Unsure which method to store/play ripped DVD's and Blu-rays

[Worldwide-Collection]

Hi
I'm new to the DVD, Blu-ray ripping world. I'm unsure on how I should store/playback my several hundred DVD's I and family members bought from the mid 2000s-2023 and the dozen or so HD and 4K Blue-rays I plan to acquire in the coming months. I have two methods in mind, first one is to rip them to a BDMV file then transferred to an external HDD drive for playback via VLC? My second option is to transfer the files to a internal SATA drive via an adapter and then install it on a Zidoo media player or similar to be watched on either the sitting room Samsung 720P Plasma tv or the LG HD tv in my bedroom.

Which one would be the most budget friendly and easiest method of storing and playing back all of the DVDS and Blue-rays with all of the menus and subtitles intact due to a significant amount of them being foreign imports mostly from USA and Mexico. I'm in the UK btw.

[DukeFleed]

Hi.

I don't know which one is best for you, but I can tell you how I did it. I have a DVD/BD collection of more than 1000 titles, but Blurays only account for 10-20%. I backed up the DVDs that I care about most, while for the Blurays I backed up all the ones I have, this is because I realized that they are much more fragile than DVDs and it happened that after a few years they could no longer be seen several titles, and I had to buy them again (and not all of them yet).

I use Linux and I ripped entire DVDs in ISO format thanks to specific Linux programs, while I ripped Blurays into folders with MakeMKV (I also purchased the license this year). Often, however, for reasons of space, I only ripped the movie from either the DVD or Bluray to mkv, again with MakeMKV. I then transferred them on multiple USB external HDDs. Furthermore, to watch some of these on my TV I transcoded them into MKV with handbrake and put them on two external USB HDDs connected to a media player connected in turn to my receiver.

I think it's not cheap at all, but if you care about your collection, as it is in my case, it's worth making small sacrifices even to safeguard the money spent on purchasing the DVDs/BDs.

[Worldwide-Collection]

Hi.

I don't know which one is best for you, but I can tell you how I did it. I have a DVD/BD collection of more than 1000 titles, but Blurays only account for 10-20%. I backed up the DVDs that I care about most, while for the Blurays I backed up all the ones I have, this is because I realized that they are much more fragile than DVDs and it happened that after a few years they could no longer be seen several titles, and I had to buy them again (and not all of them yet).

I use Linux and I ripped entire DVDs in ISO format thanks to specific Linux programs, while I ripped Blurays into folders with MakeMKV (I also purchased the license this year). Often, however, for reasons of space, I only ripped the movie from either the DVD or Bluray to mkv, again with MakeMKV. I then transferred them on multiple USB external HDDs. Furthermore, to watch some of these on my TV I transcoded them into MKV with handbrake and put them on two external USB HDDs connected to a media player connected in turn to my receiver.

I think it's not cheap at all, but if you care about your collection, as it is in my case, it's worth making small sacrifices even to safeguard the money spent on purchasing the DVDs/BDs.

Sounds like a very good method in my eyes. The only issue I have is I use macOS so the method would vary, also I watched a few videos from creators such as Technodad who comment that Makemkv doesn’t natively support ISO files just Mkv and BDMV.

Secondly unlike some people who only rip the movie with forced subtitles (when necessary) our preferences is to have a 1:1 copy basically because of special features, family members speaking more than one language etc plus quite a few Mexican TV shows on DVD (one is split across 16 disks!).

[DukeFleed]

I'm not sure because I've never used it, but it seems to me that MakeMKV can rip DVDs by creating the ISO. But wait for more authoritative answers than me.

On Linux (Ubuntu distro) as mentioned I used special programs, I think they also exist on MacOS. First of all I installed libdvdcss, then dvdbackup. With the latter I ripped the entire structure of the DVDs into a folder, then with mkisofs I created the ISO. Sizes vary between 5 and 9 GB.

I used MakeMKV as mentioned to rip only movies in mkv (with only my language and forced subtitles) and entire Bluray structures into folders (I didn't create the ISO because on Linux to do so I would have to install ImgBurn with Wine).

Keep in mind that if you want to rip entire normal Blurays they take up more or less 50 GB in size, while the size for UHDs is much more.

[dcoke22]

.mkv files can be very useful. They can easily contain more than one audio track and more than one subtitle track. It would be possible to rip your DVDs, blu-rays, etc to .mkv files with all the audio tracks and subtitle tracks you'd like. The audio & video in the .mkv files that MakeMKV produces will be a 1:1 copy of what's on the disc. It is also possible to use MakeMKV to create .mkv files of the various 'extras' that are on the disc.

There are lots of playback systems across all the platforms that can play .mkv files. For example, MPV, VLC, IINA (Mac only), Infuse (Mac only)

A great way to organize this stuff is something like a Plex server. A Plex server with a lot of storage can organize and host all these files on your network. It will automatically collect metadata about the movies and the actors in them. It can host the 'extras' right along side the movies so you can access them easily from your couch. You can watch all this stuff on just about anything that can run the Plex client software, which is most modern mobile devices, most modern smart TVs, or any recent streaming box plugged into your TV.

The only things you lose going this route is the FBI warning, unskipable previews, and navigating the disc menu (and if you really want the warnings and the previews, you can rip those too).

[Worldwide-Collection]

.mkv files can be very useful. They can easily contain more than one audio track and more than one subtitle track. It would be possible to rip your DVDs, blu-rays, etc to .mkv files with all the audio tracks and subtitle tracks you'd like. The audio & video in the .mkv files that MakeMKV produces will be a 1:1 copy of what's on the disc. It is also possible to use MakeMKV to create .mkv files of the various 'extras' that are on the disc.

There are lots of playback systems across all the platforms that can play .mkv files. For example, MPV, VLC, IINA (Mac only), Infuse (Mac only)

A great way to organize this stuff is something like a Plex server. A Plex server with a lot of storage can organize and host all these files on your network. It will automatically collect metadata about the movies and the actors in them. It can host the 'extras' right along side the movies so you can access them easily from your couch. You can watch all this stuff on just about anything that can run the Plex client software, which is most modern mobile devices, most modern smart TVs, or any recent streaming box plugged into your TV.

The only things you lose going this route is the FBI warning, unskipable previews, and navigating the disc menu (and if you really want the warnings and the previews, you can rip those too).

That's where I'm stuck with how I should playing back the ripped disks because originally I thought I could just throw the files onto an external HDD drive. However upon further research I leaned about Plex, Zidoo, Zappiti, Nvidia shield etc. The reason I'm only looking into a Zidoo is because it can fit into the current Plasma tv setup and the device is future proof when we eventually upgrade to 4k or 8k. Plus "naked" HDD SATA drives are slightly cheaper than external HDD. Lastly from what I've seen on YouTube Zidoo players have the most attractive and easy to use interfaces which will be a big advantage to my parents who aren't tech savvy. Also I really like the album art.

So tbh here's my potential shopping list

• Zidoo media player (either basic new model or a used flagship model under £400).

• AV receiver with speakers (either new 4k or a used 8k)

• Possibly a UHD player to play discs before I rip them.

• External UHD drive to rip discs (Waiting for Asmcom to open up shop because I'm unsure if I can flash one without making a mistake because I'm a beginner).

[Worldwide-Collection]

Keep in mind that if you want to rip entire normal Blurays they take up more or less 50 GB in size, while the size for UHDs is much more.

For now that won't be a problem because lets assume all of my DVD's are dual layered discs which is about 8.5gb and if I times that by the number of DVD's I and my family have (around 556) in the end its just 4.7tb so I could start with a 8Tb drive then expand from there once I slowly acquire/replace titles on DVD to Blu-ray or UHD only where necessary.

[dcoke22]

A few years ago when I started down this path, I did back-of-the-envelope math to determine that 9TB of storage was all I would need to store all my of discs. I purchased 18TB of storage so I had room to grow.

Now I'm currently at just over 100TB of storage and growing. This is not an uncommon story.
As a side note, these days 20TB hard drives can be had for very reasonable cost per TB.

I don't have any first hand experience with a Zidoo player. They look pretty nice, but putting hard drives in them seems like a potential source of unwanted noise. Some hard drives can be sorta noisy when they're working.

The thing I like about running a Plex server is it gets the spinning hard drives out of my home theater and into a separate room in my house. I also find the UI intuitive and easy to navigate from my couch.

[Worldwide-Collection]

Wow that is a lot of movies!

Also I do agree from seeing a view videos that the Plex interface is quite vibrant and easy to navigate/organise. It's just we don't have the equipment outside of laptops to stream content. Furthermore during the winter months (Jan-March) we do have frequent storms that come from the North Sea (I live on the east side of the UK) and occasionally we do get power cuts from localised flooding, fallen trees etc, thus I fear that may damaged the hard drives if they in a NAS. While if I had a media player I can just switch it off during a storm so either I can watch movies that are on Apple TV or through a DVD player.

[dcoke22]

Not having to put a disc in a player and wade through the menus and previews and all that junk has really allowed me to re-engage with movies and TV shows. I now subscribe to a lot less steaming services and spend the money on movies and TV shows on blu-ray instead. And this hobby scratches my collector itch in just the right way.

I understand your concerns about power outages. For lots of reasons, there are many computers and lots of networking equipment in my house. Consequently, there are a lot of battery backup systems as well. Living in the midwest in the USA, we have the occasional summer thunderstorm that knocks out power. And sometimes on really hot days, if too many air conditioners kick on at the same time, we'll have a brief brown-out situation and all the UPS's in the house will turn on for a few seconds. If you're quietly working the loud click of the 9 UPS systems turning on at the same time can be quite shocking.

At the end of the day, there's no perfect answer for any of this stuff. There are enough choices in equipment and system design that you can make something that works well for you. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned on my journey through this is whatever choices seem like the best one's now might end up not being the best choice a couple of years down the road.

[Worldwide-Collection]

For me this is more to enjoy more what I own because Netflix, Amazon they are more convenient however pretty much all of the very popular films are like micro transactions within a subscription service and even then they can disappear so in the long run they can be very expensive.

These days I do have to look very hard to find new films on DVD, Blu-ray etc apart from HMV and a plethora of used ones from local second hand stores where I might be planning to acquire the more expensive UHD discs to rip when Asmcom starts selling flashed UHD drives