The RipMonster Project - (Take 20 something)

[DaveGee]

Okay... I'm back on/off the wagon once again and have a yearning to rip my movie collection to a 'heap-o-lot' of TB hard drives.

- My collection is upwards of 600 movies... AND (countless seasons) of scifi (mostly) TV shows (in season boxes). To give an idea...

- Andromeda (all episodes)
- Firefly (all episodes)
- Star Trek TOS (all episodes)
- Star Trek TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise (all episodes)
- BSG (TOS) and BSG the reboot (all episodes)
- StarGate SG1, Atlantis (all episodes)
- X-Files (all episodes)
- Earth Final Conflict (a few seasons due to circumstances beyond my control)
- CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY (many seasons)
- Angle, Buffy, Roswell, Surface, etc etc.... (all episodes)

I could easily go on but you get the idea... (I'm severely afflicted with OCD)

Now that I've got a WALLS full of shiny disc that go a great job of making a WIFI deadzone... I've (again) come to the conclusion that I want to get them on my computer... Now that set top boxes are really coming on strong (and cheap) and todays systems don't take 4+ hours to transocde a DVD to a good h.264 I feel I'm finally ready... Oh and the fact that multi-TB hard drives just about fall from the sky now is certainly a big help.

SO

I got LOTS of work to do... and want to build a box ('The RipMonster) to make life easier.

My idea is to load up a system with 4 - 6 drives (maybe 2 systems) and have it/them devour my collection into 'pristine rips' (VOBs and menus etc) and then at night the box or boxes will do the transcoding to h.264 (handbrake high profile setting) and then get the movie into iTunes and move the original VOB folder to a backup drive. Drives are cheap so I don't mind buying as many as I need and I can off-line the drives if keeping them all 'live' becomes an issue.

The short of it is... I need recommendations on good (currently available) FAST drives to install into my RipMonster... I know rip-lock can/is/was an issues in years past ... (is this still true) I'd certainly like to avoid drives that can't be 'fixed' to operate a full speed. I don't mind mixing things up (to save money) I really just want the least time spent doing the OPTICAL -> HD ripping. And when I say rip I mean rip... transcoding (going from the raw unmolested video files VOB etc) will be another story...

So, what say you?

What drives have YOU found to be really great for the sole purpose of ripping (both DVD and BR)? I stress again, I'm not using them for any other purpose so their write features and/or boot features and/or write speeds mean less than nothing to me also if a drive is 'not yet shipping but expected to be really great for my needs' ... I'd even consider waiting...

I'd figure if I built a single (or 2) systems I'd like to have:

- 1 maybe 2 fast Blu-Ray ready drives (I have a much smaller collection of those)
- 3 or 4 Blazing fast (yet reliable) DVD drives.

So... in a perfect world what would you buy if money weren't an issue and the speed of ripping was the only thing you cared about?

Again... I know in many cases the really good 'fast drives' are often out of production and if found for sale have crazy prices attached to them so you can certainly tell me about them cause I'm always curious when it comes to this stuff... However a drive being readily available is going to be a big issue for me.

Also if I'm going to do this... I'd imagine spreading these drives over different busses is the way to go right?

I mean I guess I could stick them all on a multi-port SATA card... but perhaps having a drive hanging off each of the (2) USB buses and 1 on the FW bus and the rest off the SATA bus might allow for a better distribution of the data influx. Then agian maybe not.... if you have any insights on this I'd also love to hear em!

Thanks for reading.. and apologies in advance for my longwinded post... (admitting the problem is 1/2 the battle right?)

Dave

[DaveGee]

Well I purchased 2 drives today...

The Lite-On iHAS324 - http://www.myce.com/review/lite-on-ihas ... s-page-10/

Highlights:

- The Lite-On iHAS324 is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video (Goldeneye) SL disc in 5 minutes and 23 seconds.
- The Lite-On iHAS324 is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video (The Green Mile) DL disc in 11 minutes and 24 seconds.

- The Lite-On iHAS324 was extremely fast when ripping our tested DVD-Video media.

APX 5:30 for a SL DVD
APX 11:30 for a DL DVD

Yea I can sure live with that I think... Now I just gotta do some searching to see if anything is anywhere close to beating those (apx) rip times... if not I'll pick up 2x more... Amazon has em @ $22.99 with no tax (for my state) plus I buy from them enough that Amazon Prime makes sense so... 2 day shipping is on the house too!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Liteon-24X-DVDrw- ... 511&sr=1-1

So now to tackle the BRD side of the coin...

[setarip_old]

Hi!

I'm afraid I don't see where your posts have anything to do with makeMKV-related bugs that you've discovered or encountered...

[DaveGee]

Hi! I'm afraid I don't see where your posts have anything to do with makeMKV-related bugs that you've discovered or encountered...

Thanks for your input on my question... It's help like this that makes me wanting to come back...

Anyway....

I **HAD** posted this under "General MakeMKV discussion - Everything related to MakeMKV" and somehow it was moved without any comment as to why.

Now given my question was directly related to the DRIVES that MakeMKV __NEEDS__ to do its magic I though it was the right place to post. Somehow it ended up here... oh well... its good to see that forums like this exist cause it makes the good forums that much easier to spot.

Oh and 54 topic views and not one person had anything to say about what drives are great and/or what drives I should stay away from... That's something all right... Tho, perhaps its the over-moderation-without-comment that keeps people too scared to post.

Don't worry I won't darken these forums again.

[Icetrips]

I readed your post... but I'm not sure what you want and I think you miss something...
Your specification seem over-kill for DVDs...

I suppose you want build a library of your series... or a build "ripping farm"...
but you don't need that much stuff...

First your pc hardware:
-dvd drives or bluray drives: Any drives will do the job. Reading speed could differ a little bit. But I don't think you have to be freak about this part.
-hard drives: any drives you find reliable.... even 5200rpm drives run up to 60megs/s... during transcode it's your CPU who work... not really the HD. The harddrive should't slow down your encoding (but your motherboard controller could).

Second, the size of your harddrive.
1 dvd take 4 to 8gb, (you don't have to have all them on your pc in the same time.)
(you can also way for your encode to complete before add new stuff).
Encode in h.264 (x.264): a full movie 1h30 will take around 2gb. Episode should take 500-600megs.
If I estimate 1gb per episode, estime 1000 episodes, it's only 1TB. So a 2TB at $100 should be enough for now for your ripping monster...

(I don't know your hardware but right now you must put your money on the CPU. (if you don't have a good one.))
(I still have a Duo core 2 E6600, 1h30 dvd take 2-3hours, a bluray ( remain 1080p) take 2 days (SUPER HIGH PRESET))
(Same thing with a Core i5, 1h30 dvd take 15-30min (estimate), a bluray (remain 1080p) take 10hours (SUPER HIGH PRESET))
(The cpu really make a difference)

Third thing, what do you want to do?
A MediaCenter ? A backup PC?

Every MediaCenter (or DLNA) have this own specification.
Most time for a MediaCenter, you should use MP4 format with 1 audiotrack.
But Xbox360 prefer MPG(MPEG-2). PS3 have some specification on the audiotrack.
WD Live (can't play MKV with more than 1 audiotrack).
Samsung DLNA (can't play MKV with more than 1 audiotrack and you need to reencode mostly all your bluray because ACSS support).
So you need to be specific on the hardware.

For a backup... you perhaps doesn't need to encode it in h.264... probably just a 2tb disk and you can kept all your episodes in VOB or ISO.
(It's will take you more time to identify the correct episode from the vob or h.264 anyway)
And since it's mostly just "TV Series" (dvd), you could probably go for Xvid/DivX.. (it's more compatible).

[DaveGee]

Well thanks for all the info and sorry for my short fuse...

While you might not think a drive is a big deal perhaps I've just a string of bad luck.. 3 out of my last 4 drives were riplocked and couldn't be 'fixed' without a windows box (something I don't have ready access to) so perhaps you can see my dilemma.

With riplocked drives my rips have be usually on the order of 30 to 45 minutes per dvd * 600 .. well that a heck of a lot more than 15-20 per dvd. Also thats only counting my DVD movies... On top of that add - just doing star trek TV.

21 DVDs - ST-ToS: 3 seasons @ 7 dvds per season...
49 DVDs - ST - TnG: 7 seasons @ 7 dvds per...
49 DVDs - ST - DS9: 7 seasons @ 7 dvds per...
49 DVDs - ST - VOY: 7 seasons @ 7 dvds per...
21 DVDs - ST-ENT: 3 seasons @ 7 dvds per season...
=====
189 DVD's to rip!

70 more for SG1
45? for Andromeda

And I haven't even scratched the surface...

Imagine doing all that with 3 riplocked players...

Well all is good ... I've got the 2 drives mentioned above and am screaming thru discs now... gonna order 2 more and I'll be good to go on the DVD side.

Storage I got in spades... I have a rack with lots of drives... and CPU for ripping is also covered.

As for the Blu-Ray drive ... I'll have to find some place to research the current top of the pile for ripping speeds.... 2x 4x 6x and higher are on the way I think... Well I've got some good home theater sites I'll search thru...

Thanks again for the post... I do appreciate it!

[Icetrips]

Ok so your "bottleneck" is your dvd drives.

You could look for having many dvd reader as your initial plan.
Dvd reader/burner SATA cost 25$ and a little bit more of external USB dvd drive.
(don't forget you have a limited amount of SATA port or USB on your motherboard)
Just look the lower cost for no riplocked drives (most time burner aren't), anyway I don't think you will use so many dvd reader after your project complete.

Around 304dvds x 8.5gb = 2.5TB (the worst case scenario) so 1 x 2tb drive should be enough for content all your ripped iso.
Probably 1TB drive should be more than enough is you plan rip them... rip them will take probably as much time you take to load those dvds.

If you plan rip them in h.264 or Xvid (probably for save space), I recommend you having a different drive for your completed stuff.
Anyway you need to identify every episodes and this could be take a while.
Also think about having a backup drive. You will take so much time to do that, a backup (like once a week) drive aren't extra in this case.

Also think about the option of buying or build a mediacenter.
It's always fun that you could play everything you want "live" without any disk support directly on your tv in HDMI.
Perhaps you want to do this with your pc... (some software exist to fake a media center like MediaPortal).

You can look for WD Live with network support ($100) or a big hd where you put your ripped stuff.
But your could already have a Xbox360 or a PS3... so just read about their specific media center configuration.
Also you need to test your first encode file before starting your RipMonster Project.
I also recommend to make x.264 (forget about FFmpeg) in MP4 file format with only one audiotrack (for compatibility) or Xvid format (for compatiblity).

[GJones]

I built the storage server on unRaid and used my own scripts to post-process my makemkv rips with HandBrakeCLI.

Rips go to a cache drive on the storage server. At night they are moved onto the parity-protected array. Each night, a cron job looks for movies that have not been transcoded (with HB) on the array. It queues them up using task spooler (ts) and transcodes them one at a time using my preferred settings. It moves the old (original) mkv file to a "replaced" folder and moves the transcoded file into its place, adding _H264 to the filename so I know not to transcode it again. The next night, it will look for new candidates.

This process allows me to use makemkv to rip the movies onto the server (using a client machine) and never touch the files again. I can start using the original files as soon as the file completes ripping and it will be seemlessly replaced by the transcoded (and much smaller) final file automatically. My media center software (residing on the ripping machine, XBMC) is told to catalog file changes at the end of each step so my library is always in synch.

Aside from kicking off the initial rip, my only maintenance is in checking the replaced folder periodically to drop files.