Backing up HD DVD

[captainzog]

I bought a load of HD DVD's when the price crashed, and also a HD DVD player. I am bit concerned about what might happen if, or more likely when, the player fails. I know there are some HD DVD Rom's available, so I wonder if anyone can advise me as to which software I can use to rip them to my HDD. I have an XP computer with a 2.6 Ghz P4 processor. and 1 Gbyte of RAM. I intend to upgrade my graphics card for one with an HDMI out. I don't do any gaming, so any suggestions on what sort of spec a replacement card should have, would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance.
Pete

[wulf109]

The problem is you need a DVD-ROM capable of ripping them. Their no longer made. LG made drives that could rip HD-DVD,you might find one on ebay. There is one made for the Xbox which can used on any compter to rip them,but again it's no longer available. I had one but it died. I have two LG's that can rip HD-DVD. Anydvd will rip them. Ripbot or TSmuxer can convert them to Blueray. I converted all my HD-DVD's to Blueray and don't use my HD-DVD players,although there excellent for upconverting SD DVD's.

[captainzog]

Thank you for your prompt answer to my question. I can see a few on ebay etc for less than thirty pounds. My son has a Toshiba laptop which has a HD DVD drive on it, so I'll "borrow" his and try one of the rippers you suggest. I'm not sure about converting them to Bluray, I just want to be able to stream them to a media player, so ripping will do it. I will then want to convert to AVI or MKV if possible.

Thanks again
Pete

[wulf109]

HD-DVD's use EVO files to store the movie. EVO files have almost zero support in software players. You'll probably have to convert them to mp4 or divx to stream them.

[dragonkeeper]

HD-DVD's use EVO files to store the movie. EVO files have almost zero support in software players. You'll probably have to convert them to mp4 or divx to stream them.

This is true, most of if not all of the software players removed HD-DVD support. You're better off converting to Blu-ray, and burn the blu-ray disk.
You can keep a copy of the file and convert to MT2S or what ever your choice may be if you want to stream from your hard drive.

There are several reasons I recommend this is:
1. What if you do manage to find a software player, it's just a matter of time before they drop support as well.
2. If you have a hard drive failure you will have to re-rip the movie and as you have already stated you yourself stated you don't have a device to rip the movies. Your son's laptop must be 2-3 years old, it won't be long before he buying a newer model. At that point you may no longer have access to a HD-DVD drive.
3. The blu-ray disk you burn is portable you can play it anywhere in the house you have a BD player. And the copy will more than likely out live the hard drive you ripped your HD-DVDs to.

[captainzog]

HD-DVD's use EVO files to store the movie. EVO files have almost zero support in software players. You'll probably have to convert them to mp4 or divx to stream them.

This is true, most of if not all of the software players removed HD-DVD support. You're better off converting to Blu-ray, and burn the blu-ray disk.
You can keep a copy of the file and convert to MT2S or what ever your choice may be if you want to stream from your hard drive.

There are several reasons I recommend this is:
1. What if you do manage to find a software player, it's just a matter of time before they drop support as well.
2. If you have a hard drive failure you will have to re-rip the movie and as you have already stated you yourself stated you don't have a device to rip the movies. Your son's laptop must be 2-3 years old, it won't be long before he buying a newer model. At that point you may no longer have access to a HD-DVD drive.
3. The blu-ray disk you burn is portable you can play it anywhere in the house you have a BD player. And the copy will more than likely out live the hard drive you ripped your HD-DVDs to.

I usually back up my HDD regularly, so a failure would not be catastrophic.

I have just been given an old Toshiba laptop with a HD DVD drive which works so I am going to give that a whirl. I have about forty HD DVD's and I intend to rip them all so as long as the machine lasts for a few days, I'll be quite happy.

If I use one of the programs suggested, what format will the resulting file be? If its going to be Bluray, I'll either burn Bluray discs or maybe convert them into MKV etc. I suppose the portability of a Blu-ray disc needs to be considered, and if the extra cost is reasonable, I should go along that route. I have not kept up with the price of Blu-ray media, but I will look as soon as I've posted this.

Thanks again for all the info that has been posted.

Cheers
Pete

[jman98]

captainzog - I want to be sure you understand this. You probably do, so no offense intended. I'm just trying to be sure there is no misunderstanding on your part.

There's no way to backup HD DVD and preserve the menus and extras in converting to BluRay, so people here are just talking about you ripping the disc and converting the main movie only. You could convert each of the extras to some other format if you wish but there's no way to convert HD DVD menus to BluRay menus.

[dragonkeeper]

captainzog- to the best of my knowledge jrman is absolutely correct.

While you can rip the the HD-DVD to your hard drive and leave it in that format its a dead format. There will be no further development for tools to work with the format. Currently there few tools avaiable that allow you to convert from HD-DVD to blu-ray and fewer guides detailing the process. IMHO if you fail to do a format conversion soon you may be left with very few options if you decide to do it later. A i believe the majority of HD-DVD titles can be converted to blu-ray or MT2S files with out re-encoding. Thus keeping the original video and sound quality.

And if you're up for the challenge you can take the video assets of you r menu and re-author a an HD-DVD to blu-ray. Thus you have all the content in tact the only thing that will differ is buttons overlays etc. I did it with the first HD-DVD disk i purchased (Transformers) as an experiment using Encore CS4. I rather quite like the result, albeit it was a bit of a chore.

TO answer you other question: Once ripped to the hd the files will be in the evo format, I believe you can use TSmuxer to re-mux the files to bu-ray.

[captainzog]

I'm not really knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of any of the formats that we watch video on. I have a basic understanding the multiplexing process where the video and audio streams are, I think, time divided.

I only want to rip the main movie, not to bothered about menus, subs or any additional audio tracks.

I am using the Tosh' laptop at the moment and I think the best thing for me to do is to download some software and try it.

Thanks again all, and don't worry about causing any offense, when none is meant, I prefer to be treated as a newbie, because that's what I am.

Cheers
Pete

[dragonkeeper]

By the way anydvd comes with a fully functional 21 day trial, that should ample time to rip 40 HD-DVD movies. I just went through the process of converting about a third of my HD-DVD disk, the rest are siting on my hard drive waiting to be done. I found any DVD tsmuxer to be invaluable in the process. Just make sure you have plenty hard drive space, movie only on my disk ranged from 12GB - 23GB. Almost filled an 1TB hard drive.

[wulf109]

I also used TSmuxer to convert HD-DVD collection to BR. And as you point out they will all fit on a BDR once processed thru TSmuxer. The one downside was it didn't preserve the correct chapter stops,so I used EVOdemux to get a list of the chapter stops and typed them into TSmuxer manually.

[captainzog]

I think I am there!

Lifted a small sample from Troy and used tsMuxeR to change format. I then navigated to the Stream folder, and after trying a a few players, VLC, GOM and DAPlayer which gave me no audio, I had success with Medial Player Classic. I cannot check the sound synch yet as the track I ripped is a video with a spoken sound track. I'm now going to try a complete DVD and see how I get on.

Thanks guys
Pete

[dragonkeeper]

Congrats!!! I use to use zoom then found VLC to fit my needs better. MPC-HC is now my player of choice.

[wulf109]

Arcsoft TMT3 still supports HD-DVD playback.