Linux : HandBrake – Streaming DVDs from my NAS…

When my TV broke a few months ago I made the decision not to replace it. That means I only get to watch DVDs on the computer or stuff streamed on the web (BBC iPlayer, ITV Player or 4OD) using my iPad. I’m pretty happy with the situation as it prevents me wasting too much time in front of the TV. My only issue was being tied to the computer for DVDs. Yesterday I entered the 21st century and started streaming DVDs to my iPad.

A little Googling revealed HandBrake is about as simple as it gets, where DVD video transcoders on Linux are concerned. With that installed I saved a copy of a DVD (Alien) into the “movies” folder on my NAS, which is pre-configured for streaming videos. That’s nice and simple.

The next step was to get an iPad app to allow me to watch the streamed content. There are a bunch of them around, but I ended up with PlugPlayer. It automatically detected my NAS and worked immediately.

So now I can watch DVDs streamed to my iPad. All I need is a 60TB hard disk so I can store all my DVDs. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…