Your Movies

One of the biggest benefits of using a HTPC or home theater personal computer, a term I choose to include any computing device used for this purpose, is having your movie collect browsable and available at a wim. Well okay, it is probably the fact that you no longer need the physical media so the kids can't scratch it up or otherwise damage it. Place your files on the home network and any device capable on the network can play them.

The software I use to pull the movie off the disc is makemkv found at http://makemkv.com. I then use VidCoder, http://vidcoder.codeplex.com, to reduce the size. There is also YAMMM for meta data from https://www.missingremote.com/forums/yammm-beta-1310220076?page=4 (as of now).  Finally there is file2foldergui, https://code.google.com/archive/p/file2foldergui/downloads, to take the file you made and put them into individual folder so that YAMMM can do its thing.

Where to Start?

Someone once said start at the very beginning it's a very good place to start. When I first started I had no clue other then I wanted to "cut the cord." I realized at the price of the current cable plan I could not only buy an season of my favorite show but also a newer release movie and a subscription to Netflix. As I began to look into it I started to realize I could do so much more. I started with Windows Media Center and I am so glad I moved on from there. The hardware and software have come a long way since then. Now with being able to run the same software on anything from a raspberry pi to a PC the options great for getting started. If your willing to put in the time you can add all your dvd's, blu rays, music, and photos into one easy to manage place. With the right software, this is actually pretty easy. You can access your media from anywhere with an internet connection which is great if you work on the road. I will be covering how I got from A to M (not to z yet) in this blog and I am open to ideas and questions.