I've been thinking a lot lately about how cool it would be to have a website that allows a user to insert a disc into their drive and click a button to begin a ripping process. After the rip is complete, it would upload to a server and be hosted there. Ideally, the process would be seamless for both DVDs and CDs and work cross platform.
My question is for the developers here - what recommendations do you have on approaching this situation? Does it seem feasible? Is it something that would require a flex app, java? Can the user get away with doing this in their browser only, without having to download any software? I'd also like to make sure that if the upload disconnects during the uploading process, the user can log back in and resume the upload where it failed.
I found some software that kind of achieves what I'm looking to do, but it is downloaded and is windows only as it relies on some .dll files to complete the process. I can show you this software if it would help?
For the record, the DVDs and CDs uploaded would need to be legally owned and the uploader must have the copyright, so don't think I'm getting into any infringement or illegality issues.
Thanks for the insight!
Browsers are not the best way to upload ISOs of CD/DVD. Basically, it's like asking a user to rip the CD with UltraISO and "manually" upload the file in a Web Form.
The only way to achieve your result is definitely to create an executable application, and/or a Java/.NET applet (I don't remember if/how Mono supports .NET controls on Firefox). But the executable is the basic way. You must then use a portable framework like Java or .NET/Mono which work on Windows, Mac and Linux.
In order to avoid dependencies, you must also ship the package with all the ISO-ripping libraries needed. I don't think there is a single managed-code library to rip CDs, so you need some OS help. You program should differentiate between OSes: in Linux and Mac, use dd (lots of tutorials), in Windows use NeroAPI or an open source ripper.
Once the ISO is created on a temp folder, just open it as a stream and upload via socket. I suggest not to use HTTP but FTP instead, then!
A 1-click solution is feasible, but forget the browser