How best to rip, keep & watch DVD movies at home and on the road?

mraikes

mraikes

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I've accumulated a bunch of movies & tv shows that have been sitting on the hard drive of my computer for (in some cases) years. I also have a bunch of DVD's sitting on the shelf in my camper. Neither group is particularly convenient to watch.

Any suggestions for the best/easiest way to rip my DVD's, merge my collections, and somehow make them easily accessible at home/workbench and on the road in my camper?

Of course I've googled around and there are tons of options. But I'm looking for simplicity, ease of use, portability, and maximum compatibility to view from computers, TV's, etc. Is there a relatively easy way to do this?
 
If these are older DVD's, not Blue Ray, you could used DVD Decrypter & DVD Shrink (free programs) to get them to a manageable size, cut out all the trailers, other languages, extra audio streams etc.

I've done this with a bunch of ours and put them on a tablet, or an external hard drive.
 
I put all of my movies on a 8 bay Qnap NAS with 2Tb drives so that I can watch from any system attached to our network. If I plan on going somewhere I can copy any movies I want to take along onto an external USB 3.0 hard drive.
I try to have some of the best equipment but have yet to see any laptops with USB 3.1... I've been seeing USB 3.1 external hard drive cases for sale this 'holiday' though .
 
If you want a more polished "do it all" ripper and converter, buy dvdfab. Its not free like handbreak but can rip (no other copyright bypass software needed), crop, and convert audio and video all in one application. Its worth the cost if you have lots of items to rip/convert.
 
I have been doing this for years. : )

First, check out makemkv. It will convert any dvd/blueray to an mkv file.
Second, as stated by others, use handbrake to then convert that to a smaller more friendly format.

I actually use 2 settings and convert some movies to an HD and SD version.

Lastly, look up Emby. It will allow you to stream your entire media collection to you on many devices, or even just a web browser.

I currently have a 3TB HDD I'm about to fill with movies... Luckily I just got 4 new 4TB HDD to set up a raid 5 array with 12TB of storage. Oh Yea!
 
Wow, some great ideas - thank you!

In reading through these and thinking about my scenarios, I don't think any solution that requires uploading to the cloud and streaming back down would work. Too often my RV isn't in an area with dependable (or any) wifi. So I have to be self contained. I'm imagining a NAS or computer loaded with movies that I could just carry out to the RV and attach to it's internal network when I hit the road.

MichalBits, that Emby looks kind of like what I imagined. A reasonably simple media server on a small computer or laptop. Connecting to it via Roku (which I love) or FireTV (which I tolerate) or an Android app on my phone all seems almost too good to be true!

What I can't tell is if Emby requires internet connectivity or if it will run standalone on a local network unplugged from the universe. Maybe I won't know til I try it. Which I plan on doing tonight.

And I'll check out DVDFabs, which sounds familiar - I might already have it installed somewhere, and Handbrake and DVD Decryptor.
 
For simplicity, I highly recommend makemkv. It's the easiest/best program I have ever used to rip movie dvd's..... and I've been doing it for over 10 years. :)

I have not tried emby offline.... not sure what it would do. I think it would be fine and you would be able to still access it on your network.
I will mention, at least for windows, emby can use lots of ram. I'm bumping my media server from 8G to 16G as the emby server is often using 75% of the ram.

Emby is awesome... and mostly free. Some of the apps for devices are paid.
I love using it to browse my movie collection, and accessing my media on my phone when I'm out and about.
 
I used to use DVD Shrink, because my OCD wanted to maintain menus, etc. for DVD's. Then I realized that I almost never watch special features anyway. Now I use MakeMKV then reencode with Handbrake to save space.

I have everything in a Kodi install with the library shared throughout the house. I'm thinking of installing Plex for streaming on the go, but for now I just VPN into the network.
 
Ok, I love it. Thoroughly impressed with Emby. Granted, my experience with media servers is zero so I have a pretty low threshold for being amazed. But Emby was easy to setup, and scanned and added all the movies in my computer's movie folder without a hitch. Then I installed the Android app on my phone, installed the Windows app on my Win 8 tablet, and added the Roku media player to my Roku home screen.

The Roku saw the Emby server right away and the next thing I know I'm watching Pacific Rim on my workbench TV. And Despicable Me on my tablet. And Wild Hogs on my phone. All at the same time. From the same computer that I'm typing this on right now.

Then I pulled the coax from my DSL modem. Everything kept playing without skipping a beat - so no internet required.

My media server question is solved, and beautifully.

Next project, try out makemkv, handbrake, ect. to rip my dvd's. But that's for another night!

EDIT: Also installed the Emby app on my Amazon FireTV in my living room - also worked flawlessly. Started Pacific Rim on my workbench & finished it in on my couch. Nice!
 
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Protip for Handbrake:

I just rip a ton of stuff with MakeMKV, then reencode as I need space. I set up a huge queue in Handbrake, then just start it before I go to bed, and pause it when I wake up. It will take weeks to chew through all of it depending on your processor, but at least it's mostly hands-off.
 
Slysoft anydvd hd to decrypt and handbrake to make files. If you are wanting to backup full DVD and bluray look into clone DVD and clone bd. And use plex for your server. So simple.
 
To those in the US... Have you considered....

The moment you crack DRM (Digital Rights Managemnt) to rip the DVD, you've violated Title I of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 17 U.S.C. 1201 prohibits circumvention of DRM . . . Some courts have tried to leaven this rather harsh rule, but most have not. While it's typically hard to detect small-scale circumvention, the question is whether bypassing DRM is legal. The statute sets up some minor exceptions, but our ripper doesn't fall into any of them. So, the moment a studio protects the DVD with DRM, it gains both a technical and a legal advantage—ripping is almost certainly unlawful.
Click to expand...

http://lifehacker.com/5978326/is-it-legal-to-rip-a-dvd-that-i-own

Have you noticed those programs that are mentioned here AFAIK are hosted /distributed in countries other than the US for a reason :rolleyes:
 
The solutions end of this has been covered beautifully. So I won't chime in there....

As far as the legality of it goes. It was my understanding (and not saying I am 100% correct) that
if you actually owned the physical disk, you were allowed to make a single backup for archival purposes.

You don't own the content in question, you basically have a license to consume it. Typically there are restrictions
on it such as no public broadcasting and so on.... the OP wouldn't be violating any of those things and the OP
already owns a "right" to consume that content. Legally I don't think there is anything wrong with what is talked
about here so long as the OP owns everything he is ripping.
 
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