www.makemkv.com

This is a general question as I'm relatively new to storing large amounts of digital media. Is it better to store backups of ripped DVDs as disc image files (.iso/.cdr) or to store the original extracted .mkv files produced by MakeMKV? I always make encoded x264/x265 copies for regular use and store disc images on another drive as backups, but after running into a few issues with corrupted portions of discs that I was only able to salvage by ripping the uncorrupted episodes out separately, I'm wondering if there is any purpose to keeping disc images at all when the same issue could surface in the future and I may not have access to the same software to salvage anything. Is there any sort of consensus on this?

Do you have gobs of unused space that needs filling? Then doing ISOs is a good way to fill it.

Not so much? Then preserving the original media is probably a better choice.

I only have about 80TB of storage, so I don't store the ripped MKV files longer than it takes to encode them to storage, then pack the originals away. They're played ONCE, to avoid scratches.

Others do as you suggest, maintaining digital copies of the disks AND store them securely. And there are other choices out there.

I store the extracted .mkv files. In my view, it is the content that is important not the disc structure. I also transcode for regular use. I find that saving the extracted .mkv files makes it easy to re-transcode as necessary. In my experience it is the creation of the extracted .mkv files (& getting that file's metadata right) that is the most tedious part of the process and the one I'm least interested in repeating. This helps me justify the cost of storage.

Woodstock wrote: ↑

Tue May 27, 2025 2:09 am

Do you have gobs of unused space that needs filling? Then doing ISOs is a good way to fill it.

Not so much? Then preserving the original media is probably a better choice.

I only have about 80TB of storage, so I don't store the ripped MKV files longer than it takes to encode them to storage, then pack the originals away. They're played ONCE, to avoid scratches.

Others do as you suggest, maintaining digital copies of the disks AND store them securely. And there are other choices out there.

I felt pretty good about relying on physical discs as backups until I just had multiple essentially untouched DVDs from the mid-2000s get corrupted for seemingly no reason other than age. They're all DVD-9 which seem to be awful so maybe that's the reason. Either way I feel too paranoid about keeping anything on discs now.

dcoke22 wrote: ↑

Tue May 27, 2025 5:22 am

I store the extracted .mkv files. In my view, it is the content that is important not the disc structure. I also transcode for regular use. I find that saving the extracted .mkv files makes it easy to re-transcode as necessary. In my experience it is the creation of the extracted .mkv files (& getting that file's metadata right) that is the most tedious part of the process and the one I'm least interested in repeating. This helps me justify the cost of storage.

I think this is the way I'm going to go about it going forward. My only concern is whether the files that MakeMKV spits out contain everything that could possibly be needed in the future in case of significant software development. I look at old DivX avi rips now and compared to the same file today encoded as x265 it's night and day.

There is no way that works for everyone, my answer is: it depends.

For example, for the DVDs that I care about the most, or that are rare or at risk of being out of catalog, or TV series, I make the ISO of the entire DVD. For the others, however, copying with MakeMKV is enough.

For Blurays, however, I only make copies with MakeMKV for space reasons, I rarely copy the entire disc.

DukeFleed wrote: ↑

Tue May 27, 2025 10:12 am

There is no way that works for everyone, my answer is: it depends.

For example, for the DVDs that I care about the most, or that are rare or at risk of being out of catalog, or TV series, I make the ISO of the entire DVD. For the others, however, copying with MakeMKV is enough.

For Blurays, however, I only make copies with MakeMKV for space reasons, I rarely copy the entire disc.

Right, and that's how I've mostly gone about it, keeping backup copies of things that can't readily be found on amazon or ebay. My question though is if there is any advantage at all to keeping an iso disc image instead of the original makeMKV file. The only reason I can think of for keeping a disc image is if you want to have the option of creating another DVD.

I would think the reason you might keep an ISO or a MakeMKV backup folder is if

• The languages you want to include in your .mkv file might change in the future
• You don't want to also create .mkv files for 'extras' now but you might in the future

Personally, I know all the languages spoken in my household and it is unlikely to change in the future, so the first doesn't apply to me. And secondly, I also rip the extras when I rip a movie. So I feel like I've got all the good stuff from a disc when I'm done.

I don't think I'd ever burn a copy of a disc since almost any situation where I might want to use a disc without worrying about it I could just take a transcoded copy of the movie on my phone or a USB stick or whatever.