Best backup program

[Cracktower]

Hey guys, I have Any DVD and have ripped a lot of movies for my kids being they are really young and I am tired of buying new dvds to replace the ones they broke. I have no problems with it being I am ripping to .iso but I am starting to get tight on disk space. Is there a program that I can use to either convert these .iso images or even rerip the originals (they are all originals) again without losing picture quality? I tried converting to mpeg 4 but the quality drops considerably. If was a pirated copy I guess I could deal with it, but being they are all originals I don't want to compromise. I really don't want to get another HDD being I am going to get an Argosy Media player with a 2tb drive for these movies.

[Baldrick]

You will lose quality by shrinking but you should be able to get very good quality if you convert to h264 in a mp4/mkv and around 1-2GB/movie. What sofware have you tried? I would try handbrake or staxrip.

[Cracktower]

I only used ANY DVD at first and made an .iso file and then played back with daemon tools. My biggest issue here is size. Some of these movies for my children are cartoons that are 8gb+ in some instances. I have refrained from putting any movies on that us adults have being we can take care of these things. I built a movie machine via a new computer with a vid card that supports hdmi 1080p and the thing works great but now my kids (older ones) need a new computer and for the price of a windows liscence (windows 7 ultimate) alone I got an Argosy media player and a 2tb HDD being that is all I use it for is for movies, not internet surfing, so the older kids will get this one and I will use the new one but 8gb+ per disk will fill that new drive up pretty fast. Like I said, I have no issues with the .iso images playing just like the original, but OMG, 8gb for a cartoon??

[PuzZLeR]

Everything you do to decrease the file size will decrease the quality, like Baldrick says, no matter what.

Shrinking can indeed go from 8GB ISO -> 4.7GB ISO but this will visually hurt. Since you have the original DvD, there's no need for DvD compatiblity any more if smaller file size is your objective.

I will also recommend H.264 (which is more efficient than the MPEG-2 on DvD) and HandBrake (a GUI for x264, an H.264 encoder) - a good compromisable setting is CRF ~ 19 to lose a bit of visual quality but great with file size. As well, deinterlace or IVTC (where applicable) and use AAC audio.

You can experiment with CRF if you like - the higher the number, the smaller the quality and file size - as small as you and/or your kids can accept. I personally prefer ~18.

Another option is DivX (6.x)/Xvid. Not as efficient as H.264 but can do an adequate job - lots of tools here from the novice to the advanced. I prefer VirtualDub. Again, deinterlace and use a different audio codec (such as MP3 in this case).

Note: DivX is not listed in the Argosy's specs. License issues? Perhaps. However, if it plays Xvid, then you shouldn't have a problem with DivX.

[Cracktower]

I guess I will just have to live with the huge file sizes and keep it at .iso. I know argosy supports it. Now to find a program to edit the .iso images to take out all the useless stuff like languages and subtitles. I might sweak out some gb's that way. Anyone got any suggestions?

[classfour]

Did you include the extras on the original rips? Leaving those out sometimes will cut the size to half.

[Cracktower]

Did you include the extras on the original rips? Leaving those out sometimes will cut the size to half.

Yeah, when I first started using the program it let me kick out some stuff but it also created a lot of misreads which in turn meant a lot of time wasted re-ripping using the default settings. Under the default settings I have only run into 2 disks that wouldn't image properly, and I would contribute it to the disks being scratched (whole reason for me doing this) rather than blaming the software. So if anyone has a good program for editing afterwards that would be great, I give up on the shrinking thing being the quality won't be the same, but if I can get rid of all the junk that won't effect the performance of the movies, that would be great.

Thanks in advance guys...