i was wondering

[Nigle]

I don't really want to have the clunky and apparently not completely reliable sony VGP-XL1B2 dvd juke box connected to my computer plus the added cost is pretty high.  Also the file size on the dvd's with the 1:1 rip make it so you would need alot of storage to have your entire library of dvd's.  Since storage is costly I was wondering if some sort of transcode function could be added so it can be converted to xvid or divx to save space here is a linux program I found that can do that but I would like some integration like the rip function maybe a rip and transcode button too.  http://freshmeat.net/projects/dvdrip/?branch_id=20118&release_id=250174

Thanks for your time.  If this is just crazy for some reason or not aloud please disregard this.

[dopey]

If you install MythDVD, it can do the transcoding for you. Actually, I would like to see LinuxMCE to better integrate itself with the MythTV plugins and use the internal Myth Player. This would reduce some complexity and broaden the number of developers that can contribute to such functions in LinuxMCE.

[Nigle]

thanks for the reply. i'm guessing i would not be able to use the remote to do this though right?  also it seems that the linux hd-dvd movement is really flowing.  Is there going to be support for hd-dvd or blu-ray in the future or is that a legal drm type issue that won't be touched. The price of that x-box hd-dvd drive looks so tempting!

[dopey]

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have DRM issues. To be fair so does DVD, but it seems the MPAA has mostly given up on that front...

You can use the remote to control MythTV and its plugins, including MythDVD. One thing to note, however, is that the Myth Transcode Daemon does not get started by default. You can just start it manually rather easily though. The program name is mtd. Just typing mtd in a terminal will get it going. I just added mtd to /etc/rc.local and had /etc/init.d/rc.local start at run level 2. That way it's always running.