Backing up DVD / blu ray & CD collection?

[adrynalyne]

16 minutes ago, Technique said:

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.

My point was, the remastered Blu-Ray I have isn’t great. The DVD is that much worse. It’s not quality I feel comfortable watching on a television. 

[Technique]

1 hour ago, sc302 said:

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. 

I can relate.

 

When we're using Kodi and you select a movie to watch and you're waiting and waiting & waiting, it may well be loading a movie, it may well work, who knows but i'm impatient and will be selecting another link because i don't like to wait.

 

I'm not sure what you call them, are they called skins for Kodi? Where it looks all fancy etc? Whatever they're called anyway, i put one on my Amazon FireStick. It didn't last long because it slowed the whole experience riiiiiiiiiight down so it had to go.

[inactive]

On 11/1/2018 at 11:14 AM, Technique said:

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.

If you ABX yourself (basically a blind test with lossless vs lossy audio file in Foobar2000) I think you will be surprised you can't hear the difference as much as you think you can between the lossless file and lossy file. I am confident most people would not be able to tell the difference between a 128kbps Opus/Apple AAC file and the original lossless file when doing a ABX test as even 96kbps is pushing it already given what I have seen the developer of the Opus codec say recently on hydrogenaudio forums.

 

basically if you got actual music CD's and want perfect copies of your music data.... rip them to FLAC format which is lossless and it will take up about half of the storage space as the actual CD does (in uncompressed .WAV format) with identical quality since it's lossless. so basically there is no point in using WAV over FLAC since FLAC is the same but takes up about half of the storage space. then using those FLAC files you can make your own lossy files (i.e. Opus/AAC etc) when needed as it's really quick to convert from FLAC to Opus/AAC etc with Foobar2000's 'convert' option as it takes about 1 minute tops (likely less for modern CPU's (probably more like around 30seconds give or take)) for a full 80min music CD.

 

also, as far as lossy music files... Opus and AAC (Apple) has strong sound quality @ 128kbps. even 96kbps is solid to where many won't notice it. I would avoid MP3 because it takes noticeably more bit rate to achieve the same sound quality. but as a general guideline.... 96kbps/128kbps/160kbps is about all anyone would need for lossy music (with Opus or AAC(Apple)) unless they are pretty paranoid etc. I suggest 96kbps or 128kbps (I consider 96kbps to be the sweet spot) as those are basically the sweet spot of Opus/AAC. but with Opus format, which is better than AAC (more specifically AAC-LC which is standard for a long time now) at lower bit rates like say around 96kbps and less (I find 64kbps with Opus quite usable). hell, even 32kbps and 48kbps are respectable considering the really low bit rate. but when it comes to Opus as a general rule for me... I see 96kbps as a default choice with 64kbps a minimum and 128kbps a maximum as that's just about guaranteed to please most people. beyond 160kbps or so is a total waste of space given what I have read on hydrogenaudio website.

 

for Apple AAC (AAC-LC)... which you can make using Foobar2000's 'Convert' option(you need some files before this will work etc but I won't explain this for now), I suggest no lower than 96kbps. basically with Opus or AAC you can't go wrong with using the 128kbps setting as it's safe and still efficient, but beyond 128kbps efficiency starts to fizzle out.

 

256kbps is basically overkill for Opus/AAC as I figure 192kbps is about the MAX someone would consider using but even at 192kbps or so it defeats the purpose of lossy audio which is to get transparent or near transparent sound at the lowest possible file size and in this regard 192kbps would be minimally better than 128kbps (assuming your a person who can notice a difference between 128kbps and the lossless file to begin with, which many won't be able to) but takes up quite a bit more storage space to do it. plus, you always have your lossless (.FLAC) files to fall back on should you ever need to re-rip to another lossy format in the future etc.

 

p.s. if your interested, you can learn more about this stuff on... https://hydrogenaud.io/

Edited November 4, 2018 by ThaCrip

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

12 hours ago, sc302 said:

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. 

That's really weird that the two of us have such different experiences.  I found Roku to be like running a media centre through an old PC, just clunky, slow and awkward, whereas I find Kodi to be so fluid and responsive.

10 hours ago, Technique said:

I'm not sure what you call them, are they called skins for Kodi? Where it looks all fancy etc? Whatever they're called anyway, i put one on my Amazon FireStick. It didn't last long because it slowed the whole experience riiiiiiiiiight down so it had to go.

You're not wrong here.  Sken developers can be graphically great, but often have no idea of optimisations and how it can affect an entire system.  Some skins run fine when I use KODI on my desktop, but then on a Firestick just terrible.  Moving to a Pi resolved a lot of that though.

[+BudMan MVC]

Did someone already do some math for you?

Ripping dvd, bluray and music could get HUGE really really quick... Not that it can not be done... But you could be spending some coin on disks..

 

Oh btw - yes DVD is only capable of 480P... I have broke out copies of my raiders of lost ark dvd compared to 720 or 1080p and they horrible on a decent big screen tv... But then again quality is relative.. You might be fine with 480P on your 60" 4k UHD ??

 

So I would do the math about your full lossless rips and if your willing to spend the coin on that space... You can for sure save a lot of space and be more than fine on quality... I would suggest you test it out yourself to see what you like before you rip your whole library... Music is easy to test with.. I sure didn't rip my music library with FLAC... Be too big.. Its currently sitting at 87GB with 9899 tracks total.. There is some flac there.. And lot of it in 320 mp3.. Keep in mind what your going to be playing it with.. What you play it with might not do flac, might not do other lossless might not even play 320 mp3, etc. etc..

 

Rough numbers is flac is going to be 6x the size of mp3... So your talking vs 87GB for my library you could be looking at 522GB...  Can you hear the dif??  That is going to be up to you and your hardware.. If your saying you are fine with 480P for your movies I find it hard to believe your going to hear the difference between a good mp3 and flac.. But test before you rip your whole library for your media..

 

Also when you call it backup - to me sounds like you take copy it and then go put it somewhere safe   Not really case sounds to me - you really want to take your media library and move it into this century... In a Library..  That allows you to watch/listen where you want..  I can listen to music on my patio via bluetooth... Or can watch a movie in the guest rooom or in the living room on big screen with 5.1 and no need to pull out some disk... Just change the source to my roku on my tv and go through a menu..  Have you not looked at any of the screenshots for plex for example?

 

It could be as simple getting a roku or firestick and pointing it your ripped file over your network with one of the apps they will run.  Or you run a server and point it at that - like plex.. When we went of vacation the other year took my roku with me.. Actual unit with usb port and hdmi out.. Through some movies on usb stick..And there you go the grandkids had movies to watch at the house... Or I just pointed it to my server at home and we had access to full library.. Only reason I had the stick was if internet was bad, etc.

 

Do you have a smart tv?  It prob already has plex as app available - if so grab a copy of plex..  Its FREE run a copy on your pc, and rip some movies and music and play with what works before you go working out all the details of you new media solution which going to tell you is going to cost your $   It can get to be an expensive hobby...

 

You can for sure build your own NAS.. Any old PC can become an NAS.. But any of the predone ones can be bought with disks or without..  Since you are wanting to do library... I would really test what your going to use for playing the media on your devices and what you like for media server, etc... Then worry about the hardware.. You can for sure test plex how it looks and stuff on current PC and do you have a smart tv??  If not pick up a roku or firestick they can be had for like 30$

 

 

[fusi0n]

I don't want to have something transcode anything for me.. I've been using XMBC since the OG Xbox days.. It's great. 

[Technique]

1 hour ago, BudMan said:

You might be fine with 480P on your 60" 4k UHD ??

 

I don't actually have a 60". I come in slightly less at 58"

https://www.panasonic.com/uk/support/discontinued-products/televisions/tx-58dx750b.html

 

Regards the music though and the technicalities of words i've never even seen before, i'm quite happy with the quality 192bitrate gives on an .mp3 to be honest. I'm sure some would call this 'bad' quality but to me it's perfectly fine and i hear no difference between that and the CD it came from.

 

Also when you call it backup - to me sounds like you take copy it and then go put it somewhere safe   Not really case sounds to me - you really want to take your media library and move it into this century... In a Library..  That allows you to watch/listen where you want..  I can listen to music on my patio via bluetooth... Or can watch a movie in the guest rooom or in the living room on big screen with 5.1 and no need to pull out some disk... Just change the source to my roku on my tv and go through a menu..  Have you not looked at any of the screenshots for plex for example?

 

To be honest i'd be looking at a mixture of both. I'd like a 'copy' of everything i have (so for example if a disc was lost/stolen/scratched/broken then i'd have it elsewhere) but i do like the description you give that you can basically access it from wherever you are providing you have something to access it with.

 

On the topic of which, how would you access it with an iPad or iPhone, be it music or movies? When i go in to WiFi for example i just see my home WiFi listed. I imagine you maybe need some kind of app that will allow you to access the NAS drive?

 

To be honest there's a ton of new terms i've had thrown at me in this thread. I really ought to look each of them out and try and learn more about them.

 

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

Your phone and ipad or other tablet can use the plex app to access your server.  So you can do that from your local network - or you can even access your server from anywhere as long as you open it up to the internet. 

 

With your questions.. I would suggest you get a nas that fits your budget and will allow you to at least get started.. You can always upgrade in few years if your new hobby has outgrown your hardware... You could start with your 8 year old pc to get the basics of how it works.. But to be honest something like a synology with their DSM software and the ability to just install plex server with a simple click might be easier to get up and running with.

 

You could start with a simple 2 bay and put in 1 disk.. Say a 4TB drive to get started with.. Not sure what sort of budget your playing with to get started with?  But you could for sure start by just installing plex on any pc you have and learn about how to rip your video and music and at what resolutions and quality you are happy with..  The makemkv mentioned already would allow you to put in your dvd and pull off the titles you want.. Any just windows media player can rip a CD at different levels of quality for CD..  I have a selection of my music library in my car on a 32GB stick - and those are prob like 128 or 192.. You sure do not need FLAC while you waiting in traffic or driving to work   And most car audio systems don't play flac anyway..

 

Do some test ripping at different levels and see what you like..  The interface of plex makes it just stupid easy to search and access your media.. Here is portion of my Dead music.. Doesn't include Jerry albums did on his own, etc. I got the blueray from their last concert in Chicago for 50th..  That I have in 5.1 - and crank it up in the living room and its like being back at the show..

 

Here is info from track.. These are prob all at 320... But sure have some lower end stuff that I ripped before...

 

 

Play with it and have questions - there are plenty people here doing this stuff..  It gets to become a hording sort of thing.. I'm about ready to hit 1000 movies...  My friends think of as it my own netflix   And I do give them access and even send out a newsletter with stuff that has been added in the last 7 days...  All automated with a couple of software packages running as dockers on my nas...

 

So you have a 58 inch tv and your ok with watching 480p (dvd) on it - have to assume it upscales but that normally not very good...

 

Since taking screenshots anyway - her for example is the one of the best parts of putting your library in say plex... I can search a song and bam I can play it..

 

 

[Technique]

That's interesting how you get the album art on there also. How does that work/happen?

 

I know there's different ways to rip music. Windows Media Player can do it within Windows 7 (the OS i'm using), some people use iTunes. Why would you use one over the other?

I don't listen to any music on my iPhone. I do listen to music on my iPod - both on the actual iPod and with it connected to my cars head unit. This is the bulk of my listening. To be honest i think any music stored on a NAS drive would be more on the lines of just a standard 'backup' as far as i'm concerned. My wife may wish to play it through the TV (if possible) but we currently don't have any device (beyond an iPhone/iPad/PC) that might play any of the music stored there.

 

Movies on the other hand would be different. We would almost certainly pull a movie from the drive to watch on the TV at the weekend. I'm learning that it can be accessed when you're away from your home too so providing we were in a situation where this was possible then we may do that also, although at the moment i would have to guess that it would only really be on our main TV in the living room. So movies would be a bit of a mixture of your standard view of a backup but also a convenient library as you say.

[fusi0n]

1 hour ago, Technique said:

That's interesting how you get the album art on there also. How does that work/happen?

 

I know there's different ways to rip music. Windows Media Player can do it within Windows 7 (the OS i'm using), some people use iTunes. Why would you use one over the other?

I don't listen to any music on my iPhone. I do listen to music on my iPod - both on the actual iPod and with it connected to my cars head unit. This is the bulk of my listening. To be honest i think any music stored on a NAS drive would be more on the lines of just a standard 'backup' as far as i'm concerned. My wife may wish to play it through the TV (if possible) but we currently don't have any device (beyond an iPhone/iPad/PC) that might play any of the music stored there.

 

Movies on the other hand would be different. We would almost certainly pull a movie from the drive to watch on the TV at the weekend. I'm learning that it can be accessed when you're away from your home too so providing we were in a situation where this was possible then we may do that also, although at the moment i would have to guess that it would only really be on our main TV in the living room. So movies would be a bit of a mixture of your standard view of a backup but also a convenient library as you say.

They probably have the album art downloaded and told Plex what the file name of the cover art is. You can use a program such a Picard from MusicBrainz to do get cover art. But, be warned, it can also organize your library, which is a great thing if you want it to. Make a backup of your library first until you get the hang of it. 

 

Also, if you're ripping music, there are only a few "Good" ways to do this. Don't use WMP or iTunes for this. If you're on Windows, you can configure DBPowerAmp using this guide, 

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm

 

If you want a more granular approach that has been proven to be the best, use EAC+FLAC

https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC

 

If you're using Mac,

 

https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=XLD_Configuration

if you're using Linux,

https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Cdparanoia

 

Also, make sure you're using AccurateRip.. 

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, Technique said:

I don't actually have a 60". I come in slightly less at 58"

https://www.panasonic.com/uk/support/discontinued-products/televisions/tx-58dx750b.html

 

Regards the music though and the technicalities of words i've never even seen before, i'm quite happy with the quality 192bitrate gives on an .mp3 to be honest. I'm sure some would call this 'bad' quality but to me it's perfectly fine and i hear no difference between that and the CD it came from.

 

To be honest i'd be looking at a mixture of both. I'd like a 'copy' of everything i have (so for example if a disc was lost/stolen/scratched/broken then i'd have it elsewhere) but i do like the description you give that you can basically access it from wherever you are providing you have something to access it with.

 

On the topic of which, how would you access it with an iPad or iPhone, be it music or movies? When i go in to WiFi for example i just see my home WiFi listed. I imagine you maybe need some kind of app that will allow you to access the NAS drive?

 

To be honest there's a ton of new terms i've had thrown at me in this thread. I really ought to look each of them out and try and learn more about them.

 

 

 

The title of your thread was an unfortunate since your primary objective is a modern digital media access home TV/music system and therefore breaks down into a few large sub-objectives.

 

 

1. Selection of large capacity storage hardware

 

2. Selection of media management software

 

3. Config of playback devices and software

 

4. Network configuration for in home devices and possible exterior access to your media server.

 

5. Conversion of DVD and Audio CD physical media to your large capacity storage hardware without loss of quality

 

6. Keeping the DVD menu system (and extra material on the DVD etc)

 

7. Possibly actual "Backup" of all or some of your media to the cloud which will always have a monthly fee unless you own hardware in the cloud.

 

 

You find this thread confusing since all these sub-topics are being discussed in a chaotic manner and seem to inter-relate, but you are starting from zero so just take the time to investigate and think about it and be assured it is not an easy subject and most average humans these days just stream media from the internet to their phones or tablets so they can avoid all these configuration issues which is why home media servers never caught on as a mass consumer item despite huge attempts by Microsoft and others...

 

If I think I have a useful idea, I will render opinions on these 7 items in other replies, but you are getting some good answers that you just need to categorize into a small ordered taxonomy.

 

 

 

 

 

[Technique]

1 hour ago, fusi0n said:

T

Also, if you're ripping music, there are only a few "Good" ways to do this. Don't use WMP or iTunes for this. If you're on Windows, you can configure DBPowerAmp using this guide, 

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm

Is there a reason not to use WMP?

Does it have anything to do with reliability or is it another reason?

[DevTech]

33 minutes ago, Technique said:

Is there a reason not to use WMP?

Does it have anything to do with reliability or is it another reason?

EAC = Exact Audio Copy is a program designed to account for the issues involved in transferring audio from a CD including hardware characteristics of the drive itself, the many causes of Jitter, etc. 

 

Some drives are horrid for audio and some have a good reputation - it's a challenging task to locate certain CD or DVD models since they are not being made any more of course.

 

The best procedure is to store the audio on your media server in FLAC format which is lossless and then make a second copy of all the files in a lossy format to transfer to portable media devices.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

The title of your thread was an unfortunate since your primary objective is a modern digital media access home TV/music system and therefore breaks down into a few large sub-objectives.

 

 

1. Selection of large capacity storage hardware

 

2. Selection of media management software

 

3. Config of playback devices and software

 

4. Network configuration for in home devices and possible exterior access to your media server.

 

5. Conversion of DVD and Audio CD physical media to your large capacity storage hardware without loss of quality

 

6. Keeping the DVD menu system (and extra material on the DVD etc)

 

7. Possibly actual "Backup" of all or some of your media to the cloud which will always have a monthly fee unless you own hardware in the cloud.

 

 

You find this thread confusing since all these sub-topics are being discussed in a chaotic manner and seem to inter-relate, but you are starting from zero so just take the time to investigate and think about it and be assured it is not an easy subject and most average humans these days just stream media from the internet to their phones or tablets so they can avoid all these configuration issues which is why home media servers never caught on as a mass consumer item despite huge attempts by Microsoft and others...

 

If I think I have a useful idea, I will render opinions on these 7 items in other replies, but you are getting some good answers that you just need to categorize into a small ordered taxonomy.

 

 

 

 

 

My item #5 should have been 2 items since DVD copying and Audio copying have very different considerations

 

Which reminds me of item #8:

 

8. Maintain a 5 channel surround sound path of media if you currently have a 5 channel audio speaker system on your DVD Player to TV living room setup.

 

Digital audio from a computer is limited to 2 stereo channels unless you are pumping 5 channel audio through the video card via HDMI or else you have an audio card that comes with the Dolby Digital Live encoder. Direct copies of DVDs can utilize 5.1 channel "pass through" audio. You have to be aware of all these audio paths if you care about surround sound fidelity.

 

Different issues and paths occur if you use 5 separate cables from your audio card to the home theater receiver instead of a single optical digital cable, which is mainly everything works EXCEPT "pass through".

 

 

[Q-truth]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:44 AM, Brandon H said:

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 )

I want to thank you for the link to Passkeylite. I've been wanting to archive my DVD's, as I have many. But your help and advice is brilliant! Thanks!

[fusi0n]

WMP and iTunes are going to be pretty basic as far as ripping music goes. It doesn't do error checking, doesn't do AccurateRip and "speed" rips them. The suggestions I gave you will disable cache on the drive (if supported), check for bad sectors, will verify the rip, and will also rip in a high-quality lossless format. I wouldn't bother worrying about ripping to MP3 (lossly). Yes, the size is bigger, but with as cheap storage is it isn't that big of a deal. The downside is if you try to stream them from a NAS over a cellular connection it can eat up data pretty quick. However, if you use something like airsonic, you can get it to transcode when on cellular. Airsonic is very easy to set up (and can be done in a docker container and put behind a reverse proxy). You can also use the many subsonic clients out there for your mobile phone and download (cache) the files to your device in the lossless format (FLAC). The difference in quality in what Spotify is streaming to you and FLAC is pretty big. Yes, Spotify does sound good, but when you do A and B test, you can tell a difference.    

[Technique]

Just touching on size & capacities. I may be getting the wrong end of the stick here but the way i'm reading some of the responses is that i'll be looking at requiring a mammoth amount of storage.

 

From what i've read i get the impression that 200 DVDs and i'd say 200 CDs but let's stretch it and say 500 should fit perfectly fine on to a NAS drive?

 

Sure there's the situation where you keep buying DVDs and keep getting music so you forever need more & more space - but that's what a second drive is for then surely?

[Technique]

I've just downloaded EAC.

 

I remember this program from many many many years ago. I never stuck with it because you seem to have to manually enter all the details which would be extremely time consuming.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

54 minutes ago, Technique said:

I've just downloaded EAC.

 

I remember this program from many many many years ago. I never stuck with it because you seem to have to manually enter all the details which would be extremely time consuming.

Enter manually? I never did!

[sc302 Veteran]

1 hour ago, Technique said:

Just touching on size & capacities. I may be getting the wrong end of the stick here but the way i'm reading some of the responses is that i'll be looking at requiring a mammoth amount of storage.

 

From what i've read i get the impression that 200 DVDs and i'd say 200 CDs but let's stretch it and say 500 should fit perfectly fine on to a NAS drive?

 

Sure there's the situation where you keep buying DVDs and keep getting music so you forever need more & more space - but that's what a second drive is for then surely?

Depends on the size NAS but a cd is roughly 640-700MB

 

a dvd is roughly 5GB

 

a Blu-ray is between 20-100Gb.  

 

You can guestimate how much you will need.  I have a pr4100 32TB. 

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah size is going to depend on how you rip you stuff.. If you do 1:1 copies of data its going to add up really quick.. But when you put media in a library you don't need to do 1:1 storage of how it is on optical media to get quality viewing... So I have almost 1000 movies in what amounts to 1.3 TB.. the meta info takes up a bit of space.. then TV shows 2.2 TB..

 

Keep in mind to do something like plex your going to eat up space with meta info.. And then to make stuff easy to view and fast forward through its going to take snapshots so you can view pictures as you fast forward.. Wanting to do 1:1 on your media is going to eat up space really quick.. Then if you want parity on your storage your going to need 2x that if you want raid 1, etc..

 

There is a big debate going on in the community now about just buy more space its cheap or shink your data with x265, etc.

 

You have opened up a whole can of worms that your not even thinking about yet   But its a FUN hobby!!  But it can get expensive   With the hardware that can transcode you stored media on the fly to different players.  How you store it, how much you have.. And then if you need parity for your local copies.. Then once you spend time ripping everything - is it worth the parity space, or if it you loose your data can you just rerip it, etc. etc..

 

Welcome to the world of media library

 

But all the info plex will pull automatically as long as you name your files correctly..  But also depends on how anal you can get.. Buddy gave me copy of like every godzilla movie - I didn't like his copies naming so renamed everything and also transcoded everything hard burning the subtitles because many a device can not play softcoded subtitles.... Im only about half way through the media he gave me..

 

 

I have many more of these to add to library - but its effort to put them in the format you want and hard code the subtitles   Many of these are ###### resolution - but then again they are really OLD.. When I can I always update the resolution of the media

 

 

My current nas has like 20TB of storage of labeled disk space 3x4TB and 1x8TB.. You never want to be close to your full amount of space..

 

That doesn't count my other nas nor my local PC.. You will always want enough space to move your whole library to somewhere else if you need to redo your array, etc. etc..

 

You have opened up a can of worms that I hope your ready for   You will become a media horder hehehehe

 

[DentedAphid7]

Why not get something like this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1412780-REG/sabrent_ds_4ssd_4_bay_2_5_sata_ssd.html buy a few 1TB HDD which a relatively cheap now.
And use something like DVDFab.

Or you can invest in a NAS drive and stream to Plex or something.

[DevTech]

15 hours ago, DentedAphid7 said:

Why not get something like this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1412780-REG/sabrent_ds_4ssd_4_bay_2_5_sata_ssd.html buy a few 1TB HDD which a relatively cheap now.
And use something like DVDFab.

Or you can invest in a NAS drive and stream to Plex or something.

Or he can read @BudMan's  very detailed posts

 

[Shiranui]

 

On 11/2/2018 at 7:35 PM, 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

 

Exactly.

[+BudMan MVC]

4 bay dock for 2.5 inch disks.. And 1TB disks - while they are cheap, they are not best bang for the buck in size..

 

Just what you want - lets connect 4 disks through 1 usb3 connection for ultimate speed

 

Lets say he gets 1 TB disk and that monstrosity -- it does look cool though   That is 100$ down the drain that he could of put towards something actually viable going forward for a real library..

If all he wants it some disk space currently to start ripping and testing with than that 100 would be better spent towards a larger drive where the price per GB is best..

 

So on that link they list 1TB for 53$ or 5.3 cents per GB...

While the WD easystore 4TB I see on sale currently for 85$

WD - easystore® 4TB External at bestbuy even..

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-4tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792400.p?skuId=5792400

So he can use that now for storage... And if need be when he gets a real nas he can shuck it and put in his nas..

So 4TB for $85 works out to 2.1 Cents per GB or less than half of that 1TB disk..

 

The 8TB disk in my nas was a shuck... Takes all of 2 minutes to pull them out of their shells.. That 8TB makes for good scrap space and allowed me to redo my array from a SHR to Raid 0... Since I don't need parity for my media..  Which again is something he will have to work out.. If he is going to spend all the time ripping his media.. To backup his disks - is he going to want a backup of his work, ie his "backup" - or atleast some parity to he doesn't have to redo everything on loss of disk, etc.  Which is just going to raise the cost of storage more the larger his rips are, etc.

 

This is a whole can of worms to be sure - and yeah getting started can be like drinking from a fire hose if your not familiar with any of these terms or tech..

Looks like the 8TB for 180$ so same sort of price per GB... But black friday and cyber monday coming up... Sure there will be some decent HDD deals to be had.  Or prob good time to buy the nas as well.