I have a ton of CD's and DVD's that I would like to store and access at will, using a remote or i-pad/i-phone. I currently have the majority of our cd collection on our home computer using i-tunes, but would like something more user friendly that we can access the in-home hard drive via wifi through our phones and/or through our processor.
Some really good feedback already. Since I've recently gone down this road short of just about a year ago, let me share my experience by way of responding to a few quotes and then laying out what I did. Short story, all my BluRays and CDs are on a NAS. But... let's start at the beginning.
As noted, there are four basic parts to this.
1) A way to convert (rip) the data from optical medium to a hard drive.
2) A storage solution for where the data will reside.
3) A renderer to convert the data to usable signal for your devices (stereo, tv).
4) A control point or device of some sort to 'steer' the data to the desired device.
I'll take 'em one at a time.
1) Conversion/Extraction (ripping)
There are two needs in question here; audio and video.
For audio, first, let me say without any equivocation that I dislike proprietary formats. Therefore, you may do well to re-rip whatever you've done (if proprietary) to an open-standard format (FLAC) which is "bit perfect" but compressed. With that base format, you can later convert to lossy formats like MP3 for less critical devices. The reason MP3 is not considered 'audiophile' quality is because that "excess" data that gets boiled off contains sonic artifacts that translate to the nuances that we describe as 'imaging' or 'presence' or 'staging'. Lossless formats like FLAC are key to the foundation of a good library.
I use Exact Audio Copy for my ripping software and mp3tag for my metadata tagging needs.
Second the recommendation for
EAC. It makes bit-perfect copies, does intensive error correction beyond that which most console players are capable of, validates against a known database for checksums to ensure an accurate rip, and will also do limited tagging. Do not pass 'go', do not spend money on anything else.
For video, Spike is right, Slysoft was king, and they're still around... sort of.
Ripping bluray movies to anything will be a tall order now that SlySoft is gone.
The team at SlySoft has reorganized as
RedFox. They're still doing the same fine work they've always done. However you do not need to decrypt, depending on the target device that will be rendering the ripped movie. In this area, there are a couple options - ISO or MKV. The MKV format is basically a 'container' that will 'package' the audio and video data together. It all depends on what you'll be using as the "business end" of the equation. I use
MakeMKV which, like EAC, is donationware. However, the downside is that if you like the fancy-dancy BluRay menus that give you access to special features, interviews, added content and whatnot, that isn't supported. If you're after only the movie, then it's great. More on that later...
2) Storage
You'll need a place to put all that cool media you plan to archive.
Basically, what you're looking for is a way to have your ripped data accessible 24x7. High density storage systems have become very inexpensive and also very sophisticated, to the point where a consumer-grade NAS is actually a full-blown server, albeit a low-horsepower one. Better still, if that data has a failsafe in the form of RAID. I run a Qnap TS451 in a RAID 5 configuration. That means I have a 1-drive fault tolerance. The concept of RAID is that if any given drive burns out, I can replace it on-the-fly with a new one, it will be automatically formatted, and the missing data repopulated also on-the-fly with bits and pieces reassembled from what the system duplicated to the other drives in the system.
You'll find Synology, Qnap, Drobo, and Western Digital are leaders in this area. Feature sets are all over the map. Many NAS systems have built-in apps accessible by your web browser to enhance their utility. I know that for multimedia, both Synology and Qnap offer Plex server, Emby server, and a host of other utilities. Storage capacity is contingent upon the size of the drives and number of bays. You can expect to spend about $400 on a 4-bay NAS, and populated with 4x4TB drives, your storage will be about 12TB. That's a lotta damned movies and albums!
3) Rendering (the business end)
So, now that we have all your media ripped and stored, how do you get at it?
For audio, you'll need a way to convert the bits back to analog waveform. Lots of stuff in that department from high-end to affordable. I was on a budget, so I bought a
Raspberry Pi3 and HiFiBerry DAC loaded with any one of three different audio renderers (I like to experiment) which pull the bitstream from the NAS, convert it to analog, and send it to my preamp. There are other solutions, but for $120 bucks, it's enough to get you started, and you'll be amazed at the results. I can tell you that the quality I get from the HiFiBerry would rival a $1500+ CD player. It's been far better than anything I've ever owned. Multiple options for software to render at the point of play (as part of your DAC hardware) are:
Moode
Kodi (also good for video, etc.)
Volumio
Roon
Clementine, and so on... almost all of them free.
For video, I run an Nvidia Shield TV and Kodi connected to my TV. Now, you'll remember that whole decryption/copy protection problem from above? Good news here is that because Kodi does not have the chip-level copy protection mechanisms you'd find in a disc-based console player like a Sony or Samsung, it isn't affected by leaving the copy protection intact.
4) Control Point
Now that we've connected the front end to the back end, how do you control it?
Audio? Depends on what I have on my DAC at any given time. I have one SD card with a Kodi implementation operated by
Yatse or
Kore (Kodi's OEM remote), a 2nd SD card that runs
Moode player operated by my phone or PC browser.
Video... depends on what you're using on your 'renderer'. As noted, I use Kodi, which has a native Android and PC app. Installed on my Shield TV, and pointed to Emby Server where my movies reside, I have access to all my movies at will. However, my particular NAS has an HDMI port, so if I wanted to connect it directly to my TV, I could use Emby server directly to control playback. If you like those fancy menus, then you'll want to rip an ISO to the server, and use Cyberlink DVD Player which is the only software-based product I'm aware of that supports removal of copy protection and also the new java-based menu systems. But that will necessitate attaching a PC to your video system... so you might want to employ the KISS principle here for a start.
Anyway, I'm sure your head is about to explode, so digest and feel free to jump back in here with questions, or PM me at your convenience.
