DVD storage and/or Ripping to External Harddrive

[Jaymalea]

How have you stored your movies?

 

Any suggestions on software to use for ripping your DVDs to an external Harddrive?

 

Jaymalea

[rvpopeye]

I've tried out many different ones and I seem to be using WinX DVD Copy Pro more than any of the others these days.

I have been ripping to an ISO which is a bigger file than some other formats but I like the resulting playback , which I do with the same software using the built in ISO mounting feature. YMMV

[RV_]

I used to use these guys: http://www.lgsoftwareinnovations.com/1clickdvdcopy.asp they use a decrypting plug in called DVD43 that is free. Flawless for burning it to you hard drive or burning to disk. I am no longer storing movies as they are available free to stream through my Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts. Why spend the time unless I was full timing. Then it would be worth it. http://www.dvd43.com/

 

Go to the 1click forums and nose around. Very much like here with lots of help for noobs.

[whatsnext]

We still purchase DVD's in case we have no reliable service when we fulltime. We discard the plastic covers & store the disks in a "binder" which has sleeves which will fit 4 disks to each side of the page and will hold approximately 110 disks.

[skp51443]

I really like watching our DVDs off a hard drive, none of the hassle with the previews and FBI warnings just rip once and then watch using a WD-TV (Western Digital) that is pretty small but has a lot of features. We re-purposed an old external hard drive for storage too.

 

Plenty of other good brands out there too, we just got the WD-TV because it was dirt cheap (refurbished) and wanted to try it out, good enough we haven't looked at buying a better box.

[RV_]

DVDs are $.99 here used but like new for some strange reason. I believe they are old video store stock. But we prefer BluRay disk for $3.99 for the high def. We use the 110-300 disk albums too. We have 12 of them with over 3000 audio CDs we used to DJ with for fun and profit. I ripped them all to mp3s at the highest setting (328kbps?) We frequent two pawn shops and Goodwill for disks but I just can't bring myself to spend money on disks anymore when I can stream. But we will keep our vinyl (about 300, each played once, to record to cassette with dbx noise reduction) with no scratches, and our music CDs. We do have about 100 BluRay we did buy before realizing we could watch anything anytime. We'll keep them too.

 

We put an LG Smart BluRay player and 40" 1080p in our new to us 5th wheel. We still like to watch a lot of movies. And we are loving the over the air HDTV in the RV and soon the new house.

[T.Gamo]

I took all of my DVD's and converted them to MKV files and store them on a JBOD array - I use XBMC for the front end and Minix hardware - We have approximately 3000 movies stored this way. Let me know if you need any more info, i would be glad to help it works great and we can access it using any web browser to view our video library.

[k4rs]

As far as the software goes, Handbrake will do it all (and it is free). It has a ton of features but is not the easiest to use:

 

https://handbrake.fr/

 

Much easier to use, but not free:

 

http://www.magicdvdripper.com/

 

And, in my opinion, the best:

 

http://www.dvdfab.cn/dvd_ripper.htm

 

I have an old nettop running Linux as a file server with Kodi (xbmc) and MythTV. The single core 1.6 GHz Atom CPU is never stressed and only draws about 10 watts of power so we feel comfortable leaving it running 24/7. We currently have 2 TB of drive space but can add more when it is needed. Streaming over Ethernet is flawless. I ran into some problems with congestion on 2.4 GHz WiFi, but have not had any issues streaming both movies and HD TV using a 5 GHz AC router.

 

Safe Travels...

[DJW]

I have been using Wondershare DVD Ripper Platinum for years with great success. I download to a Seagate 1TB external which is about full now.

 

Dennis

[jerryneal]

I've been using DVDFab ripper for years. It's $49 for a 2 year lic. Rips any DVD regardless of protection, even some of the wonky stuff Disney throws in from time to time with chapter rearrangement. You get an update every month or so to stay ahead of the weird copy schemes. I rip each DVD to a folder, by title. Copy the whole lot to a portable USB drive and connect to a repurposed, small PC stuck in a cabinet that's connected to my TV. Windows 7 and 8 has Windows Media Player. Just tell WMP where the files are located. It's free and plays the ripped VOB files. One thing to note, these are not compressed files, but a clean rip of the DVD. Great resolution, but the files are large. We also found a remote on Amazon that supports WMP for $19. Navigate the library, select and play. Has fast forward, reverse, pause and PC volume. Best of all we have 100s of movies on a couple portable 1Tb drives.

[Chris-n-Dennis]

I use Handbrake but I also download from extra torrent or other sites if their copy looks better than ours. All go on a MyBookLive drive accessible only from our internal network.

[Jaymalea]

Stanley

 

Which software did you use to rip the DVDs to your external Harddrive?

 

Jaymalea

 

 

I really like watching our DVDs off a hard drive, none of the hassle with the previews and FBI warnings just rip once and then watch using a WD-TV (Western Digital) that is pretty small but has a lot of features. We re-purposed an old external hard drive for storage too.

 

Plenty of other good brands out there too, we just got the WD-TV because it was dirt cheap (refurbished) and wanted to try it out, good enough we haven't looked at buying a better box.

[Jaymalea]

Last year I ripped 186 movies from our DVDs to an external, using DVDFab shareware. I checked the first one and it looked OK.

 

As we watched, we realized that there were software settings for each track! (Which I've since tried to find and fix and cannot.) If there was a foreign language then one track would be in something not English. One track would be verbal closed captioning. One track would be only 15 minutes no matter the actual length.

 

I tell you, Iron Man in French was a hoot.

 

I've deleted all the folders, but am hesitant to go through all that work again. I have no idea what went wrong, and can't figure out the settings menus to fix it.

 

Jaymalea

 

 

 

I've been using DVDFab ripper for years. It's $49 for a 2 year lic. Rips any DVD regardless of protection, even some of the wonky stuff Disney throws in from time to time with chapter rearrangement. You get an update every month or so to stay ahead of the weird copy schemes. I rip each DVD to a folder, by title. Copy the whole lot to a portable USB drive and connect to a repurposed, small PC stuck in a cabinet that's connected to my TV. Windows 7 and 8 has Windows Media Player. Just tell WMP where the files are located. It's free and plays the ripped VOB files. One thing to note, these are not compressed files, but a clean rip of the DVD. Great resolution, but the files are large. We also found a remote on Amazon that supports WMP for $19. Navigate the library, select and play. Has fast forward, reverse, pause and PC volume. Best of all we have 100s of movies on a couple portable 1Tb drives.

[skp51443]

I've used several programs to rip my DVDs to my hard drive, k3b for the last batch, no real favorites but they all run under Linux not Windows. If you are using Linux I'd say visit your distributions forums and see which tool they recommend for their distribution.

[k4rs]

I've been using DVDFab ripper for years. It's $49 for a 2 year lic.

 

A lifetime license is available for slightly more, about $75 if I remember correctly. The only issue being the draconian actions of the movie industry (seizing domain name, freezing bank accounts, etc.)

 

Safe Travels...

[RV_]

That was another consideration when I stopped recording my movies. But the deciding factor was having unlimited streaming at speed. Then I began noticing that the days of physical media are ending as the remaining Music CDs and DVD/Blu-Ray disks are for sale for under 3 bucks each in places like Pawn shops and Goodwill, both of which I buy from.

 

Let me also add that we also concluded that we could never exhaust all the available legal content we have available for our few bucks a year Netflix service if we watched all day 20 hours a day and sleeping only 4!

 

Of the movies we have in physical media now and ripped we have also both agreed that we never watch a movie twice with the exception of maybe five that I watched a hundred times each until even I won't watch them again. So I have even stopped buying disks, even music disks. MY Amazon Prime membership gives me a section with my playlists I can play anytime at home free with the latest and greatest I add as I want. I buy little and that at only 99 cent sales.

 

I have one of the largest collections of physical media in music I've ever seen because of DJing for twenty years professionally since CDs first came out. For several years I was still using my dbx noise reduced cassettes for half of my music and CDs until I had duplicated my album collection in CDs by 1988. Then I decided to keep only about 100 of my vinyl albums, each of which had been only played once to record them to cassette, and then stored vertically and with the cellophane removed in case a tape broke or was lost or stolen. Then we sold all our vinyl except for about 300 we kept that are in that almost new condition. Stored upright and in air conditioned closets for the last twenty years or so.

 

BTW that accepted piece of info that CDs and DVDs/BluRay disks will only last ten to twenty years is horse manure from whet I have seen. I believe that only applies to the recordable at home disks that use a vegetable dye rather than burn the pits into the plastic like the factory produced disks did at one time. I know there is an expensive M disk that requires a special recorder because they burn the pits in too.

 

I have been offered to join a group of guys who pirate videos and music and declined.

 

So with no advantage to handling and storing myself, let alone buying or downloading and taking the time to burn them to hard drives and then store the drives, well, since I have all I can eat already, having seconds has lost its appeal.

 

However, our 3600 or so music CDs, all stored in those soft sided binders with the covers behind each, all either collections( Billboard etc.) or greatest hits albums, with few regular albums, I am keeping because they, along with the remaining 300 albums, and a very few picture cover 45s, will at some time be worth a lot, even if only for the rare album covers. I will leave them for my kids to sort out. Bet they bring them to Goodwill.

[Biker56]

I just wait until DirecTV has a FREE weekend for HBO, Starz or any other premium movie channel.

Go through ahead of time on my DirecTV app on my iPhone and set the ones I want to record on the Genie receiver that can record 4-5 at the same time.

 

Tonight watching one that was recorded back in Feb.

[k4rs]

The move to streaming content is great for people who have unlimited bandwidth, but no so good for RV'ers using cell based systems, campground WiFi, or satellite. I have DSL here at my lot in Florida that I will miss greatly when we start moving again. All part of the trade offs involved in the RV lifestyle.

 

Safe Travels...

[Imurphy907]

We use "makeMKV" to past blueray encryption. Then convert the file to mp4 with handbrake. Via an Apple mini. Hooked to the living room tv.

[jerryneal]

Follow up on a couple of the comments for DVDFab. Tough break on the French setting. In set up you set your zone. Once this is done it will pick the English audio track if that's your choice.

 

About a year ago, Congress made a change to the copyright laws governing DVD copies. It's now legal to make a copy of your legally purchased DVD. Prior to that the Fab folks took a big hit and moved their web site to a China web address after their .com was seized. I really don't have any other information about the company. Just know their s/w works and I haven't found a DVD that can't be ripped.

 

We have DirecTV and Prime. Wish we could use Prime on the road, but it kills my data plan that I need for work. Plus Joan can't travel without all 9 seasons of Little House On The Prarie. Don't ask me why. Guess it's that "Pa and his pipe and playing the fiddle" thing. Took a whole Saturday to rip all 9 seasons. She's happy, so I'm happy!