Media Server/ Ripping computer
#1
Hi. I am currently setting up my media home and have some questions about what software people use on the media side.

I want to get my old desktop to be my main storage for all sorts of media (pics, music, movies, TV show... the whole lot). I also want to make it my primary site for ripping DVD and encoding them. Also this will serve as a backup spot for me and the rest of the family.
I would love to run it on Linux (preferably Ubuntu), but still have XP installed.
Any suggestions?
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#2
You say "I would love to run it on Linux" but without giving any reasons for your preference.

In terms of the basic services offered by an OS there is little difference between any of the mainstream operating systems, except of course that Linux is free. The factors that influence the choice of OS normally include:

- how experienced you are at maintaining it
- what software you want to use on it

For ripping and encoding, most of the commonly used software is available on all platforms.

JR
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#3
I currently run Natty on my laptop and like it a lot. I actually prefer it over windows for my everyday activities.

But when it come to setting up a NAS and a computer to use for ripping I don't have much experience with Linux of any form. I know how to find my way around both platforms, but have never actually put up any thing like this setup.

So I'm curious of what kind of experience people have with running these kind of processes on a Linux platform contra Windows?
What kind of software people use and how they setup this kind of a work station? What platform can serve this job best?

Another reason why I would love to run it on Linux is because I'm very fond of the whole idea of FOSS, but thats a different discussion altogether.
For this workstation I just want the best setup to do the job I want it to serve.
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#4
You can't beat Linux for the ease of doing command line actions and scripting. Ffmpeg, for example, is an absolutely awsome program that you can do virtually any encoding task with, but you must access it from the command line. Once you are proficient at writing scripts using it, it becomes a very powerful tool that cannot be duplicated with any Windows program that I am aware of (ffmpeg is available for Windows, but scripting is much more difficult). Sox is another invaluable command line program for audio encoding, resampling, etc. I run Ubuntu exclusively for the workstation that I rip, download, and encode with and I couldn't be happier with it.

I also run Ubuntu on the home server, a low-power PC with several TB drives. Samba is set up to emulate Windows shares. I let it run 24/7, and rarely (if ever) need to reboot.
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#5
You can't beat any operating system for the ease of doing what you know how to do.

I use ffmpeg regularly on Windows and it works just the same as in Linux. The scripting support included in the standard cmd.exe have so far been fine for me. If you enjoy passing the Sunday afternoons writing shell scripts then I'm sure you would enjoy learning Windows Powershell: so far this is a temptation I have resisted.

Windows is generally regarded as easier for newbies. Having said that, I use Ubuntu because I have to test XBMC builds on it, and I don't think Linux is any harded than Windows when you want to get past the simple stuff.

JR
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#6
I personally use AnyDVD or DVDShrink under windows. It keeps things simple and organized by creating one folder per movie. I am ripping DVDs to .vob (i.e. native VIDEO_TS file structure) and not encoding them, just removing menus and other BS.
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