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[tgrounds]

Hello everyone -

Well, I have used Media Center since version 9 and I really love it.  Currently I have only been using it for my music collection.  Now with Media Center 12, I want to put my entire DVD library on-line.  At this point it's all greenfield for me and wanted to get the forum's opinion on how I should approach a few things.

What I have now:
Network in my loft with 2 entertainment areas - the media room and the bed room. 
I have an HD projector and have DirecTV HD.  My xBox, PS2 and 360 all have component video out into a switcher that passes it all through my audio receiver (didn't have enough video inputs into my receiver). 

The network has a domain server, exchange server, web server, a workstation and my media PC.  I also have a wireless monitor (touch-screen) where I can connect to any of my devices. I'm about to upgrade the network to gigabit and was thinking about a NAS solution to store my DVD library.

I am upgrading my media PC to include an HD video card that I can connect to the component video switch.  I already have optical audio included.  I was planning to do all my review and management on my flat-panel display mounted on my wall over my media shelves and only pass the movie output to the projector (thoughts on this?)

My DVD collection has over 1000 titles in it and frankly I am just running out shelf space to store them in the manner I currently am - so, I want to store them (in their entirety - include all special features, etc.) electronically this will also help in ease of retrieval.

I would like your advice on the following:

1)  What NAS solution do you recommend that is performant enough to serve up video on my network (and not cost a fortune)?
2)  What DVD ripping software do you recommend?  The two I'm looking at are DVD Cloner and DVDFab Platinum
3)  From a disc library management perspective, how do you recommend I structure my DVD files?  any best practices here?  I have read a few approaches and want to make sure that I start storing the data correctly from the start.
4)  What is the best process I should use to import the information into MC12?  What do I need to consider from a recall perspective, cover art, etc.?
5)  I currently use Collectorz DVD Collector software and like the ease of use for grabbing all of the meta data associated with a DVD - and the fact that I'm able to publish it for my friends to review (movies.tomgrounds.com if you are interested) is there an easy way where I can pull all of that data into MC12?  Descriptions, genre's, actors, directors, awards, etc. for ease of search in MC12? (either from Collectorz or another source? - I can export it all via XML) - and how does MC12 deal with the same movie falling into multiple genre's (like Foreign & Drama or will I need to create a Foreign/Drama and Drama genre?)

Thanks in advance - and thanks JRiver for such a great product and I'm looking forward to finally getting all of this in an managable electronic format!

Tom.

[rjm]

2)  What DVD ripping software do you recommend?  The two I'm looking at are DVD Cloner and DVDFab Platinum

I've had good experiences with breaking copy protection on the latest dvds from Sony et. al. using DVDFab Platinum. RipIt4Me used to be a good choice but development on it has stopped and it no longer works with the latest movies.

[park]

DVDFab is ok for straight ripping of DVDs, but too buggy at encoding them down to smaller files IMO. I guess you'll be doing mostly the former.

[rjm]

DVDFab is ok for straight ripping of DVDs, but too buggy at encoding them down to smaller files IMO. I guess you'll be doing mostly the former.

I should have clarified that I use DVDDecrypter 99.9% of the time. I have only used DVDFab a few times on tough copy protection.

[ubernode54]

2) Yes. I use DVD Decrypter and DVD shrink to manage the DL disks.

1) As far as NAS goes, build yourself a windows or linux-based system. You'll need the expandable storage space and those NAS-appliances just don't cut the mustard! You want a full-out server-type system to serve up those DVDs!

3) Probably just easiest to keep those dvd-rips in ISO format. That will contain all the files you rip from the dvd in ONE container. (ISOs are also open-able with WinRAR.) This would only work, I suppose, if MC12, or whatever video program you're using, can extract and play directly from those files. (Can MC12???)

Comment on Video switches: run the most 'valuable' outputs directly to your TV inputs. Don't rely on a switch (unless you can find & want to spend big buxx on it) to pass the best quality picture/sound. Use a switch for lesser-quality devices like your PS2 and XBOX into a common 'game' input on your TV. Some home theater amplifiers work relatively well (convenient to switch audio and video together if it's not HDMI) but still, if and when I get an HD or BluRay player and TV, those are going direct into the TV with the shortest cable possible!

Otherwise, your setup sounds very interesting. May I ask which wireless touch-screen monitor you're using? I'm looking for one myself. And, why do you run a domain server??

cheers!

[jmone]

1)  What NAS solution do you recommend that is performant enough to serve up video on my network (and not cost a fortune)?

Your best to build a PC as your (NAS) server and load it with disks, or add more disks to you main PC.  I made the mistake of purchasing a WD Worldbook 1TB NAS and like most consumer NAS the throughput is terrible, around 5KBs.  I now use mine for a backup device only.

2)  What DVD ripping software do you recommend?  The two I'm looking at are DVD Cloner and DVDFab Platinum
3)  From a disc library management perspective, how do you recommend I structure my DVD files?  any best practices here?  I have read a few approaches and want to make sure that I start storing the data correctly from the start.

There are more tools than you can poke a stick at but first you have a few choices here depending on what you want to keep:
a) Rip a full copy of your DVD's as an ISO to your HDD but you then need to be able to mount and play these which is akward in MC12
b) Rip a full copy of your DVD's but keep in their folder structure on your HDD.  Many do this with MC12 and seem to like the "full" DVD features it keeps
c) Rip just the main movie to your HDD as a single MPG file.  I like this one (don't care about the "extras") and use DVDDecrypter to just store single files which MC12 thumbnails and plays just fine.  I use this method to store individual TV Episodes and to rip DVD Music Vidoes just like CD's - a guide to this is here http://forum.videohelp.com/topic338512.html

Good luck with the rest.
Nathan

[statious]

I also use DVDFab HD Decrypter 4 to backup my DVDs. I know a lot of people like to build ISOs but I tend to just dump the raw data on the drive. If I actually want the disk I can go downstairs and pick it up. I only rip the movie and remove all of the excess audio tracks that I will not use. Certain movies get the full treatment like television DVDs(family guy and Home Movies) where I want all of the extras and the menus.

When cataloging, I went with genre as my main category. You only show the IFO and it has the cover art.

 I agree that a NAS would be nice and when we move this summer, I intend to take sometime and build a proper box to house all of the movies. Right now I have a mixture of external and internal and I get a little scared with the external drives (I have a two and four year old). My plan will be to have a 6TB system and use the externals as a backup of sorts. As of now I have no worries but I do have a Blu-Ray drive in the HTPC and I worry that when we start to back-up our new collection only 6 strong I know I will need to push up the throughput of the drives.

[tgrounds]

Comment on Video switches: run the most 'valuable' outputs directly to your TV inputs. Don't rely on a switch (unless you can find & want to spend big buxx on it) to pass the best quality picture/sound. Use a switch for lesser-quality devices like your PS2 and XBOX into a common 'game' input on your TV. Some home theater amplifiers work relatively well (convenient to switch audio and video together if it's not HDMI) but still, if and when I get an HD or BluRay player and TV, those are going direct into the TV with the shortest cable possible!

I have had alot of luck with the Audio Authority switch - It gives great HD pic from any source.  I needed that because of the number of component connections in from my receiver.  I'm in the process now of purchasing a new receiver that has 6 HDMI connections directly in, at which point I will be able to get rid of the switch box.  The problem is that there are issues with HDMI out of my DirecTV receiver and it working correclty with the new receiver... so, I'm waiting - what I have is fine for now.

Otherwise, your setup sounds very interesting.

Before I moved to the loft I live in now, this article was written about my home theatre setup - it covers all of the AV stuff, but not any of the domain computer and the rest of my home network:

http://www.connectedhomemag.com/HomeTheater/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=44042

Overall most of the equipment is the same but there have been additions (second receiver for additional speakers through the 1500 SQ Ft space when I listen to music, adding my PS2 to the mix and the 360) I also replaced the projector with a Dell MP4300, the DirecTV receiver with their new DVR one and added a DVD burner to the stack.

May I ask which wireless touch-screen monitor you're using?
I'm looking for one myself.

I have had the ViewSonic Airpanel smart display - you will see it in the link above.  overall it has been nice.  I have it in the upstairs loft bedroom and can get to any of my workstations or servers from there.  It makes it convenient.  The only complaint I have is the resolution - I tend to have all my displays at a much higher resolution.

And, why do you run a domain server??

I'm a technology consultant - so, I like to keep up with what is out there.  So, I went with the small business server from Microsoft back in the late 90's... running exchange, sharepoint, and a domain... it was nice before I downsized - I had a hardware vpn solution between my house here in Dallas and our lake house about an hour away.  Also within my firm I seem to be one of the ones that everyone comes to for recommendations on things for home... including all the x10 that I have that runs all my lighting and home automation stuff.

yeah, I'm a geek.

[tgrounds]

1) As far as NAS goes, build yourself a windows or linux-based system. You'll need the expandable storage space and those NAS-appliances just don't cut the mustard! You want a full-out server-type system to serve up those DVDs!

That is the impression I'm getting.  I talked with a technology buddy of mine yesterday who offered that same advice.  He also sent me some great resources - in case anyone else is trying to do what I'm attempting here:

From my buddy:
"Here is a link to the user documentation for FreeNAS, a FreeBSD-based (free Unix) NAS distribution. Take a look at it and see if it looks promising to you.

http://www.freenas.org/downloads/docs/user-docs/FreeNAS-SUG.pdf

Here is the link to the FreeBSD HW compatibility list. In the Linux/BSD world, it is best to stay off the bleeding edge of hardware, and frankly, unless you are doing something extremely demanding, there is no need to have the latest/greatest HW. Most mainstream hardware will work fine with FreeNAS.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.2R/hardware-i386.html

The question of software vs hardware RAID is always settled by budget and intended use. A good (server quality) SATA RAID controller will cost you at least $750. To get the most out the RAID controller you must match it with the highest quality and speed server-class drives (the fastest desktop SATA 300 drives can not saturate even a SATA 150 connection). If you spend the money you will have a world-class drive array capable of serving many streams.

VCD quality video requires 1.5Kbps - 2Kbps of bandwidth per stream. Contrast this with the 1Gbps SATA 300 drive and 750Kbps 1G ethernet  real world performance. Since you are not going to be streaming VCD quality video to more than a couple of PCs at a time, a software RAID running on multiple dual-port SATA controllers and desktop-quality SATA 300 drives should be fine for you. One thing to watch for is PCI-X adapters (network, disk controllers, etc.), if you use them you must make sure your motherboard has enough PCI-X slots.

Hope this stuff is reassuring and helpful."

3) Probably just easiest to keep those dvd-rips in ISO format. That will contain all the files you rip from the dvd in ONE container. (ISOs are also open-able with WinRAR.) This would only work, I suppose, if MC12, or whatever video program you're using, can extract and play directly from those files. (Can MC12???)

Can MC12?  This will make a huge difference in the direction that I head

[tgrounds]

b) Rip a full copy of your DVD's but keep in their folder structure on your HDD.  Many do this with MC12 and seem to like the "full" DVD features it keeps

Thanks Nathan! 

It sounds like this is probably the approach I will follow - I guess the flip-side of this is that in the unlikely event that I have to burn a replacement DVD from this backup on disk (if the original is damaged), will I be able to re-create the disc easily?

[tgrounds]

When cataloging, I went with genre as my main category. You only show the IFO and it has the cover art.

That is the approach I took with my music and probably the best approach for the movies as well.  My only concern about this is that with the music you were only allowed a single genre per album (or did I miss something somewhere?).  As I mentioned in my original post, I use Collectorz to currently catalog my collection and if you look at the list (http://movies.tomgrounds.com) you will see that many of the movies belong to multiple genres.

...I do have a Blu-Ray drive in the HTPC and I worry that when we start to back-up our new collection only 6 strong I know I will need to push up the throughput of the drives.

I have a question about the mixed media... I'm contemplating getting a Blu-Ray drive (ok, and an HD-DVD drive too - just because the industry can't seem to land on a standard)... now in my setup - my upstairs MC is connected to a regular TV (yeah, I still have one in existance)... if I back-up Blu-Ray and play it on my upstairs MC, will it down-convert so that I can watch those movies on that TV as well?

ok, I'm an idiot... what person wants to down-convert HD?  another excuse to upgrade my equipment! 

[ubernode54]

Thanks Nathan! 

It sounds like this is probably the approach I will follow - I guess the flip-side of this is that in the unlikely event that I have to burn a replacement DVD from this backup on disk (if the original is damaged), will I be able to re-create the disc easily?

I guess MC12 can't read iso's (yet???) so ripping the entire folder structure would be best, as jmone/Nathan mentioned. If you rip the entire folder structure, you can just drag/drop it into a Nero DVD project and burn it without any hassle at all.

And I see you're more geek than I Or at least have been working longer and can afford to buy all the little gadgets (or get'em free from 'work' ) Thanks for the info on your setup and those links from your pal. I'll have some reading to do!

[tgrounds]

I guess MC12 can't read iso's (yet???)

I don't think he said they can't - he just said that it is a hassel.

And I see you're more geek than I Or at least have been working longer and can afford to buy all the little gadgets (or get'em free from 'work' ) Thanks for the info on your setup and those links from your pal. I'll have some reading to do!

It's called being single with no kids... and at 43... perhaps this is my version of a mid-life crisis - and you're welcome for the info.  I figure if I'm going to do this much research, it would be a pity to keep it all to myself.  In true consultant form, I will document my final state and processes and post them here in the hopes that they will be of value to someone else.

[statious]

I went with a single genre but did run into the same problem with my action movies which could have been Sci-Fi and numerous other issues. I decided that it was going to be a bit of a pain but something I could deal with by having one single genre. When we cataloged all of the video we went with the following genres: Action, Anime, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Independent, Kids (though I will probably change to children),Romance, Sci-fi, Television, Thriller, and Trailers (1080P downloaded from Apple).

As for the second question, I have not got into backing up our blu-ray disks yet. As of now they take up too much room and while there is a marked improvement, a good upconversion makes those normal DVDs look pretty darn close to blu-ray albeit still not as great IMO.

[jmone]

There are a few existing theads / posts etc that you may find helpful (all are currently on the first page):
Playing ISO's - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38581.0 - also see the link in this post to the Wiki
Playing Blu-ray / HD-DVD - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43879.0
Playing rips from Blu-ray / HD-DVD - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44314.0

FYI, I'm what they call "Purple", I don't care to much if the HD future is Blu or Red as LG (and no doubt many other mfts soon) makes a combo Blu-ray & HD-DVD drive - and it's under $300

[benn600]

Here are some greatly reduced details of my setup.  There are other threads around where I detail everything down to the last detail:

1. I have a 7TB RAID6 Chenbro Windows 2003 Enterprise x64 Server.
2. Virtually 100% of everyone's data in my house is on this server...the media folders are Music, Pictures, and Video.
3. It is all in a single drive letter for simplicity (//Chenbro/titanium/...)
4. I rip with DVD Decrypter so I keep the full quality DVD.
5. I grab cover art from Amazon or scan the few I can't find--or want better quality for.  (I hand scanned my 1200 CDs)
6. Have 7 categories for DVDs.  All together, my ~673 DVDs take 3.74TB.  This includes almost all our home videos--of which I spent hundreds of hours converting to DVD and greatly cleaning up (removing junk spots).

I hope some MC features can be enhanced but now I have to always fill properties from filename: [Genre]\[Name] and that will fill the info in.  I also can't use auto import because it seems to overwrite my tags.

It is unbelievably awesome right now as it is.  We have 3 HTPCs around the house and I will probably get 2 more soon.  We want one in every room.  It isn't perfect but it is way beyond what I could have ever hoped for.  And I know they're constantly working on MC!  It's the best media program I know of.  Theater view seals the deal.  But I make sure to clean it up a lot so there isn't a lot of unused view schemes, etc.

[tgrounds]

In true consultant form, I will document my final state and processes and post them here in the hopes that they will be of value to someone else.

Well, folks - I know it has been a long time in coming - but I have landed on something that really have worked for me (and I'm LOVING IT!) and I thought I would share -

The Equipment
My Media Room - media PC has the following configuration -
Intel Motherboard with Dual Core 6420 @ 2.13GHz (Intel Desktop Board DG33FB) (Gigabit Ethernet)
Windows XP Professional SP2
4 Gig Memory
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 - VGA out to my flat-panel control monitor (wall mounted) and VGA to my Dell 4200MP HD Projector
Sony DVD RW DRU-840A
Diamond Xtreme Sound (7.1/24 bit Sound Card) - Optical to my 7.1 Receiver, and the jack out to a second receiver for all-house stereo
5 Hard Drives (I didn't do SATA on these because I already had my music and OS on one of the drive and decided to stay consistent - No RAID because I figured I still have all my DVD's as backup and in the event that the drive fails, there will be new technology out there and I will take advantage of the latest and greatest - my OS and Music drive has been running non-stop since 1997 - ok, now I've jinxed it)  All of the media drives are shared for my second media PC - and connected using the same drive letters.  On my O/S drive is a share that is the library folder and the backup folder so that all of the media center PC's on my network share the same library and backup areas.

 - 1 x 300GB  O/S
 - 1 x 300GB  (DVD's Only)
 - 2 x 500GB  (both for DVD's only)
 - 1 x 200GB  (For Music only)

My Loft Bedroom - media PC has the following configuration -
Intel Motherboard with Dual Core E6550 @ 2.33GHz (Intel Desktop Board DG33FB) (Gigabit Ethernet)
Windows XP Professional SP2
4 Gig Memory
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 - VGA out to my flat-panel control monitor (wall mounted) and VGA to my Dell 4200MP HD Projector
Sony DVD RW DRU-840A
Diamond Xtreme Sound (7.1/24 bit Sound Card) - Optical to my 7.1 Receiver, and the jack out to a second receiver for all-house stereo
5 Hard Drives - all but the O/S drive are SATA.  All 4 of the drives are shared and mapped to the same drive numbers as assigned on this PC - that way both of my media centers are sharing the drives for movies. 

 - 1 x 300GB  O/S
 - 4 x 1TB  (DVD's Only)

The Software
DVD Ripping Software - DVDfab Platinum
- I do a customized rip of the menu and the feature (I found I needed the menu for my foreign films so I can turn on the sub-titles)
- I also select to delete the FBI warnings and I rip my DVD's at 100% quality. 
- Each DVD takes roughly 6 or 7 GB
- I found that after I filled a drive, I needed to use Disc Defragmenter on the drive to put the movie in sequential order on the drive otherwise I encountered skipping of the movie during playback (note:  you must have 15% drive space on the drive for it to defragment... I'm going to experiment with putting more on the drive after I have done the initial defragment to see if I can get more on there without sacraficing quality of playback)

MC 12 - Customizations
I had a specific search goal for my movies that required that I build some custom fields.  Unfortunately I could not use some of the already available fields because in some cases I needed to enter multiple entries.  Here is the list of fields that I built:
Audience Rating - I built this field to only have the valid values which appear as a checkbox list and I select the appropriate value
 - Flags: Video
 - User data - Data Type: List, Edit type: Standard, Values: G - General Audiences;NC-17 - No Children 17 and Under Admitted;NR - Not Rated;PG - Parental Guidance Suggested;PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned;R - Restricted, Store in file tags (when possible) - YES
 - Default Search Field: YES

Movie Genre - I built his field so that I can associate a single movie with multiple Genre's - the beauty of this configuration is that it builds your list of Genre's as you go - you can do easy data clean up by selecting all of the movies that use one Genre and then unclick that and click the new Genre you want (example:  Sci-Fi, Science Fiction - some of the movies used one and some used the other - I was able to easily clean that up)
 - Flags: Video
 - User Data - Data Type: List, Edit type: Standard, Values: (leave blank), Store in file tags (when possible) - YES
 - Default Search Field: YES

Bonus Disc Available - I added this field because of my decision to only Rip the movie, if there is bonus material, I mark this so I can get the real DVD to play the additional items.
 - Flags: Video
 - User Data - Data Type: List, Edit Type, Standard, Values: Yes;No, Store in file tags (when possible) - YES
 - Default search field: YES

Director - I added this field because I like to search for movies based on who directed them - this list allows for multiple entries and it builds the list as you go - there may be some data cleanup that will be necessary in the event that a typo of a name is encountered in your data - but that is easy to clean up later in bulk)
 - Flags: Video
 - User Data - Data Type: List, Edit Type: Standard, Values: (leave blank), Store in file tags (when possible) - YES
 - Default search field: YES

Feature Running Time (Mins) - I added this field because sometimes I only have a given amount of time to watch a movie, so I will look at those movies that I can watch in the time that I have

 - Flags: Video
 - User Data: Data Type: Integer, Edit Type: Standard, Store in file tags (when possible) - YES
 - Default search field: YES

Plot - I added this field so that I have a place where I can put the plot of the movie.  I have over 1,000 movies and I can't be expected to know all of the plots of my entire collection 

 - Flags: Video
 - Data Type: String, Edit Type: Large Value, Store in file tags (when possible): YES
 - Default search field: YES

Actor - I used the existing 'People' library field and changed the display to 'Actor'.  I like to find movies with a certain actor, or actors.  This list builds dynamically and you can enter multiple people using semicolons - the same 'clean-up' rule applies as above in the event that your data has different spelling for the same actor, data clean-up is easy.

 - Flags: Audio, Image, Video, Data
 - User Data: Date Type: List, Edit Type: Standard, Store in file tags (when possible): YES
 - Default search field: YES

New Views - I keep up with my movies in one of 2 views:
 - Movie Genre/Name/People/Director
 - Movie Genre/Name

My Pane views are the same for these two views:
 - Small Thumbnail
 - Name
 - Audience Rating
 - Movie Genre
 - Feature Running Time
 - Date (year)  - (I put in the year of release in this field)
 - Plot
 - Filename (just for my information I will eventually remove this column)


Importing Movies - I have gone back and forth between manual and automatic import and didn't find much different, however, I did have an issue when I put in my last drives that I didn't reconnect my previous drive back correctly and it didn't show up in my list - during the 'auto-import' it dropped all of the movies that were housed on the now undetectable drive.  When I figured out the issue and re-connected the drive, I had to re-add all of the movies that had removed themselves (including cover art and all of the tag data... so, you may want to leave it on as manual)

Entering TAG Data - I chose to do this manually as well - and it really didn't take that long.  I use the Collectorz software (www.collectorz.com) now to maintain my library of DVD's and have always published my list for friends and co-workers to borrow movies (http://movies.tomgrounds.com) - I changed the format of the list that Collectorz generates so that it puts all of the data that I need to add to MC in order on one page.  I search for the movies and then it is a copy and paste exercise from there (including the cover art). I have finished ripping and entering data on 270 movies and the effort wasn't that great.

The rest of my collection - I'm just over 1/4 of my collection and my drives are full.  I'm in the process of building a new server that will have 1TB SATA drives in it so I can rip the remainder of my collection to a single box.  I also plan to build another MC for my bedroom so that I can share my moves over by GB network at home and watch all of my movies from either location (Theatre, Bedroom).

Update 10/20/2008 - I have over 860 movies ripped - about 400 left to go (phew...).  I need to add another GB drive and have run out of SATA connections on the MB - so, I will be adding a new SATA controller to my media PC.  I also combined the two servers that I had planned to build into a single one that holds most of my drives.  I upgraded my 36" tube TV to an LG 37" flat panel and it has been great.  I am finding that I'm watching more of my movies now that I can see them all in one place than I had been before.  So, there is a great deal to be said for the convenience and organization that MC provides.

Thanks for such a GREAT PRODUCT!  I had been looking at a solution that was far more expensive and I have to tell you, this is a brilliant solution and serves my purpose.

Tom.

[tgrounds]

I came up with a process that allows me to update all of the tag data completely for 100 movies in about an hour.  I have always used the Collectorz movie collector software and published a web site of my movies (for friends who borrow them).  It grabs the data from IMDB as well as Amazon.com.  I adjusted the format of the web site it creates to present my collection in the order of my tags in MC12 including a large sized cover image.  It already puts the ; between multiple actors and directors so, it is a simple cut & paste job.

This is what the site looks like:



and this is how I put in the tag data:



Just a suggestion...

[park]

Where are you getting all of your movie cover art? I have ripped and reencoded all of my dvds to mp4s. But they are named correctly.

[tgrounds]

I'm actually using the method above that I described (the copy and paste method) when I look at the website created by Collectorz I click on the image and it takes me to a page with just it - then I right-click and copy and go to MC12 and then paste the cover art from the clipboard.

Tom.

[tgrounds]

Hello everyone -

Here is an update on my media center project.  I LOVE THIS STUFF!  I'm have about 600 movies ripped now - I'm up to 5 TB.  I fill up about a TB a month (and go buy another drive). 

One thing that I have run into are a few DVD's that DVDFab just doesn't recognize.  I put the DVD in the drive and it doesn't even spin up to watch.  Any thoughts?

Tom.

[fitbrit]

For storage, I built myself an unRAID server. A few other MC users are using this too. I started a thread with some details here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46435.0

and relevant links are in the first post. It's incredibly easy to get up and running. Currently the server is 4.5 TB, with about 1 TB free over 6 disks. I'm ripping my DVDs using AnyDVD and storing them there. I download my cover art from a website that's supposed to be the largest cover database. It's cdcovers... something dot something. Sorry, I'll fill in the blanks later if needed.
I have MC as my storage and playback for every video format, but currently can't play m2ts and evo files. This will change when I spend more time figuring it out/buy the appropriate software to get the Sonic filters/ JRiver supports playback of these formats.