Rotel, no more DVD players?

I see the problem. I wondered into a home theater post by accident. This is why nothing makes sense.

"I also like the flexability of taking music with me in the car or to a friend's house. "

Followed by,

"I won't own an ipod and I am appalled to see an ipod dock on a Wadia or Manley Stingray."

This really doesn't make any sense.

dave

You are correct Queefee. It is using PC's. It's actually quite easy to setup with a little patience.

I have movies that are ripped at 720P and 1080P.Both look great playing back off hard drive. The quality is as good as using a single disc player, if not better in some cases.

Using programs like MakeMKV to rip DVDs and Blurays with codecs such as FFDshow available. You can have your high quality sound and picture streamed where ever you want.

As far as content info for movies, I've seen no DVD player than can match Windows 7 media player using the Media Browser plugin or XBMC media player hub software. All of which is free.

Both are feature rich allowing you to customize your Media center to your liking! You get actor info, movie synopsis, Fan-art Poster displays all at the push of a button.

To increase the home-theater feel. You can have HiDef Itunes trailers to play at the beginning of the movies before they start!
Just like if you were sitting in a local theater.

You can categorize or search your collection by alphabet, genre,actor,year,director and even by the production company that released the movie. I'm sure I left out a few. The options seem endless once you take a close look.lol

Here's a few links that can open up a serious can of worms!

Media Browser
XBMC

You can find a huge amount of info on this stuff over at the Avsforum. Just go to the Hometheater PC section.

I'm with Gmood1, mainly. It's all going hardrive/media storage/streaming to be certain. Writing is on the wall.
As for QUALITY media storage for hd movies and high quality dig music (sacd capable?). What's the hot ticket here? What's available right now that is of highest quality for price ranges?
I'm not sure I see what your hardrive storage unit is for your collection here Gmood1. Is it your PC? - I'm supposing

Foster-9, Yes, I have tried it and it doesn't sound as good as my CD player.
I also have a problem with owning a whole bunch of nothing and that's the way I see it. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not alone.
I also like the flexability of taking music with me in the car or to a friend's house.
I won't own an ipod and I am appalled to see an ipod dock on a Wadia or Manley Stingray. I'm sure this was strictly EveAnna's idea. First she starts naming stereo equipment after fish then she adds ipods and remotes. I'm sure that would not be the case if David was still running things. He's old fashioned like me.
Please don't be offended. If you like it, it's fine. It's just not my thing. I will stick to records, CDs and tapes.

Gmood,

Some people like to own a physical disc (Blu-Ray, DVD product). Next today Blu-ray still offers the highest in picture quality with 1080p and the ability to play the full Rez loss less digital surround Codecs. They also give you a lot of added content from just the movie. But yes for so called rentals a hard drive setup is a good way to watch just a movie if that is all you want to do and do not really want to have a physical disc to keep.

I'm also curious to know reasons behind not considering a hard drive based system. Most of the people I've noticed that have negative views of HD Based systems, are the ones that haven't tried it.Yes there's always a chance of losing a drive.But this is what backups are made for.

Once solid state HDs become the norm and cheap. I believe more will be willing to change over to HD based systems.

I can tell you once you go that way..there's no going back to a disc player. I don't own a disc player in the entire place! These days you can stream your content in HiDef to the display of choice. Everyone in my household has access to the media collection! That's 10,000 songs and over 500 ripped Blu-rays and DVDs.

I can watch a movie on the big-screen as my significant other watches a recorded TV show in the bedroom and the kids watch a movie of their choice in their rooms. All of this streamed from the same Media server at the same time.

Shoot..throw the disc in the basement and surf the collection on HD. Or if you just can't let go of the Disc. Buy a changer and link it to the HD based system! Control the collection remotely!

Although the last suggestion is very possible and some use this. I personally don't see the need for the extra mechanical wear , when it isn't necessary.

DVD stand alone players have been usurped by BLU-Ray machines which also do DVD.Also some users have resorted to downloaded playback but to any enthusiast who still demands the best picture and sound quality they have moved on to BLU-Ray machines. Don't forget many users prefer to own a true physical product and BLU-Ray aswell as DVD discs fill that gap.

I recently moved onto BLU-Ray with my Oppo BDP-83 and have no regrets as its a sweet Blu-Ray player and killer up-scaling via Anchor Bay chip set DVD player as well as a damn nice sounding CD player via its own analogue Cirrus Logic CS-4398 DACS

03-01-10: Rrog
I personally do not believe in hard drive based systems.

What's your reasoning?

Most all DVD players are using Blu-ray and it isn't free to other manufacturers since it is a Sony product.
Home theater sales are down in general, Thank God, and it cuts into their profits.
I personally do not believe in hard drive based systems.

I think its called the "advancement of technology". ;-)

Disc player sales as a whole will continue to dwindle. Hard drive based players and online media storage will replace all silver disc in time. It is sooner than some think..just MHO.