Copying DVDs to External HD/HD filling up

[postalmarke]

I have been using DVD Copy (free version then I bought license) to backup all my DVDs to a 2t HD I bought.
I thought I would have plenty of room on it but it seems to be filling up.
Why does the software make so many files for each DVD? I am a complete newbie at this; I just wanted to stick it into my computer and copy it and for it to be easy which it us! But they seem to be taking up so much room. Now I have to buy another 2t HD to keep copying? Can you help and keep it simple please?

[Cornucopia]

How many titles do you have?

If you have ~300, that is about right for a 2TB drive of ripped DVDs (without reconversion).

Scott

[hello_hello]

Have a read of my post #2 in this thread: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/352599-Figuring-out-what-is-what
It explains my method for ripping just the stuff I want to keep from a DVD rather than ripping the whole disc. Many of the files you'd have on your hard drive when ripping the whole disc would relate to menus and DVD extras etc.

[jman98]

postalmarke - Hard drives will eventually stop working. So since you're American (I am too, so I'm allowed to say this), there's about a 95% chance that you're going to get rid of, sell or just throw away all your discs when you're done. When your hard drive dies, say "buh bye" to your movies. You might want to think about buying a drive simply to use as a backup for your drive with rips and just attach it to a PC when necessary to update it but otherwise leave it powered off in a closet. You can use something like Ghost to make an exact copy of the main drive to the backup drive.

I don't usually care enough to warn people about that, but you're free to do what most people do anyway and ignore it and just live with the consequences down the road.

[hech54]

Why does the software make so many files for each DVD?

Those files in those folders ARE a DVD.
https://www.videohelp.com/dvd#struct
Getting rid of the other files will ruin the playability of each DVD copy and....those files are so small it will make very little difference in space on the hard drive.

[hello_hello]

Getting rid of the other files will ruin the playability of each DVD copy and....those files are so small it will make very little difference in space on the hard drive.

Re-authoring the ripped files as per my suggestion using DVD Shrink won't ruin their playability, but it does delete the standard DVD menu (I find it hard to believe some people keep the menu by choice) and it'll also only save only the bits you tell it to, including the audio/subtitle streams you want to keep, or not. If there's more than one title on the disc (episodes etc) I think DVD Shrink writes the backup so the player will automatically play them one after the other.
I know it's possibly not a huge space saving to delete audio streams you don't want, but even if it's only a few hundred MBs per rip, it adds up.

[postalmarke]

In answer to whoever asked the question of how many titles I had copied thus far, I only have copied 183 DVDs. Just standard, no HD, no Blu-Ray. That's why I'm shocked that my 2T HD is almost full. I only bought DVD Copy not all the other stuff b/c I didn't think anything else was going to be necessary... now I'm afraid I'm gonna be stuck b/c I can't shrink or compress any of these?


WELL DON'T I FEEL DUMB...I have a 1T external HD not a 2T! I guess why that explains why I'm only getting this many DVDs on it! When I say I'm illiterate I really mean it

[Hoser Rob]

... I thought I would have plenty of room on it but it seems to be filling up ...

One of the oldest lines in computing, that. In fact there's a very old saying in the computer business: data mutiplies to fill any added storage space. Still true.

As was said, the number of files in the dvd folder matters not a bit.

You could use dvd shrink or handbrake and fit more videos on the drive. But unless you have a fast modern machine it's going to take about as long to encode them as it would to watch them. Maybe much longer.

Then you'd be complaining about how long it takes, and how bad the quality is because you clearly don't understand how to use video encoder parameters. Besides, once you start learning how to tweak high quality encoder settings it takes much longer still.

Simply ripping the dvd movies to HD is probably the best solution for people who don't have the knowledge and/or desire to make high quality reencodes, and want a fast solution with good quality. So suck it up. Buy another drive. Each dvd movie can easily take up more than 8Gb.

And take jman's advice. Do not throw away the dvd's after ripping.

[sanlyn]

I don't know where the estimate of 300 or so DVD to 2 TB's comes from (I haven't played with the numbers in detail). But consider that some DVD movies are long, some are short, some issues have extra features, audio commentary tracks, and whatnot. And some DVD issues need to use both layers, some don't. So a quickie calculator gives me about 1.2 TB for 183 DVD's, but don't forget the NTFS work areas/indices that Windows places onto drives; the bigger the drive, the more space Windows uses for this stuff. And you don't want to fill up 100% of an HDD anyway, which would make it unreadable.

I'd echo jman98: If your 2 TB develops a problem, those 183 backups are gone forever.

[hello_hello]

Using the method I outlined earlier (the one I linked to in another thread) you can still open the ripped DVD files with DVD Shrink and resave them to a new location while removing the crud, although probably only if you've kept all the original files which were created when ripping the DVD. As long as they constitute a folder of files which make up a correct DVD Video Structure, DVD Shrink will open the folder and let you re-author the DVD.

[hello_hello]

I don't know where the estimate of 300 or so DVD to 2 TB's comes from (I haven't played with the numbers in detail). But consider that some DVD movies are long, some are short, some issues have extra features, audio commentary tracks, and whatnot. And some DVD issues need to use both layers, some don't. So a quickie calculator gives me about 1.2 TB for 183 DVD's, but don't forget the NTFS work areas/indices that Windows places onto drives; the bigger the drive, the more space Windows uses for this stuff.

300 DVDs per 2TB drive makes them an average of around 6GB per DVD, which I think is similar to your math for 183 DVDs.

And you don't want to fill up 100% of an HDD anyway, which would make it unreadable.

Why? I've filled hard drives completely on numerous occasions without a problem. I've disabled the Windows "running low on disc space" warning because I can live without software stating the obvious at me, but quite often when adding stuff to an external drive I'll just paste everything I want to copy to the drive and let Windows tell me when it's full. If there's not enough space then I'll put what's left to copy on another drive. Maybe if there's an OS on the drive you mightn't want to fill it completely, but when it's just files.....

[postalmarke]

I don't have DVDShrink, I only have DVDCopy. I don't want to have to do this all over again. I'm just gonna buy another HD and be done with it. I'm so disgusted with this whole process. I hate technology If I wasn't downsizing and moving across the country and needing to digitalize all my DVDs I wouldn't be going through this.

If I lose them I lose them...At least I tried... "May the force be with me"

[hello_hello]

I don't have DVDShrink, I only have DVDCopy. I don't want to have to do this all over again. I'm just gonna buy another HD and be done with it.

I'll bite..... then why did you start this thread?

If it helps to ease your level of disgust, I've got twelve 2TB, six 1TB and two 500MB hard drives sitting on my desk. Everything saved to two hard drives. Not a single folder of ripped DVD files to be found on them though.... I re-encode mine.

[postalmarke]

Makes no sense to a technologically deficient person...I have no idea what re-encoding is-all I wanted to do was BU my DVDs to save them digitally and now I come to find our that that's not enough. I guess if something seems simple you really can't trust it...

And to answer your question as to why I started this thread my original question was why my movies were taking up so much room and I don't think anyone really answer that question… Except I did amend one of my posts that I had a 1TB HD instead of 2 TB HD LOL So that kind of explains why it was filling up so quickly.

I appreciate the input, but you guys are really too technical for a newbie -- You really need a section of this forum that is really Super untechnical For people like me to understand

[DB83]

If you simply back up a dvd you are merely transfering every single file that is on the disk. To answer your question why so many files are saved then just look at 'What is a dvd' on the left of the page where you read this reply. So a 4 gig dvd could have as many as 11 files, a 8 gig dvd many more.

Now get your calculator out and divide that 1 TB disk by 4 gig and just see how many disks that can equate to.

As others have pointed out, it is not an efficient way to store your disks but it is your choice so whatever.

[postalmarke]

If you simply back up a dvd you are merely transfering every single file that is on the disk. To answer your question why so many files are saved then just look at 'What is a dvd' on the left of the page where you read this reply. So a 4 gig dvd could have as many as 11 files, a 8 gig dvd many more.

Now get your calculator out and divide that 1 TB disk by 4 gig and just see how many disks that can equate to.

As others have pointed out, it is not an efficient way to store your disks but it is your choice so whatever.

If you have no room to keep massive amounts of DVDS and lg pieces of computer equipment what is the alternative to an ext HD? I'm sorry what am I missing?

[jman98]

postalmarke - One of things that happens around here is that some of our more experienced members try to provide a lot of information to you so you can make an informed decision. It seems to me from reading your responses that we just need to accept that you need to do this quickly and you're probably not really ever going to get to a place where the technical details you are currently drowning in are meaningful to you. So I am going to simplify this for you.

1) If you just want quick, then buy another hard drive and keep doing what you're doing.
2) If you for whatever reason (money or something else) don't want to buy another drive, then you need to learn to do "movie only" rips from your DVDs. This will save you some space and it MIGHT (you'll just have to try it and see) enable you to get by with one hard drive.

[Tom Saurus]

postalmarke: My first suggestion is if your DVD discs are taking up too much room and you want to keep them in less space, buy a Disc Wallet. You can get ones that hold 300 or 400 DVD discs. There have been reports that sometimes discs get damaged in these wallets. So far I haven't experienced any disc damage. If you were going to throw the DVDs away this option allows you to keep them for future use and the DVD wallet doesn't take up much space.

My other comment would be grateful that hard drives have returned to a reasonable price again. I suggest having a copy of each DVD folder on two different drives, in the event that one drive was to fail. In the future you may become more educated on how to take your DVD files and shrink the main movie to .h264 files saving space on hard drives, perhaps fitting 4 to 5 times as many movies in the same amount of space, of course at the sacrifice of a menu. You can learn quite a bit here at videohelp if you search the forum and ask questions.

If you go to the Google Search line at Google and type in "Disc Wallet" and then select "image" you can see all kind of pictures of what Disc Wallets look like. You also might consider getting some hard plastic cases that hold ten DVDs. They take up the space a little bit larger than one VHS cassette tape and they protect your discs quite well. Perhaps you could take all your case art and save it in another container somewhere if that doesn't take too much room.

Here is a link to a DVD wallet:

http://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/cd-dvd-wallet-wallets-328-discs-cd-holders-cd...r-sn12328-blue


There are various brands and merchants that sell CD/DVD wallets.

Here is a link to a hard plastic case that holds ten discs:

http://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/33mm-10-disc-black-dvd-cases-with-4-trays-20-pack

There are various brands and retailers to chose from. Perhaps you could read some reviews to avoid poorely constructed disc wallets or cases.

[postalmarke]

postalmarke: My first suggestion is if your DVD discs are taking up too much room and you want to keep them in less space, buy a Disc Wallet. You can get ones that hold 300 or 400 DVD discs. There have been reports that sometimes discs get damaged in these wallets. So far I haven't experienced any disc damage. If you were going to throw the DVDs away this option allows you to keep them for future use and the DVD wallet doesn't take up much space.

My other comment would be grateful that hard drives have returned to a reasonable price again. I suggest having a copy of each DVD folder on two different drives, in the event that one drive was to fail. In the future you may become more educated on how to take your DVD files and shrink the main movie to .h264 files saving space on hard drives, perhaps fitting 4 to 5 times as many movies in the same amount of space, of course at the sacrifice of a menu. You can learn quite a bit here at videohelp if you search the forum and ask questions.

If you go to the Google Search line at Google and type in "Disc Wallet" and then select "image" you can see all kind of pictures of what Disc Wallets look like. You also might consider getting some hard plastic cases that hold ten DVDs. They take up the space a little bit larger than one VHS cassette tape and they protect your discs quite well. Perhaps you could take all your case art and save it in another container somewhere if that doesn't take too much room.

Here is a link to a DVD wallet:

http://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/cd-dvd-wallet-wallets-328-discs-cd-holders-cd...r-sn12328-blue


There are various brands and merchants that sell CD/DVD wallets.

Here is a link to a hard plastic case that holds ten discs:

http://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/33mm-10-disc-black-dvd-cases-with-4-trays-20-pack

There are various brands and retailers to chose from. Perhaps you could read some reviews to avoid poorely constructed disc wallets or cases.

Thank you thank you thank you... I tried to get my point across that I have no technical skill whatsoever But you're one of the few that has really gotten that. This is one of the times when I really do need to be talked down to LOL. I really wanted to go digital but I will consider the wallet suggestion as well... We are taking so very little with us across the country!

[Tom Saurus]

postalmarke: I am glad the information I provided was of some use to you. I understand the desire to get it all digitized, but if you are in a rush, the DVD Wallets may be of some use for storage and saving some space. Some specs on that DVD Wallet:

The dimensions are 13" inches Tall by 12" inches wide by 7" inches deep.

Organizer holds 328 CDs or 164 CDs with booklets.

So depending on the amount of DVDs you have one or two disc wallets may do the trick. Then after the move you can continue backing the DVDs up to hard drives. The price of hard drives went up considerably back in the fall of 2011 when there was severe flooding in Thailand; thankfully they have finally dropped to around the price they were back then. Also take heart that down the line there are hard drives coming that will have perhaps a ten fold increase or more in capacity. There is talk already about a 1 TB thumb drive; the price is very expensive now, but through time it may be quite affordable.

I understand having limited space available and the hard drives are a good idea.

[theewizard]

a common single layer dvd disc can hold just over 4gb data

new longer movies are on a double layer disc that can hold 8gb

typical new movie NO extra's or previews is over 6gb

100 ripped dvd's equal 400gb > 700gb AKA 0.40 TB > 0.70 TB

as to so many files, those files are all on the DVD, that is the DVD structure
the movies will be in 0.99gb chunks, any where from 3 to 7 chunks/files per movie
called VOB's
the other files make up the indexing structure that provide INFO to the dvd player telling it which file to play next and where to find it

all those 'scene' chapters and images, are part of those indexing files BUP's and IFO's etc

all of it is prexisiting on the DVD

the only way to avoid them is to copy only the 'main movie' (still multiple files) then convert the movie to ONE file, avi .. mp4..xvid..mkv etc...

[DB83]

You know you would have received much more useful responses had you made it clear from the off as to why you wished to put the dvds on to an external HDD ie "I am moving across country and only have limited storage space"

In fact IMHO backing up those disks in this manner is now the worst possible idea. Ever heard of the expression "Putting all your eggs in to one basket" Drop the basket and all your eggs smash or in your case during the removal any sort of accident can happen.

So the suggestion about using wallets makes much more sense but again limit the size to say 100 disks per wallet so if one wallet went missing all not lost. You could even remove the paper covers from the dvds and take those. When you arrive at your new place all you then need are dvd trays and these can be had in bulk and your dvds are back as they were.