Coming Home to Windows Home Server: My New Year’s Resolution: Organize those CDs
Jan 3, 2012 2:23 PM,
By Eric B. Rux
Did you receive a few CDs or DVDs for Christmas this year? As I added to my collection this Christmas, I decided that I had better get my act together and copy all of my CDs to the home server. Sure, I’ve copied a few over, but it’s time for an assembly line of sorts to get this done once and for all.
A quick Internet search landed me on www.mymovies.dk, where I found a Windows Home Server version of My Movies. At 51MG, this is one of the biggest Add-Ins for WHS that I’ve seen. Unlike Add-Ins for Windows Home Server v1, Home Server 2011 Add-Ins are installed just like a normal program. Simply log on to the Home Server Console either directly in front of the Home Server or via Remote Desktop, and double-click on MyMoviesWHS2011.msi. Make sure that your Home Server has been rebooted recently; my server installed new security patches, yet had not been rebooted. This caused the My Movies installation to get hung up trying to connect to the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express database. Once the server was rebooted, the rest of the installation went off without a hitch.
As I explained a few months ago, I’m using an HP MediaSmart server for my 2011 Home Server (and it’s working out quite well, I might add). In order to burn CDs and DVDs using this type of Home Server, you’ll need an external DVD drive. I found quite a few available on NewEgg.com for less than $50.
My Movies works under a points system. Instead of charging for each and every copy of every product that the company makes, it simply charges you one time for the rights to use as many of its products as you want—on as many machines in your home as you want. Once you purchase 2500 points ($1/25 points =$100 for 2500 points), they are added to your account. Each time you setup the software, you log into validate that you have the required points, and you’re off and running. My Movies explains it this way, “The points on your account covers all features that requires the amount of points you have, or less. This means that if you have 1250 points, you gain access to all features with this requirement, or below – you do not need 3,000 points for two features that requires 1250 points and one that requires 500, to cover all of these you would only need 1250 points. If you have 2,500 points on your account, you can be sure to have access to all features on all current major versions of the product, in the products lifetime.”
The My Movies product is also tightly integrated with AnyDVD from SlySoft. This software “works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie.” As you can imagine, this opens up a whole can of worms in terms of legality, so be sure to know your local laws before copying DVDs (or at least be ready to accept the consequences if you get caught).
Copying DVDs and CDs is easy with this program. It can take some time to copy the data from a DVD to the hard drive, so be patient.
If you just need to rip CDs to the Home Server, use Windows Media Player on the Home Server and save yourself the $100.
Are you ripping CDs and DVDs to your Home Server? What product are you using?
Happy New Year! Enjoy your Home Server.
