Need long term plan! Save my DVDs

[Scott Maze]

I have 10 years of home videos on dvd. (Family stuff cant be replaced) A couple are failing. Some are720 and most are 1080p. Thinking I could make ISOs for 125 videos and put them on 4 separate drives for 4 kids to keep for long term. I ripped one to ISO(with DVD decrypter) to external hardrive and usb. Couldn't play the iso through Samsung bluray, or android box, or Samsung smart tv. Then tried to convert the ISO to mp4 with VLC. Still couldnt play on anything. (I discover mp4 is not compatable for Samsung smart tv... but wont play through android box or Samsung bluray??? So I need help with a longterm plan...

#1 goal is keep good quality that is on external drive from DVD sources.

#2 is help deciding what type of file will play where and how...

#3 what will be a long term file that can be converted later as technology changes?

#4??? keep all ISO files on Externals... then burn back to dvd if they fail??? or to new technology ???

Aaaaahhhh? Rrrrrrr....

I don't check email every day but I will follow up!!! Thx

Thanks for all ideas!!!!

[lordsmurf]

Smart TVs are really stupid. Waste of time trying to appease those thnigs.

Rip the ISO for full quality.
But you can also run it through Handbrake for quick-and-dirty streaming conversion.

Do that. Do both.

[lingyi]

If the videos are 720p/i and 1080p, they're not DVD-Video discs , they're data discs. You can just copy and paste the files to your hard drive(s). Assuming you're using a PC, use Teracopy and check verify to make sure your copied files are identical to the original. Your giving each of your four children a copy is a good safety measure, but keep another backup on optical discs or the cloud as hard drives can fail or can be misplaced, though far less likely with four sets.

What format are the files on the disc? Run MediaInfo and post the file details here. Just placing them in a .mp4 or .mkv container for playback without converting.

If you're still having problems with copying the contents of the discs, try ISOPuzzle or ISOBuster which will allow you to make copy of all the readable data on the disc. Don't stop either program if it appears to be frozen, it can take days while they try to recover bad sections of the discs. ISOPuzzle is free and ISOBuster has a free trial, but you'll have to pay $60 to get the full data recovery.

Edit: As lordsmurf stated, the best quality you'll get is keeping the files in their original format. They will always be a way to play/convert the files into a more modern/current format.

Also, currently there are only four archival choices: hard drives, optical discs (DVD or Blu-Ray), Cloud and LTO Tape. LTO Tape is cost effective only for multi tens of terabytes storage because the drives are very expensive ($$$$).

SSDs, flash drives, SD cards, anything that is uses Non-Volatile Memory is not archival yet (and may never be). They're prone to failure without notice and you'll probably lose all your data at once. Data recovery is possible in some cases, but very, very expensive and not guaranteed.

[Scott Maze]

Thank you both for the replies...

I was thinking SSD for external... thanks for that tip...

Sincerely, Scott