DVD-R backup to external USB

[jay1028]

I have about 60 DVD-R that were made from family tapes. I would like to put these DVDs on an external usb as a backup (like maybe a folder for each DVD) on like a My Book or Essentials. How would I do this?

Thanks

[usually_quiet]

I have about 60 DVD-R that were made from family tapes. I would like to put these DVDs on an external usb as a backup (like maybe a folder for each DVD) on like a My Book or Essentials. How would I do this?

Thanks

If you want to retain the menus and be able to easily burn a new DVD from the backup, you could use ImgBurn to create a disc image (ISO) in a folder on your backup drive.

[orsetto]

I'd agree with usually_quiet: use ImgBurn to create ISOs of each DVD-R, or simply copy the VIDEO_TS folder from each DVD-R into a new folder on the USB drive (i.e. copy the VIDEO_TS folder from "Grandma's 8oth Birthday" dvd to a new folder named "Grandma's 80th Birthday" on your USB drive, giving you a folder within a folder). ISOs or VIDEO_TS folders preserve the original DVD layout, menu and video quality and are playable on most software dvd players you connect to your USB drive. Making another DVD copy later on is as simple as burning the ISO or VIDEO_TS folder to a new blank disc.

Once you have these dvd-format rips on your USB drive, its simple enough to use conversion software to create universal video files (mkv, mp4, m4v, whatever) for playback on smartphones, tablets, etc. These files can be smaller or lower quality, as needed for the devices you expect to play them on.

A lot of members here don't keep the ISO or VIDEO_TS folders after they rip the dvds and convert to a more standard video file that doesn't require a software DVD player. They prefer to archive somewhat smaller universal video files, and discard the 4GB original DVD rips. While this can work great for commercial Hollywood dvds, I don't recommend it for DVD-Rs that were dubbed from VHS or Beta to a DVD recorder. Something funky happens during the conversion from VHS to DVD-R that doesn't always look right when you convert such DVD-Rs to some other format. You might find, for example, that an mkv or avi made from such a dvd looks noticeably worse than the original DVD-R. Even a straight-across lossless rip to mpg file format can look peculiar, with artifacts that don't happen when the same files on ISO or VIDEO_TS rips are played using a software dvd player.

Why this occurs with dvds made from tape dubs, but not with dvds made from TV broadcasts (or commercial Hollywood dvds), I've never figured out. YMMV: keep the ISO or VIDEO_TS files on your USB drive until you are quite sure you like any further conversions you might make. Your 60 DVD-Rs would take up approx 240GB of hdd storage as ISOs or VIDEO_TS, not unreasonable in an age where the smallest easily-available portable hard drives are 500GB (and one routinely sees terabyte drives on sale for under $100). Note the portable "My Passport" type of USB powered HDDs are viewed with suspicion by many archivists: they're convenient for day-to-day use but may not be reliable for long-term storage. If you don't plan to move the HDD around much or take it out of the house, consider a larger, slightly more expensive AC-powered hdd which doesn't rely on the USB connection for anything but data transfer. And hold on to the original DVD-Rs.

[jay1028]

Thanks for the info . I have Imgburn and never thought of creating ISOs from the DVDs. Greta idea and easy.

And I do intend to get the larger 3.5" format size My Book that runs of AC. I don't like those self powered USB drives. I sometimes have problems getting them to spin up. Sometimes I have to reboot to get some of them to work. I use the TYG02 DVDs but you never know when something will go bad, I keep all the original VHS-C, 8mm and MiniDV tapes. They take up a lot of room in a dedicated cabinet in the house but I wouldn't think of getting rid of them.

[hech54]

Creating ISOs from DVDs is better

I am not familiar with using ISO

What?!

[Cornucopia]

He means: you may not know this (because of translation) but what you are saying is contradicting yourself in the same sentence, so you aren't making any sense. That was my take on it, at least.

IOW,
How would you know "creating ISOs from DVD is better" (or from anything is better) if you aren't really familiar with using ISO? That's like me commenting on brain surgery technique from a layperson's perspective - why would my opinion matter in the least (no basis)!?

So again, WHAT?!

Scott

[jay1028]

One last question. In the early days (2003) I didn't know any better, I used Philips, CMC Mag 01 discs. Checked them with DiscSpeed with my Liteon burner and they have more errors than I have seen (P1 700s), but they still play OK on a standalone player. What should I do with them? Rip them and burn a new dvd and make an ISO from the new rip? Will that take care of the errors or just transfer all the bad data to the new copy and ISO?

[usually_quiet]

One last question. In the early days (2003) I didn't know any better, I used Philips, CMC Mag 01 discs. Checked them with DiscSpeed with my Liteon burner and they have more errors than I have seen (P1 700s), but they still play OK on a standalone player. What should I do with them? Rip them and burn a new dvd and make an ISO from the new rip? Will that take care of the errors or just transfer all the bad data to the new copy and ISO?

As long the DVDs are still playing OK, chances are the read errors you are finding with the scan won't prevent you from recovering the data from these discs. Try creating an ISO from one of the problem DVDs, and then burn a new copy from the ISO. All you have to loose is one DVD and a little of your time.

[Cornucopia]

@matthru, who knows what your interpretation of "standard videos" means, but yes, an ISO is a 1:1 disc IMAGE of the source disc (files, folders, sectors, byte ordering and all). An ISO will retain all of an original (non-encrypted) DVD's features. However, ISOs aren't playable in the WIDEST range of devices, as is. It needs to be mounted and/or parsed to get at the DVD-Video's *.VOB & *.IFO material which is where the title resides.
And if you are just looking for a "movie-only" experience, it is fairly trivial to extract an MPG of the main movie from the disc, ISO, or VOBs+IFOs. These will still contain just MPEG2 video + AC3/LPCM/DTS/MP2 audio (and possibly subs). Again, this is NOT universally playable as is.

What most people consider to be a widely supported movie-only format would be a AVC+AAC-in-MP4 type of file (there is a range of capabilities even here, so YMMV), or possibly in MKV. This would require a re-encode with some accompanying loss of quality. But that's what you'd get for convenience.

********************

@jay1028, I agree with usually_quiet: Use something like ISOBuster to copy/rip the data to HDD, and keep on HDD or burn to a new disc. It seems your best bet at navigating the read errors. As long as read errors are Recoverable by the EDC/ECC, you should get back un-corrupted data.

Scott