Backup up home movies to hard drive

[spcchap]

Hello,

I have about 60 home movies on DVD. They were originally on VHS but were converted to DVD. I bought a 1.5TB hard drive that I want to store digital copies of these movies on. This will protect me against discs going bad. Here's what I have been doing so far. I have done about half of them this way:

I put in the DVD into my computer. I copy the entire VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD to the appropriate folder on my hard drive. I can watch the individual .VOB files using VLC. I have also used the VIDEO_TS files on the hard drive to burn a new DVD, which worked fine.

Is this the best way? I'm not ripping or anything, just straight copying the files. I have heard of some using .ISOs for this. Any advantages or disadvantages of each?

Thanks in advance!

[_Al_]

ISO's approach might be good for somebody to keep just one neat file and menu is included in it and they have media players that support ISo's playback (Popcorn, Dune and such)

I still back up old fashioned way I guess, no recompression but no menu:

-PGCDemux gets title streams I want and I check possible A/V delay,
-Vsrip gets idx/sub subtitles
-muxed all streams into mkv (with possible A/V delay input if any, I guess home made videos do not have delay)

or you might check Makemkv that makes one mkv file out of your dvd, no recompression, no menu also

[brassplyer]

What protects you against the hard drive going bad? How about also backing up the DVD's on Blu-Ray and make multiple copies on more than one brand? And also making VHS copies and storing them well.

It seems no medium is foolproof. Commercial pressed optical disks are probably the most long-lived but unless you have really deep pockets not feasible.

[hech54]

ISO's approach might be good for somebody to keep just one neat file and menu is included in it and they have media players that support ISo's playback (Popcorn, Dune and such)

I still back up old fashioned way I guess, no recompression but no menu:

-PGCDemux gets title streams I want and I check possible A/V delay,
-Vsrip gets idx/sub subtitles
-muxed all streams into mkv (with possible A/V delay input if any, I guess home made videos do not have delay)

or you might check Makemkv that makes one mkv file out of your dvd, no recompression, no menu also

I'm sorry but that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. All of those "high learning curve" programs just to backup
home-made DVD?
Absurd.

[_Al_]

Calm down here, he can load ifo into PGCDemux and then load demuxed streams into mkvmerge. That is that ridiculous thing you refer to?

I use subtitles even in my DVD's so why not, I do not care, all it is free, reliable not asking me about some new download like makemkv

makemkv works also, Vob2mpeg also, but I prefer mkv for seeking superiority with various players ...

What's wrong with my statement about ISO?

[Steve(MS)]

Why do any demuxing or change to mkv or ISO?
Potplayer and MPC will open the file and play entire movie folder, if you already have them copied to hard drive and you are going to use computer media player. (main movie)
VLC may be able to do this also.

Most hardware media players will play mpg files so if that is used, vob2mpg is all you need.

[manono]

I can watch the individual .VOB files using VLC.

Potplayer and MPC will open the file and play entire movie folder...

I was wondering about that too. Why play VOBs when you can play the DVD, menus and all?

[spcchap]

Thanks for the replies! I am not worried about menus at all. These are just straight VHS -> DVD home movies. What would I gain from using a special program to rip these to my hard drive? The copying seems to work okay, I just want to make sure there are no pitfalls to doing it this way. I like the idea of .ISO files. That would not only make things neater (one file instead of 10 or so), but would make playback easier from the hard drive (i.e., load one file instead of multiple .VOBs). Anyone else just copy over the VIDEO_TS folder and be done with it?

Also, I do plan on getting a blu-ray burner and making extra backups. Plus, when I am finished copying everything to this hard drive, I am going to clone the drive and keep it off-site somewhere, bringing it out once every few months to copy new home videos to it. That should be pretty sufficient, I think. Original VHS, DVD (multiple copies stored separately), Blue-ray (multiple copies stored separately), hard drive (multiple copies stored separately).

Thanks again!

[manono]

I am not worried about menus at all. These are just straight VHS -> DVD home movies.

The point I (and I think Steve(MS) as well) was making was that playing VOBs is kind of pointless when you can play the DVD. That way you'll go smoothly from VOB to VOB, rather than having to click on each VOB in turn.

[_Al_]

There is no win win solution, VIDEO_TS copy is fast one click solution, but what kind of server today can transfer VIDEO_TS folder for example ?

If you look ahead , decade or so, we will serve video from storage to gadgets around us. Live transcoding will take care of that, any gadget gets what it needs. It is much easier to serve just one file then VIDEO_TS folder, find the movie in it etc, not sure if server like this even exists.

[Steve(MS)]

spcchap, it is up to you what you decide to do.
ISO is one file but computer media players will open your VIDEO_TS folder....you can use open dvd files in potplayer and it will play whatever is in folder.
With MPC, use open dvd then point to your whatever your movie folder and it will play contents.
I am fairly sure VLC will open movie folder and play contents as well.
If you have already done a bunch as you describe, I would just leave them as they are.

[aedipuss]

since there is no menu to begin with i'd use vob2mpg and remove the mpg from the vob containers into one .mpg file. that way you could name the files by what they are i.e. - beach.8.23.1990.mpg

[manono]

It's a good idea, making it into MPG, but there's no reason at all a folder has to be named as VIDEO_TS since it's not the VIDEO_TS that gets clicked, but an IFO inside of it. I have plenty of DVDs on the hard drive inside of folders with names other than VIDEO_TS and MPC-HC plays them just fine as DVDs. You can give the folder the name of the video as described just above, if you wish, to make identifying the contents easier. I do agree though, that having a single MPG named after the video could make life a little easier. But, if there are multiple audio streams, subtitles, chapters, extras, as in retail DVDs, all that is lost. Yes, these are home movies on DVD, but who's to say he won't want to put some retail DVDs in there as well? And even these home movies might have chapters, or could have chapters if he wanted.

And if you can have multiple audio streams inside of an MPG, remove that from my list.

[_Al_]

He might loose DVD navigation features while playing it with some hardware players (chapters, VOB's are not played subsequently without interruption) if he changes VIDEO_TS to some other name.

[manono]

Right, good point. I don't own one of those boxes to test. spcchap only mentioned playing them from a hard drive, but he might get a WDTV Live or similar in the future.

[Steve(MS)]

Well put the VIDEO_TS in another folder and name outside folder whatever you want.

Its according to what the OP wants to do.
He can copy to hard drive using imgburn....I think it would make an iso if that what he wants.
Imgburn will also copy it in folder form.....
dvdfab will copy entire or main movie to hard drive.
Or use vob2mpg and copy disc to hard drive with the resultant being mpg.
Vob2mpg can take movie folder on hard drive and output to mpg.