

www.redfox.bz

Confirming this is how you find the right playlist in obfuscated discs

I've read the sticky on this several times, but it's not quite clear to me and there's no images illustrating it. So I'm checking I've got it right: If AnyDVD says (444) is the good playlist here: Then I use this file in MakeMKV with the 000444 mpls Previously I used ProcMon and PowerDVD to...

forum.redfox.bz

 

[jcroy]

This has been a standard feature of anydvd for many years.

If it doesn't find the correct playlist, folks usually post up the logfiles to redfox's forum. Somebody on staff figures out the problem and anydvd is updated within a day or two.

 

[DaveF]

It’s well hidden and not obviously discussed in the forums or documented well.

 

[DaveF]

We had power fluctuations (lights were strobing) following by outage today. My HTPC is dead - won’t power on. <sad panda>

I’m hoping that at worst the PSU is dead. I’ve ordered a replacement. Which, hopefully, a simple* replacement will fix the media PC.

* nothing is ever simple in pulling the PC from the theater rack, doing open-heart surgery, and then reinstalling it.

 

[DaveF]

I'd guess the power supply had died. After two or three hours of fighting with that, and having bought a replacement and trying it out, that was not the problem.

Did some googling and found a random thread somewhere that suggested to start with reseting the bios by pulling the motherboard battery. I did that. 30 seconds later, the computer was booting again.

Whew! Another hour to get it reinstalled in the theater. And fortunately it was ultimately a trivial fix from a power outage. A morning lost. But much better than a day lost failing to repair a dead motherboard or crashed boot drive or massive data loss.

 

[DaveF]

Almost a year later, and I’ve got 4K HDR10 working from my HTPC!

 

[DaveF]

It’s working great on Emby on nVidia Shield to my Projector. The projector recognizes its HDR10 and goes into HDR mode.

I can get HDR playback through the Emby app on my LG LED, though I have to select DD 5.1 or lesser audio to play.

I can’t get HDR to work on Emby on the AppleTV 4K on the Sony 950H LED.

 

[DaveF]

I think I’ve sorted through my Emby HDR issues. HDR works fine. But my server isn’t powerful enough for real-time audio transcoding, so if the client doesn’t support e.g. AppleTV can’t play Atmos, then video playback fails.

I haven’t figured out Dolby Vision from my HTPC. I thought I ripped my movies correctly to support DV. But my DV-capable displays don’t engage with DV. I’ve given up on solving this detail since it doesn’t actually matter for how I watch stuff from my HTPC.

 

[DaveF]

I’m thinking of quitting my HTPC hobby. The downsides are starting to become bigger obstacles to me: It’s significantly time consuming ripping discs, processing them, dealing with special features, and so on. Plus the instability overall of the Win10 PC and the Shield streamer mean there’s almost always a reboot and/or tedious re-logins before I can watch any movie.

What’s really getting me is Oppenheimer (2023): it’s the epitome of everything bad about an HTPC. Buying a brand new movie on release day and it can’t be ripped going on two weeks later for unknown reasons. Despite more hours spent trying to rip than it would take to have watched the movie, it’s still failing. (And the forums are not just useless but giving me time-wasting bad advice.)

But…I bought Memento on sale. It comes with no digital code and isn’t online to my knowledge. Having it on my HTPC is exactly why I love having my discs ripped: it was fast and easy to rip. It’s in my digital “online” library, and I can watch it when I feel like it without the obnoxious practicalities of Blu-ray Discs.

Likewise, after redeeming digital codes for two new purchases that are in two different services, I’m reminded that my HTPC is a complete, unified library: every movie I’ve bought is there. No thinking about how to find it. And library sorting options are robust and excellent in Emby. But digital movies are fragmented across multiple services. I have to remember (or search my movie-database app) if a movie is in MoviesAnywhere or iTunes. And library sorting and searching are abysmal. And there’s no commentaries, and special features, while improving, overall are severely lacking compared to discs.

I’ve considered my HTPC as temporary, transitory, from the start. Every disc I buy, I redeem the digital code, with the view that the online library is the long term plan. But it’s hard to let go of six years and hundreds of disc ripping, and letting go of figuring out and getting 4K HTPC to work! But the time commitment and difficulties with new discs are a growing detriment to me.

 

[DaveF]

Seemingly, Amazon sells a printing of Oppenheimer that can’t be ripped by my LG drive. I’m told I‘ve got two options:

a) buy a Pioneer drive (from an online source that still has old stock with old firmware) that is said to be more robust than LG and will read everything

b) buy and return Oppenheimer discs (BestBuy, Walmart, etc) until I luck into a different printing that can be read by my drive

It’s not that $170 for a new drive breaks my budget, but do I want to spend the money and take a Saturday to install it and continue this this hobby? Do I want to continue buying and trying to return discs trying to find one my drive will read, assuming that my LG can read this UHD at all?

 

[John Dirk]

I’m thinking of quitting my HTPC hobby. The downsides are starting to become bigger obstacles to me: It’s significantly time consuming ripping discs, processing them, dealing with special features, and so on.

I came to a similar but less drastic conclusion at the onset of 4K media becoming available. I still use my HTPC daily for music and viewing older DVD's and Blu Rays, but I never even attempted ripping any 4K discs for the reasons you've detailed throughout this thread. Simply put, just not enough return on investment to make it viable in my view.

The thing is, while [like you] I no longer purchase DVD's and prefer 4K discs, [assuming they have an Atmos or DTS:X track, of course] I find a lot of the newer content out there is just not that compelling thematically, even though it may look and sound great. I love eye [and ear] candy at least as much as the next guy, but a lot of amazing content will simply never see or even benefit from a 4K release, so my HTPC will probably always have a home in my rack.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I still use my HTPC daily for music and viewing older DVD's and Blu Rays, but I never even attempted ripping any 4K discs for the reasons you've detailed throughout this thread. Simply put, just not enough return on investment to make it viable in my view.

That’s my strategy as well. I have too many DVDs and BDs to want to keep out on display, and I don’t want to lose access to them - the HTPC as a more or less finished database takes care of that. My 4K disc purchases are much fewer and so it’s not unwieldy to keep a small collection of them handy, and the digital copy codes they come with take care of any “on the go” needs.

 

[jcroy]

I’m thinking of quitting my HTPC hobby. The downsides are starting to become bigger obstacles to me: It’s significantly time consuming ripping discs, processing them, dealing with special features, and so on. Plus the instability overall of the Win10 PC and the Shield streamer mean there’s almost always a reboot and/or tedious re-logins before I can watch any movie.

What’s really getting me is Oppenheimer (2023): it’s the epitome of everything bad about an HTPC. Buying a brand new movie on release day and it can’t be ripped going on two weeks later for unknown reasons. Despite more hours spent trying to rip than it would take to have watched the movie, it’s still failing. (And the forums are not just useless but giving me time-wasting bad advice.)

When it takes an hour or longer to figure out how to rip a particular disc, I find it pointless to be ripping by then. It takes a shorter amount of time to watch the actual movie, than ripping it. This is why I don't really buy large multi disc bluray sets anymore, such as tv shows on bluray.

In the case of Oppenheimer, I'll likely end up watching it first on a basic cable channel or even network television, before ever buying it on disc (if ever). I already know many of the stories about him which the movie is based on, from reading many biography books about the man himself and others around him (such as Edward Teller, etc ....).

 

[DaveF]

I decided that I'm not done with my HTPC, despite the time and hassles it takes. I ordered a replacement drive that should read Oppenheimer and such newer discs. I'll find some weekend to do surgery on my HTPC to replace my original LG with the Pioneer and try again adding Oppenheimer to my library.

 

[DaveF]

I’ve swapped my formerly trusty LG WH14NS40 drive for a new Pioneer BDR-213.

The Pioneer is about ½” longer than the LG, so it *just* barely fits in my case. I’ve ordered an external SATA drive case and I might pull it out, since it’s a really tight fit.

Also the button is recessed so I had to stick on a rubber bumper to make the computer case eject button work.

And this drive can read Oppenheimer. But I’m still having some issues. I was able to copy Oppenheimer with MakeMKV. But I’m still having problems with AnyDVD.

I’m reminded why just two months ago I was thinking seriously of quitting the ripping game, it’s such a time sink!

 

[John Dirk]

I’m reminded why just two months ago I was thinking seriously of quitting the ripping game, it’s such a time sink!

Why not just quit the 4K ripping game? No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[DaveF]

Why not just quit the 4K ripping game? No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Everyone needs a pointless fussy hobby!

I don’t like experience of playing discs on a disc player. Terrible experience ironically designed to antagonize the paying customer and push people to piracy.

And Emby’s UX is still better than Movies Anywhere and AppleTV for browsing and managing a movie library

And while streaming is nearly indistinguishable from UHD disc, if i can watch in best quality I will.

But I don’t how much longer I’ll keep at it. As is most of y movie watching is streaming since that’s where everything is

 

[Nelson Au]

I have a Pioneer drive that I got specifically for internal install in my mid 2012 Mac Pro. It was supposed to read 4K too, but I tried it and it doesn’t. The MakeMKV forum said my drive needs a firmware update. I haven’t done that. Like John said, I will rip the Blu ray instead. I’ll watch the 4K disc via my Oppo. But yes, eventually, I’d like to rip the 4K disc at some point.

Ripping is a time sink! Especially TV series, but the rewards are great!

 

[DaveF]

I have a Pioneer drive that I got specifically for internal install in my mid 2012 Mac Pro. It was supposed to read 4K too, but I tried it and it doesn’t. The MakeMKV forum said my drive needs a firmware update. I haven’t done that. Like John said, I will rip the Blu ray instead. I’ll watch the 4K disc via my Oppo. But yes, eventually, I’d like to rip the 4K disc at some point.

Ripping is a time sink! Especially TV series, but the rewards are great!

The drive has to have an older firmware or (I think) has to have the firmware replaced with an alternate firmware. If you bought it somewhat recently new, it has newer firmware and so can't rip 4K UHD discs.

I bought from an individual who buys drives, does the firmware conversion, and resells. I can point you to them if that interests you. I paid $213 for a new Pioneer BDR-213 internal drive. Add another $70 if you want to get an external SATA to USB 3 case from Amazon.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

More and more, I’m coming to the conclusion that - with limited exceptions, I’m sure - my HTPC setup is going to be the hub for my DVD and BD content, and that I’ll live with a small amount of media shelving to keep my limited supply of 4K UHD discs accessible.

On the one hand I absolutely agree that clunky disc navigation just isn’t fun to deal with and hitting a button a Plex or Emby setup is much simpler.

But I don’t really have the desire to go through the technical headaches of maintaining a 4K database. Some of the discs don’t want to play nicely with the drive. Plex/Infuse for AppleTV doesn’t like disc-based Atmos tracks - not really an issue for my 5.1 setups - and the whole point of me using Plex/Infuse on an AppleTV was to make a HTPC work within the confines of what I already had, rather than an invitation to add more hardware to the rack.

Most of the 4K discs I buy include digital copies and some also include BD copies - those will be my backups in case the 4K disc ever fails.

Don’t get me wrong, I love how the HTPC has simplified my media setup, particularly with TV on disc titles. There’s no reason for me to shut it down or abandon it. But I’m starting to think of it as a legacy content server more than something that I will continue to upgrade to handle the latest and greatest innovations. If anything, I’m looking at 5 years of data on there showing me what I’ve watched and not watched in that time, and using that as a starting point to get rid of things in my physical collection (and on those drives) that just aren’t being watched at all. At what point do I just have to say to myself, “I blind bought this disc because it was cheap and I liked the cast, but I never was in the mood to watch it, I’ve boxed it and unboxed it through three or four different moves, I’ve paid for hard drive space to keep it on, and I still don’t want to watch it - just let it go”? I don’t want to own copies of every single thing I’ve ever seen. I no longer see the value in curating a collection to show off to others my knowledge of film and television. I no longer feel the need to own “important” titles that I don’t actually enjoy watching. I’d rather sharpen my focus a little and try to pare it all down so that everything on my HTPC and my shelves is a reflection of what I actually enjoy watching and what I hope to revisit over the years.

Otherwise I worry I’ll just fall into this trap of buying new and expensive hard drives every year to hold on to data that I honestly don’t care about simply because I’m already in the habit of doing so.