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DanB <> writes:
>Hard drives have finally gotten big enough to be of use in storing DVDs.
>With 4 two terabyte drives, you can stuff 8 terabytes into a Linux server.
> I assume you can with Windows also, but have no idea what the upper drive
>size limits might be for XP.

I don't believe there are any 2TB drives out yet. Perhaps next year.

>
>I have in mind (eventually) putting all my DVDs on a server, then just
>accessing it over the network to play one. However, I don't want to view
>it through a PC video card since the quality is alway way less than in
>native DVD Player to TV mode.

This is quite far from true, unless you're using composite or S-video. Given
that most modern TV's have VGA, DVI or HDMI inputs, you can do much
better from the PC video card than you can from any standalone player.

> So the problem is how to get a DVD player
>to access the file server.

Buffalo LinkTheater. D-Link MediaLounge. Any DLNA compliant device.

They will require to you browse the server for the DVD you want to watch;
how else will the player know what DVD from your 8TB to watch?

scott

DanB <> writes:

>I am not a video geek - programming is my turf -
>but I have some fairly high level hardware and I can definitely tell the
>inferior difference even without a side by side comparison. Are you
>talking about a specialty video output card, rather than the usual
>computer type?

Any good card. I'm presuming you're using something like Windows Media
Player to generate the video; I'm not sure windows Media Player does
any upconverting, much less how good it is. I use 'mplayer' on
linux which provides 1920x1200 upconverted (1080p) through my DVI
connection to the TV (1080p LCD) from standard def VOB's. The DVI
connection ensures that there is no quality loss due to D->A->D
transitions.

scott

"DanB" <> wrote in message
news...


> No. I am a Linux geek since the 90s. Don't do Windows at all. I use
> Totem for my video, which of course is just a shell over the Linux
> utilities. So far, I get great video to my 21 inch WS monitor, but really
> lousy output to my larger LCD Tv. I assume that it is a problem with the
> Nvidia binary drivers.



depends how you're connecting to the tv.
s-video will never look very good from a video card - stick to a dvi output
to hdmi input on tv.



--
Gareth.

that fly...... is your magic wand....