Backing up DVD / blu ray & CD collection?

[Technique]

After briefly reading about this recently i've a feeling it'll be more suited to this forum rather than the hardware forum although if a mod disagrees then feel free to move it.

 

Basically i have a lot of DVDs and a few blu ray discs. It got to the stage where i had to get one of those 200 disc wallet things as the cases were taking up so much room. I've had to do the same with my albums also. I've wondered recently about storing this stuff digitally. Not to try make profit out of the discs as i don't think i'd let them go tbh. It's just options i'm going over.

 

What i would want to do if i did back up digitally is back up the discs with NO LOSS of picture/sound quality whatsoever. I would also at the very least want to retain the option of subtitles (preferably the entire menu system including extras - so it'd be like having the disc, just on some sort of digital media). I'm not sure how many DVDs i have but i'm guessing it'll be in the 200-300 region and that's after getting rid of a load i wont watch again.

 

And then there's my music collection. Not quite sure what bitrate i'd need to rip at to avoid loss. Can the average person hear the difference between 192 & 256 for example? I can once you start dropping down to 128 tbh.

 

 

I've read about possibilities of being able to access what is stored to this while you're away from your home, so i guess that must need to be connected to the router, although if that requires an ongoing subscription then that's a no-no for me. I'm ok with shelling out an initial cost but not an ongoing cost.

 

I have a Windows 7 64bit PC with 2 drives, 1 being a blu ray drive & the other a standard DVD drive. No ripping software as yet.

 

 

As far as the movies goes, I would only be watching them on the TV in the living room (which is connected to the router via cat6 cable). My wife may wish to watch things on her iPad if that's even possible but i'd only be interested in watching movies on a proper TV.

 

 

This idea is just in the early stages for me and could easily get benched. I'm just looking for feedback from the knowledgeable people on here. Is this even worth it as an idea?

[xendrome]

The amount of time and storage space needed is going to cost you more in money then just buying a 2nd copy of each disk and storing them somewhere secure..

[Brandon H Supervisor]

what are your computer specs? if they're decent you should be able to rip everything without issue.

 

As Xendrome mentioned though backing up that much will need a LOT of space so I hope you have a couple TB drives available.

 

You'll need 2 apps for the backup

 

1. DVDFab Passkey Lite - this will disable the security encryption on the discs so they can be ripped; the free version works plenty well as long as the movie hasn't JUST been released.
2. Handbreak - Use this to rip the actual movies. Rip to .MKV format and you can have the subtitles embedded and toggle-able. (This is what I've done to backup my Anime )

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Also could use makemkv ... which is what I use for ripping Blu-ray's/DVDs. It just copies the media and places it in a mkv container... unaltered.

 

With respect to storing them in the cloud...ooof. BackBlaze offers unlimited storage/unlimited file size ... but I'm not sure if you can send them a HDD with all the files since uploading, what will become terabytes, would be brutally inefficient/slow.  Uploading just one Blu-ray rip would probably be daunting (depending on your internet upload speeds).

 

Google music offers 50k music uploads which is where my collection resides. I just use iTunes to rip/manage my music collection and have Google music pointed to the iTunes media folder for synchronization. Though you may not be able to tell the difference...I use 320k.

 

Large capacity HDDs are cheap ... so you can store them locally and make a copy on another HDD. Drop the Blu-ray's off at a friend's house for off-site storage in case the house burns down.

[Technique]

It's an 8 year old PC now.

2.6Ghz AMD Athlon Phenom 2

256GB SSD which has the OS on

16GB Corsair RAM

Nvidia GeForce 1GB graphics (forget the model number).

 

Anything else?

 

What sort of capacity are we talking here? I wouldn't be looking to do it all in an afternoon if that's what you think lol

[Xenon]

If you just want backup:

 

For off site storage I would use Amazon Glacier. Its great for things that you don't have to access that often and its cheap. But read the web site. There are a few things that you should know about.

 

https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/

 

Here is a intro video to the service

 

 

And a price calculator.

 

 https://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/

Edited November 1, 2018 by Xenon

[sc302 Veteran]

Yes you are going to need a lot of space to back that up.  Assume 5GB per DVD, 25GB per bluray HD, 50-100GB per UHD bluray.  200x5 for DVDs would be 1TB, so not horrible...the blurays will add up much faster.

 

This will allow you to back them up loss less and take out the security encryption

https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html

 

Plex has an unlimited subscription for around $120 (one time fee vs $5 per month or $40 a year), this will allow you to view on the go as long as you have an internet connection.  

 

 

 

[Technique]

16 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Yes you are going to need a lot of space to back that up.  Assume 5GB per DVD, 25GB per bluray HD, 50-100GB per UHD bluray.  200x5 for DVDs would be 1TB, so not horrible...the blurays will add up much faster.

 

This will allow you to back them up loss less and take out the security encryption

https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html

 

Plex has an unlimited subscription for around $120 (one time fee vs $5 per month or $40 a year), this will allow you to view on the go as long as you have an internet connection.  

 

 

 

I don't actually have a lot of blu rays to be honest. I'd be surprised if i have 10. 5-7 would be a better guess i'd say. I only buy blu rays if their price isn't massively more than the DVD version at the time.

 

 

Regards uploading to some cloud (i still find that phrase rather weird) my upload speed is only 9Mb so i think we'd have a problem.

[sc302 Veteran]

Technically it isn't a cloud, you are utilizing your server and there is a middleman that your server communicates with to provide video to other devices on your account.  If local, there is no video traffic going out.  9MB isn't too bad, streaming to one device at best.  It will degrade or increase quality as needed based on available bandwidth.  

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

It's not actually hard at all to make a lossless backup of a DVD or Blu-ray. Install MakeMKV and it will dump you a lossless mkv containing the video track, audio tracks in the languages you specify and any subtitles which are present. As your not re encoding anything this shouldn't take too long per disc and you could even have multiple discs dumping at the same time if you had multiple drives in your machine, or another machine to also dump your collection from.

 

If you think a DVD is around 8.5gb * 300 DVD's thats around 2.55tb for all your DVD's, which is nothing these days.

 

Blu-ray movies will be 25gb for 1080p or up to 100gb for 4K... so thats where you will start requiring vast amounts of space to store them as a lossless file.

 

Ideally you would want to store these on a NAS loaded with large 4tb (or larger) hard drives, you can then use Plex to stream them to all sorts of devices, or something even like Kodi.

[Technique]

Out of interest how would the menu system actually work?

 

Like i say, my TV is cabled to the router so it at least has internet access. Let's take the round figure of 200 (movies). Do i just access it through some menu on the TV and it's a large list of movies which it then accesses?

 

I like to understand how things work before i jump in. Right now i've never heard of Plex and my experience of Kodi is probably one we shouldn't discuss here. I just recently saw the term "NAS" which i take to be basically a large hard drive? Although some images i've seen look like multiple hard drives within a case.

 

I understand the ripping software part of it. Horses for courses - so just depends which software is your preferred one.

[sc302 Veteran]

NAS= network attached storage. 

 

Many nas devices run run a Linux based os on the back end. 

 

PLEX - many routers and NAS devices have the capability of running this and may even include it as part of the firmware.     You can also run this server from windows and a Linux system. It is essentially how devices interact with the library you have of shows, movies, and music.  It has a friendly easy to use interface to be able to play your media.   They have coded the PLEX app for many smart devices (TVs, streaming sticks, roku boxes, Android, Apple iOS, etc) which will interact with your PLEX server.    The streaming quality is quite good.  It also can work with a standard desktop browser. 

 

Kodi is the unheard of distant cousin of PLEX.  Streams from internet servers but is slow.  It is a favorite among initial cord cutters who talk to geeks.  Nowhere near as widely supported or backed as PLEX. PLEX is like a Mercedes where it is known and back by a lot if investors,. Kodi is like a DeLorean that still gets updates, backed by no one. 

[+BudMan MVC]

18 hours ago, Technique said:

I only buy blu rays if their price isn't massively more than the DVD version at the time.

But then you say quality is of concern?  Why would you do this - DVD quality is HORRIBLE...  Its 480p -- guess ok to watch on some tablet or your phone...  But your watching these on a modern big screen TV?  Uggghhh

 

Plex is not going to work on some 8 year old PC if you need to transcode your stored content to play on the device your wanting to play it on..  DirectPlay or Stream might work.. But sure you could use it as just a nas (storage) for some player.. 

 

I run plex on nas currently synology ds918+ it doesn't have any problems transcoding stuff it has to transcode - but I also tend to make sure stuff will directplay... Handbrake will be your friend in working with media.. The also mentioned makemkv is fantastic for pulling your media off your disks.. Grabbed some TV shows this way off dvd..

 

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

14 hours ago, sc302 said:

Kodi is the unheard of distant cousin of PLEX.  Streams from internet servers but is slow.  It is a favorite among initial cord cutters who talk to geeks.  Nowhere near as widely supported or backed as PLEX. PLEX is like a Mercedes where it is known and back by a lot if investors,. Kodi is like a DeLorean that still gets updates, backed by no one. 

I think that's a little unfair.

[sc302 Veteran]

3 hours ago, Human.Online said:

I think that's a little unfair.

If it takes longer than 10 seconds to bring up content it has lost my interest.  10 seconds...f this try a different server, 10 seconds, f this try a different server, repeat this 15 more times...f this it isn’t worth it, put it in the corner and let it collect dust never to be seen from or heard of again.  Lots of “channels”, all suck. 

 

Buy a sub to vaderstreams and you get fast transition between tv channels. All others are fast to instantaneous. Kodi blows, if I wanted to stream Batman begins I would still be waiting for it to start if I tried to start it a year ago.

 

There are better apps out there. I have wasted enough of my life trying performance tweaks to get it to function even a quarter of the speed as a paid for service...6 months of my life I can’t get back. Not to mention, more and more restrictions and throttling on kodi streaming. 

 

You might say that you need to know where to find the private channels....that is my point of being backed by no one. If they were backed it wouldn’t be a private channel to get decent content.  Can you load kodi on most smart devices?  No?  Either too lazy to code or manufactures don’t want it on their systems....droid based systems, windows or nix only. Lots of smart TVs, Rokus, Apple devices, Blu-ray smart systems, etc Can’t load kodi due to lack of app. 

 

Kodi essentually has no backers. I don’t know of one device that PLEX hasn’t coded an app for or a way to play content ....I have it on all of my tablets, phones, smart devices, and computers.  

 

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

22 hours ago, sc302 said:

I have it on all of my tablets, phones, smart devices, and computers.  

As can be said for Kodi!?

[Technique]

On 11/2/2018 at 10:35 AM, BudMan said:

But then you say quality is of concern?  Why would you do this - DVD quality is HORRIBLE...  Its 480p -- guess ok to watch on some tablet or your phone...  But your watching these on a modern big screen TV?  Uggghhh

 

Plex is not going to work on some 8 year old PC if you need to transcode your stored content to play on the device your wanting to play it on..  DirectPlay or Stream might work.. But sure you could use it as just a nas (storage) for some player.. 

 

I run plex on nas currently synology ds918+ it doesn't have any problems transcoding stuff it has to transcode - but I also tend to make sure stuff will directplay... Handbrake will be your friend in working with media.. The also mentioned makemkv is fantastic for pulling your media off your disks.. Grabbed some TV shows this way off dvd..

 

 

Seriously?

 

I know it's all opinion based and i know you're older than me so I don't know how you can say DVD quality is "horrible". Yes it's not as good as blu ray, but "horrible"? VHS that has been left for the tape to go a bit damp & mouldy - that is horrible. A DVD?

And 480p? Is it really? I'm not trying to dispute that by the way. I've seen what is supposedly 480p videos on YouTube and I think the DVDs i see look better quality. I don't have a DVD where i'm like, damn this is a real horrible viewing experience, the picture is so awful.

 

I do say quality is of concern. I wouldn't want to go worse than what the DVDs & blu rays have but i'm happy with what they do have.

 

 

 

Anyway...

 

The more i think about this the more i think it may be worth the time and effort put in to it, not just from a DVD backup viewpoint but a DVD backup combined with my entire music collection viewpoint. I've searched for this "NAS" thing and i see different images. For example...

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/656835-wd-red-6tb-3-5-sata-nas-hard-drive-wd60efrx

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Enterprise-Storage/cat/Network-Attached-Storage

 

Now i get it that the first link is an actual drive whereas the 2nd link is an enclosure. Do you need the enclosure AND the drive or just the drive? Is it better with an enclosure so that it's away from your actual PC for example?

 

I also get that the higher the capacity the dearer the drive (i'm sure there's more to it than that with different brands and other factors in the mix) but what about the enclosures? What would determine a good one from a bad one? A suitable one from an unsuitable one from a suitable but ridiculously overkill one?

 

 

[adrynalyne]

4 minutes ago, Technique said:

Seriously?

 

I know it's all opinion based and i know you're older than me so I don't know how you can say DVD quality is "horrible". Yes it's not as good as blu ray, but "horrible"? VHS that has been left for the tape to go a bit damp & mouldy - that is horrible. A DVD?

And 480p? Is it really? I'm not trying to dispute that by the way. I've seen what is supposedly 480p videos on YouTube and I think the DVDs i see look better quality. I don't have a DVD where i'm like, damn this is a real horrible viewing experience, the picture is so awful.

 

I do say quality is of concern. I wouldn't want to go worse than what the DVDs & blu rays have but i'm happy with what they do have.

 

 

 

Anyway...

 

The more i think about this the more i think it may be worth the time and effort put in to it, not just from a DVD backup viewpoint but a DVD backup combined with my entire music collection viewpoint. I've searched for this "NAS" thing and i see different images. For example...

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/656835-wd-red-6tb-3-5-sata-nas-hard-drive-wd60efrx

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Enterprise-Storage/cat/Network-Attached-Storage

 

Now i get it that the first link is an actual drive whereas the 2nd link is an enclosure. Do you need the enclosure AND the drive or just the drive? Is it better with an enclosure so that it's away from your actual PC for example?

 

I also get that the higher the capacity the dearer the drive (i'm sure there's more to it than that with different brands and other factors in the mix) but what about the enclosures? What would determine a good one from a bad one? A suitable one from an unsuitable one from a suitable but ridiculously overkill one?

 

 

Go see an old DVD copy of Scarface. You’ll see how bad DVD can look. 

[Technique]

On 11/2/2018 at 10:35 AM, BudMan said:

But then you say quality is of concern?  Why would you do this - DVD quality is HORRIBLE...  Its 480p -- guess ok to watch on some tablet or your phone...  But your watching these on a modern big screen TV?  Uggghhh

 

Plex is not going to work on some 8 year old PC if you need to transcode your stored content to play on the device your wanting to play it on..  DirectPlay or Stream might work.. But sure you could use it as just a nas (storage) for some player.. 

 

I run plex on nas currently synology ds918+ it doesn't have any problems transcoding stuff it has to transcode - but I also tend to make sure stuff will directplay... Handbrake will be your friend in working with media.. The also mentioned makemkv is fantastic for pulling your media off your disks.. Grabbed some TV shows this way off dvd..

 

 

Seriously?

 

I know it's all opinion based and i know you're older than me so I don't know how you can say DVD quality is "horrible". Yes it's not as good as blu ray, but "horrible"? VHS that has been left for the tape to go a bit damp & mouldy - that is horrible. A DVD?

And 480p? Is it really? I'm not trying to dispute that by the way. I've seen what is supposedly 480p videos on YouTube and I think the DVDs i see look better quality. I don't have a DVD where i'm like, damn this is a real horrible viewing experience, the picture is so awful.

 

I do say quality is of concern. I wouldn't want to go worse than what the DVDs & blu rays have but i'm happy with what they do have.

 

 

 

Anyway...

 

The more i think about this the more i think it may be worth the time and effort put in to it, not just from a DVD backup viewpoint but a DVD backup combined with my entire music collection viewpoint. I've searched for this "NAS" thing and i see different images. For example...

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/656835-wd-red-6tb-3-5-sata-nas-hard-drive-wd60efrx

 

https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Enterprise-Storage/cat/Network-Attached-Storage

 

Now i get it that the first link is an actual drive whereas the 2nd link is an enclosure. Do you need the enclosure AND the drive or just the drive? Is it better with an enclosure so that it's away from your actual PC for example?

 

I also get that the higher the capacity the dearer the drive (i'm sure there's more to it than that with different brands and other factors in the mix) but what about the enclosures? What would determine a good one from a bad one? A suitable one from an unsuitable one from a suitable but ridiculously overkill one?

 

 

[sc302 Veteran]

Last time I played with it they did not support iOS.  iOS support is fairly new.  

 

They do not support roku boxes and my Samsung Blu-ray smart device has no support for it either.   I have a TCL smart tv (roku), lg tv, Samsung Blu-ray, and have been an iOS household since iPad 2 came out.  Kodi was not able to be installed and any of these devices and required an android based device to function. 

 

Great for them then that they got off their rears and finally coded the app for other platforms.  Too little too late imo, there are other things out there that have been for as long as kodi has been in place and I have grown accustomed to instantaneous response when I select a show or movie I want to see. Maybe they fixed it, but it has been a bad experience with them (only about a year ago). 

 

 

Fwiw, dvd is good enough quality for me.  Sure 1080 is nice when I have the option  (in most cases I do). 

[Technique]

12 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

Go see an old DVD copy of Scarface. You’ll see how bad DVD can look. 

I've no idea what's going on here. I've just typed out a post in reply to you including the photo there and it just repeated what i posted to Budman & what i said in response to you never even got posted. It's like i never typed it out. WTH???

[adrynalyne]

2 minutes ago, Technique said:

I've no idea what's going on here. I've just typed out a post in reply to you including the photo there and it just repeated what i posted to Budman & what i said in response to you never even got posted. It's like i never typed it out. WTH???

Gremlins and a half-baked comment system can be blamed there. 

[Technique]

5 hours ago, adrynalyne said:

Gremlins and a half-baked comment system can be blamed there. 

Seriously, i had it all typed out, hit send and it just duplicated what i said to Budman but threw in the photo i attached to my comment to you.

 

Basically i just said that obviously from the photo above, i have the Scarface DVD so i can actually comment on what you're saying.

 

I would agree with you that it's not blu-ray quality because obviously it's not, but i wouldn't call it 'bad'. When you start seeing lines on the TV & the sound being all distorted like in the old VHS days then yeah that's bad quality but i can watch a DVD of Scarface and enjoy it just fine. I don't sit there thinking well this isn't a very enjoyable experience because the picture/sound is off.

 

So yes, DVD isn't as good as blu ray but then blu ray wont be as good as the next big thing either but we surely shouldn't (i certainly wont) then sit there all of a sudden talking about how bad blu ray is because it's simply not true.

 

 

I could discuss the quality (or not) of a DVD all day long but it doesn't really benefit me so we shall just have to agree to disagree.

 

Which brings me back on to post # hmm well that's annoying, this forum doesn't even number posts. I'm sure it used to?? Anyway the one where i ask about NAS drives and enclosures.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

6 hours ago, sc302 said:

Last time I played with it they did not support iOS.  iOS support is fairly new.  

 

They do not support roku boxes and my Samsung Blu-ray smart device has no support for it either.   I have a TCL smart tv (roku), lg tv, Samsung Blu-ray, and have been an iOS household since iPad 2 came out.  Kodi was not able to be installed and any of these devices and required an android based device to function. 

 

Great for them then that they got off their rears and finally coded the app for other platforms.  Too little too late imo, there are other things out there that have been for as long as kodi has been in place and I have grown accustomed to instantaneous response when I select a show or movie I want to see. Maybe they fixed it, but it has been a bad experience with them (only about a year ago). 

 

 

Fwiw, dvd is good enough quality for me.  Sure 1080 is nice when I have the option  (in most cases I do). 

You talk about a delay, never had one and wouldn’t tolerate one. Hence why I binned Roku 

[sc302 Veteran]

2 minutes ago, Human.Online said:

You talk about a delay, never had one and wouldn’t tolerate one. Hence why I binned Roku 

I have a roku 3, no delays on WiFi.  I had a hardwired Android box and I sit and wait. I have 0 tolerance for more than a 3 second delay on a constant basis.   When your family finishes two bags of microwave popcorn before a movie starts you know you need to burn it.