Wanting to save my DVDs to an external hard drive.

[computaur]

Hey,

Basically I work nights for a state agency in a server room and have nothing better to do than watch movies. I've got hundreds of DVDs at my apartment but get tired of lugging them around so I wanted to get an external hard drive and just watch my movies Via that, plus I'll have them all with me at the same time which will be cool.

I've got zero experience with this sort of thing so was hoping I could just get a quick list of what I'll need to accomplish this, I.e. programs, etc. All of these are store purchased and not burned DVDs if that makes a difference in what you have to use? Also how many movies could someone potentially store on a 1TB drive ?

 

[Titillating]

Depending on the quality of the movie, you could fit somewhere between 500 to 1000 movies on a 1TB drive (assuming an average of about 700MB for a 1.5 hour movie at 720p). That number will fluctuate based on the length of the movie and the quality of the video, and will obviously dip much lower when ripping a Bluray disc since they are exponentially larger in size.

I don't do much video ripping myself, but I believe Windows Media Player should be able to do that. Probably won't give you as many options and the quality might not be quite on par with paid software, but it's simple and free. Things like iTunes and VLC Player might also be able to to this as well.

 

[hang-the-9]

700 MB is a bit low for an HD movie, for a good quality DVD convertion to DIVX AVI it's about 1.2-1.5 gig. That is with minimal color issues and blocking. Any movies I've seen even from DVD that are under 1 gig end up with issues in dark areas and shadows as well as gradient issues where it's not smooth, you see lines if something goes from black to grey for example.

An MP4 may be about 1 gig.

A good quality 1080p movie I get about 2.5-3.5 gig in size.

For older disks DVD Shrink works great to copy the files then use Handbrake or AVI.net to convert it to MP4 or AVI, both are simple to use. You can buy AnyDVD from SlySoft to get any disks that don't copy with DVD Shrink.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I know it's a pain to lug all those DVDs around, but to be honest, it *IS* the best option. Trust me, as I speak from experience. The LAST thing you want is to spend several hundred hours encoding your DVDs to a hard drive and then have that hard drive fail. Yes, I should have had a back up (and technically, the physical DVDs were my "backup"), but even with that back up, it would have likely taken hours, if not days, to re-copy all those movies from my back up location to a new external hard drive.

Yes, you can do it if you want and yes, I used DVD Shrink to rip my DVDs, but after the drive failure, it just wasn't worth the time and effort anymore. I still have my DVDs/Blu-Rays, so I'm a happy camper just carrying them with me.

-Wolf sends

 

[USAFRet]

As said above, DVD Shrink + other applications will work. I used to use DVDShrink a LOT.

But carrying an external back and forth every day greatly increases the chances of an accidental dropping and total fail.

 

[Nepheler]

MakeMKV works just perfect on my Windows 10 if I want MKV high-def videos. But the problem is that MKV files are converted right as the same size as source DVD, it's a good choice to make HD copies but may not work out as you may need to take a suitable player or tablet.
Simly you can try some freeware like Free DVDAid DVDFab as they handle with both the decryption and conversion.

 

[nsiviewtv]

you see lines if something goes from black to grey for example.

 

[Joyman1476]

Yup, DVDshrink can backup DVD to hard drive, but if you have some commercial or encrypted DVDs bought recently, it may crash and then you need to resort to a thrid party software for help. Redacted

 

[unclepauly28]

OK so I've got a library of approximately 1200 standard DVD's (600 movies, 300 TV shows/series, and 300 Bluray) so I could easily fit these onto 6 TB of storage with room to grow. My question is I have about 150 movies in the Toshiba HD-DVD format. I cannot find a software product that will play, rip, and convert these discs. Any help?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

AnyDVD HD should be able to rip HD-DVDs (as well as BDs). Tried that? Bit on the pricey side, though they've got a 21-day trial, and a 20% off sale that ends very soon.

Don't know if it can do the conversion itself; we generally rip the discs then use HandBrake.

You'd need a compatible drive, of course.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

They've re-opened under a new name; RedFox.