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[JazzDoc]

Space is at a premium in our lounge at home and I am hoping that it might be possible to play back my collection of DVDs using a laptop (HDMI output) into my Sony Bravia television. I am currently using MC to play audio through my Naim Audio hi-fi system and have been very happy with the quality.

I know how to rip my DVDs to a hard drive. When I have done this, can I simply transfer them to a DVD library and then watch them in the same way that I play back an audio album using JRMC17? I presume that editing the title and adding cover art would be done in the same way.

Second question ... I would use a different laptop to the one that I use in my audio system. I don't want to mix CD and DVD on the same machine. The audio system and television are also in different rooms! I have purchased a licence for MC ... Can I use this licence to install the software on a second PC?

Thanks

[CountryBumkin]

You can do everything you mentioned with MC. You are allowed to install JRiver MC on multiple computers in the same household.
When you rip your movies, to save space, I recommend you use a program like (the free) MakeMKV and only rip the movie (no extras, previews, ads, etc.) since your laptop drive is not going to be very big.
 
I also rip DVDs (movie only) to "folder forma"t (Video_TS) using the Slysoft program CloneDVD while running AnyDVD (also from Slysoft) in the background.
I don't recall if you need AnyDVD running when you use the MakeMKV program (since I always have AnyDVD HD running), but if you go with the CloneDVD (or ClownBD for Blu-ray rips) you will need to purchase AnyDVD.

[JazzDoc]

Thanks. I use DVDFab to rip movies. It doesn't need to have Slysoft AnyDVD running in the background. I did indeed rip the movie only and retained the VOB files in the VIDEO_TS directory. If this works I will probably get an external hard drive. Will a standrad USB drive be quick enough to stream the movie?

Could I ask one further question, although it is not directly related to JRMC17 ... It is more of a hardware question. In my modest TV system, I have a Pioneer DVD with a Yamaha surround amplifier and Tannoy speakers (4 + subwoofer). To connect my DVD player I run the HDMI output from the DVD player into the HDMI input on my Sony television. I connect the coaxial audio output on the DVD player to the coxial audio input on my Yamaha amplifier. Can you please tell me how I should configure my PC laptop in order that I can watch the movie and use the Yamaha amp for surround (When I ripped the DVD I selected the 5:1 audio track)

Thanks

[JazzDoc]

I've just tried it out. It works fine but ...

1. Is there a way to turn off the PC display when playing back video through the television?

2. How do I output the sound from my PC to my surround amplifier?

Thanks for your reply

[FastKayak]

Some numbers to help you -

DVD - these are mostly 4-6 gigabytes although some are smaller
Blu-Ray - these can be as large as 40 gigabytes

Eg, you may need to invest in big USB hard dive(s) to get your collection ripped. I have USB 2 and USB 3 drives.  Both stream just fine for watching movies.

FastKayak / Larry

[BryanC]

I've just tried it out. It works fine but ...

1. Is there a way to turn off the PC display when playing back video through the television?

2. How do I output the sound from my PC to my surround amplifier?

Thanks for your reply

1: Two ways usually. First is hardware (look for a Fn+keypress that looks like a monitor). Second is under display options or your video card control panel.

2: Several ways, some work better than others. I am assuming your receiver doesn't do video, and therefore no HDMI inputs? Some laptops have an s/pdif port built into the headphone jack. You will need to look into your hardware specs to determine if this is the case. If it is, you will want to enable bitstreaming in JRiver's video options so you can get multi-channel playback. If not, you will likely need to get multichannel sound via the HDMI port, which means that you cannot use HDMI for video unless you buy a powered splitter. Regardless, you will need to purchase an HDMI to component converter (like this: http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-RCA-component-AV-Converter/dp/B002WBOQPU). The good thing about this is that you can disable bitstreaming and decode audio to PCM in MC which is very high quality and allows you to use videoclock and normalization. You will then, of course, have to use your VGA port for video (hopefully your TV has a VGA input). In MC you will output your video audio through the hdmi sound card and video through the vga port.