DVD Backup Question

[rede96]

I've got 200+ DVD's which I've not backed up. I currently keep them in DVD wallets and use movie label to store the DVD info.
Now I've got my PC set up to my HDTV I wanted to back up my DVD's to a portable hard drive and find some software that I could use to browse and play my DVD's from the portable drive.

The problem is with so many different ways and formats to use I’m a bit unsure of the best way to go.

So could anyone give me any advice on the following:

a) Obviously I am trying to find the best mix for size and quality, however I would like to keep decent quality in case I need to re-burn a DVD. Could anyone advise me on the most suitable format and size to quality ratio. (I know that is a huge question, just looking for some pointers please)

b) With so many DVD’s to back up, I would like a simple program that will be quick and easy to use.

c) Finally, I would like to find a good program that I can use to browse & play my DVD’s from the portable drive.

Any help on the above would be much appreciated.

[lordsmurf]

DVD Shrink to 4.35GB ISO files. Browse alphabetical by filename/movie name. Play ISO files with VLC.

200+ DVDs at that size would fit on a 1.5TB SATA drive (or eSATA drive, or in USB2 enclosure)

[rede96]

DVD Shrink to 4.35GB ISO files. Browse alphabetical by filename/movie name. Play ISO files with VLC.

200+ DVDs at that size would fit on a 1.5TB SATA drive (or eSATA drive, or in USB2 enclosure)

Sounds easy enough, thanks for that.

[neomaine]

rede96,

Lordsmurf (bless his soul, has helped me more times then I can remember...) is a great solution for easy/immediate need to burn to DVDR.

However, I'd offer that since you'll be losing quality anway, sometimes none (single layer) and sometimes alot (full dual layer) you should use an intermediate format if your need to re-burn to DVD isn't to high.

Converting to xvid or h264, though it will take more time, at a constant quality setting (2-3 for divx, 18-20 h264*) will give you nearly as good (for single-layer) and many times better (full dual-layer) than going to DVD5 ISOs, but, at a much smaller file size. I convert my DVDs to divx at CQ2 (Xvid4PSP) with excellent results with movies ranging from 1.3 to 3.8gb.

This would significantly reduce your space needs and give you much more consistent quality accross all movies and provide a more portable format. The caveat, of course, is that you need another conversion back to MPEG2 if you wish to burn to DVDR at a later time. Since you'll still have your originals, there should be less of a need to do so.

Just a thought...


* = I'm guessing at h264 since I haven't used it yet. Others please chime in for similar CQ settings to divx at 2/3. I'm just starting to look at h264 and MKV containers.

[qpskfec]

I'll offer an alternative opinion.

I decided that it's not worth my time to reduce the size of my DVDs.

External hard drives are cheap, so I copied the DVDs. I use 2.5 inch external drives because they are smaller than 3.5 inch drives and do not require an external power supply.

I browse and play with VLC exactly as lordsmurf suggests. (I copied the DVDs as video_ts)

I bought a 500GB for $79 last week. I see a 640GB on sale today at Fry's for $99.

BTW, If you do want to convert, your profile shows you have a PC with a P4 cpu. An old P4 is going to take a long time to convert video, especially to h264.

[rede96]

Thanks for the replies.

Like qpskfec, I didn't want to spend a lot of time re-encoding my DVD's. I've just had a quick re-count and I have about 300+ DVD's in total lying around.

However I also like neomaine's idea of reducing the file size to minimise space. The reason for that is that I wanted to watch DVD's from the PC but also to have my DVD collection portable. That way I shouldn't have to worry about having to re-burn DVD's. At the moment I have two 500GB external drives so if I could get an average of 2GB per DVD I could get 500 DVD's on these.

But if I am going to go down the root of shrinking my DVD's it makes sense to find the smallest file size for the best acceptable quality. This is where I get completely lost!

I can see from reading the guides that are hundreds of ways to do this and everyone has a different opinion. And if I am honest, I didn't really want to invest lots of time in testing / comparing different solutions.

I have a quicker processor now so I guess I will need to do a bit of testing and comparing of results. I’ll start with Xvid4PSP and see how I go on.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[jagabo]

200 movies will likely fit on a 1.5 or 2.0 TB hard drive without any additional compression. I find a lot of movies won't play properly when ripped as full disc ISO images (menu navigation doesn't work). I'd rip as main movie only. For TV episodes I'd rip each episode as a single VOB.

[rede96]

200 movies will likely fit on a 1.5 or 2.0 TB hard drive without any additional compression. I find a lot of movies won't play properly when ripped as full disc ISO images (menu navigation doesn't work). I'd rip as main movie only. For TV episodes I'd rip each episode as a single VOB.

Thanks for that jagabo. I've tried a few other options but couldn't get Xvid4PSP to work and other software such as TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress and DivX Converter was taking to long to re-encode the movies.

So I have opted to go for the ISO method. It only takes DVD shrink about 5 to 10 minutes to rip just the movie. Also, Windows Media Player will play the ISO's so I can play the movies direct from Movie Label 2010, which is great.

Thanks to all again for your help.