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Filed under: Utilities, Video, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

AutoBrake simplifies DVD ripping on your HTPC


Handbrake is easily one of the best DVD ripping applications available for any platform. It's great when you've got a keyboard and mouse handy to click all the necessary buttons, but what about your home theatre PC? Wouldn't it be nice to just drop in a disc and watch it automatically ripped to the hard drive?

AutoBrake does exactly that. Set your options, drop in a disc, and AutoBrake takes care of the rest - just wait for your DVD to eject. Discs can be ripped as AVI, MP4, or MKV files at six preset quality levels. Two-pass encoding is supported with h.264.

The usual DVD ripping caveats apply - you'll need a separate program to handle the decryption duties when archiving a fair-use copy of protected discs you own.

AutoBrake is a free download for Windows only, and requires you have Handbrake installed (of course).

Just to let you know, the DLS crew had troubles getting this to work on several Windows versions including Vista x64 and Windows 7 32 and 64-bit. If you can get it working, though, it's..Just...Plain...Awesome.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows, Open Source

Media Portal home theater PC app for Windows hits 1.0

MediaPortal 1.0
Open Source media center application Media Portal has been under development for 5 years. And this week the developers decided the product was stable enough to remove the beta label and launch Media Portal 1.0.

The application was initially based on the popular XBMC application designed to turn Xbox gaming consoles into media playback workhorses. But Media Portal quickly outgrew its beginnings as a Windows port of XBMC. Version 1.0 is a full featured application for accessing music, movies, pictures, weather, and other information from a full screen interface. If you have a TV tuner in your computer you can also use Media Portal to watch and record live TV.

I just installed Media Portal 1.0 on my netbook, and aside from the fact that I had to download and install Microsoft's .NET framework first, the process was pretty much a breeze. There's a one-click install option that lets you select common settings. Or more advanced users can configure the application to their heart's content.

The team is now turning its attention to Media Portal 2, which will be more modular and will may eventually incorporate new capabilities like the ability to stream media across a home network or over the internet to portable devices like cellphones. In the short run, Media Portal 2 will feature mostly backend improvements designed to make it easier to customize the application.

[via Geek Tonic]

Filed under: Audio, Video, Hardware, Linux, Open Source

Build a great Home Theater PC for about $1,000

Engadget
HTPCOur pal Eliot Phillips over at Engadget has written an awesome how-to on building a practical Home Theater PC for about $1,000. The end result is a beautiful black Pentium 4 machine with a gig of DDR2 RAM, 250GB of SATA storage rounded out by and a nice Hauppauge dual-tuner card with on-chip MPEG2 encoding and a MythTV install. If you want a solid HTPC without spending a fortune, listen to Eliot, he know his stuff.

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