New user questions -

[rlh003]

New forum member here. Let me apologize in advance; I’m new to this process and feel like I don’t know enough about it to ask the intelligent questions. I’d appreciate pointers to reference or research material if appropriate. We stream most of our content these days but I have about 200 or so old DVD’s I’d like to get on my Plex media server so I can store them somewhere out of the way. My general setup is a MacBook Air with an attached DVD drive to rip the DVD, a Synology NAS for the Plex server and a 60” Samsung Smart TV to view. I haven’t gone far enough to worry about viewing on other devices.

I downloaded and installed MakeMKV, ran it, loaded the DVD and pretty much went with the default settings other than changing the output location to the Plex library on the NAS. On the 5 I tried as a test, it worked in the sense that I got a viewable movie. However, I have a couple of questions and hope you can either answer or provide some sort of pointer for me to get additional information.

1) Most of our DVD’s have some sort of menu system. It might include special features or interviews and so on. None of this appeared when I played it via Plex. Most of that is fine but occasionally we’ll want to see an interview or do a scene selection as an example. Is it possible to copy that? Again, not a big deal but I’d like to know if it’s possible.

2) Here’s the big issue. There is a display difference between some movies played with Plex vs our DVD player. More recent movies (i.e., the 2005 version of Sahara) are formatted for widescreen and appear the same on Plex or the DVD player (other than the missing menus). However, older movies (i.e., the 1954 version of THEM!) use all the real estate of my tv when played on our DVD player and are squeezed to a 4:3 (I think) aspect ratio when played via Plex. There is about a 7” black vertical edge on both sides of the screen. I’ve read posts here and in other locations which imply that’s the way SD video should look. While that may technically be true, I’m having trouble selling it to the rest of the family. It looks fine to us when the DVD player (I’m assuming) stretches it out to cover the screen. Is there anything I can do to get the ripped version of the movie to use the whole screen?

Thanks for your help.

/bob

[Woodstock]

1. MakeMKV is not going to preserve the menus on DVDs, because there really isn't a mechanism to do that with MKV files. The only way to do that is by ripping to an ISO file (image of the DVD itself), and MakeMKV does not do that. For most, this is not an issue, because we really only want the main feature, or an occasional special feature, which can be managed by proper application of file names (there is another topic on how to do that).

But, when it IS important, the ISO route is superior, because it will allow your player to mimic the operations of the DVD.

With Bluray, this is also possible using the "backup" feature of MakeMKV, but you still end up using more space on your NAS for files you probably aren't going to watch much.

2. DVD players can have "force full screen" options that Plex probably won't invoke. Your video has to have the proper flags in it to get displayed full screen on a 16:9 screen. There are SO many different ways the aspect ratio can be screwed around with in DVD format that it makes my head swim. Which is why I always re-encode video using handbrake (from handbrake.fr) to make sure things are flagged the way my various devices "want" the flags set.

The best research material I've found is "play". Most of what you can read will be, as I refer to it, "Completely true, but not truly complete". Of course, a lot of stuff on internet is written by people with about 5% more knowledge than you have as a newbie, so it looks good, but is really a piece of crap.

Treat the programs you're working with as an adventure game. You have resources (DVDs and BDs). You have a goal (video you can use with device X, and maybe device R). And you have "unlimited lives" to find the route from start to finish.

[rlh003]

Thanks for the advice. The menus are probably not needed but I have so much space on my NAS I may rip an iso to store just in case. I'm all about 'play' and have downloaded handbrake and will take a look at that.

Thanks again,

/bob

[Woodstock]

There is NEVER enough space on the NAS. Trust me on this. I'm 4TB left out of 26TB.