Solution Advice requested. Copy several movies at once?

[ehcah]

Hello,

I just built a new Win7 PRO 64 bit PC with an i7-950 processor and 12GB of RAM. For testing, I'm starting with 2 Samsung blu-ray readers. I have a large collection of blu-ray & DVD movies and would like to (rip???) all of them into an ISO format. As I understand it, xbmc is capable of playing ISO files. I am thinking ISO as I don't want to affect the quality of my movies at all. I also want the ability to modify in the future if my needs change. My only point of indecision is if I will copy everything or just movie, audio and chapters? I'll have to figure that out...

My question is... Is there a software out there that will allow me to copy several movies at once? My system has 2 drives in it currently, but I plan to grow to 5 if this works? I've never really played around ripping anything since MP3's many years ago. Any advice on the best product is also appreciated.

ehcah

[Baldrick]

I changed the title so it better describes you problem.

Have you tried any rippers like dvdfab or anydvd?

[ehcah]

Thank you. Based on reading off the main site I am reading about both those products now. DVDFab looks like it can rip to ISO. I can't really tell for sure with SlySoft AnyDVD HD?

I am very new to this whole process. I don't have a clue when it comes to encryption and all that jazz. I was hoping to find 1 product that can do everything. I am going to guess it won't be that simple.

Either way, I'm downloading an eval of DVDFab and hoping that it is fully functioned. From reading, I know lots of people can rip movies 1 at a time. I've got a few hundred of each and want to make short work of the job.

[ehcah]

Update... DVDFab does not allow me to read two blu-ray's at once or have the application open in two separate instances.

[Baldrick]

Anydvdhd can rip to iso , just right click on the anydvd notification tray icon. But I doubt it can rip from two drives though.

[redwudz]

I just tried AnyDVDHD and it can rip from two drives at the same time. I was ripping DVDs, but it will probably work for BDs also.

[ehcah]

Thanks Guys. Do either of you have any idea why the the non registered copy is locking out my drives? Don't get me wrong. Once I find the best solution, I will definitely purchase it. Does the Eval copy have serious limitations?

[redwudz]

I didn't think the eval version had any limitations except for time. My paid version sees all three of my drives, a Asus BD ROM, A Pioneer BD burner and a Sony DVD burner. I usually set it to default to the Asus BD ROM for BD rips, but the other two drives are available for ripping also.

[ehcah]

redwudz: Do you prefer the SlySoft suite to DVDFab? It's just a curiosity question. Until I tried DVDFab, I had assumed it would be the product I would purchase. Now, I'm really not sure? It's possible that the name AnyDVD HD (not blu-ray) put me off? Regardless, they have bundles. Being new at this, do I need other products? I will want to rip Blu-Ray and DVD to ISO. I don't have a clue about encryption, so I'm hoping these products take care of it. The only other nice to have will be finding a way to play my movies on my iPad from my NAS. I believe that would warrant a separate thread though, if I can not find the solution myself. I'm pretty sure these products only compress the original into playable formats. I'm hoping to find a product I can put on my network that will sit between my iPad and NAS to convert/stream on the fly....

[redwudz]

I really haven't tried DVDFab since I purchased AnyDVDHD. Slysoft does keep up with new disc releases really well, especially with BDs. I get updates every couple of weeks. AnyDVD decrypts the disc within a minute or two after you put it in the reader. Then you can rip or convert it to any format.

ISO is not really a format, it's a container, similar to a folder on your computer. I convert my BD discs to MKV most of the time, another container. I use H.264 encoding with it. Then I burn them to dual layer DVD disks for backup if one of the hard drives fail on my video server. I watch my video over a gigbit LAN system from the server.

BD>MKV conversion takes quite a bit of CPU power. It takes me about 5 - 6 hours for most conversions. I use RipBot and do a two pass encode. The quality is very good, IMO. I can also convert the MKV to a regular DVD and still have decent quality.

Last comment. Most BD rips are around 30 - 40GB. The main movie may be as small as 15GB or close to 30GB. That would use up too much HDD space for me. I still retain the original BDs if I want original quality. An ISO of the BD rip will be the same size as the rip, or maybe a small bit larger, so no advantage to me for HDD storage.

[ehcah]

Thank you once again for your reply. After a reboot, AnyDVD recognized both drives without difficulty. My first test was copying Die Another Day to ISO (7.9GB). No problems. Next up, Avatar Blu-ray. I expect it will be a much larger file. I am curious to see how long the process will take. Assuming that your test of 2 DVD's proves true with Blu-ray's also, I will gladly purchase the full license.

I am fortunate in that I have just turned up a new NAS. I went with 2 x 3U, 16 drive chassis's so I can have one replicating to the other. As we all know Raid is isn't a backup, but at least I now have 2 Raid 6 arrays and could theoretically have 2 drives fail in each before I lose data. I have about 11TB (8 x 2TB) of usable space now and have plenty of room for growth. Your numbers on blu-ray copies did surprise me a bit as I had budgeted based on 25TB per every day movie. I still have to decide how much of the actual movie I will keep.

Out of curiosity... If MKV is another container, why chose it over ISO? I see that MKV is a favorite within AV circles.