Backing up DVD / blu ray & CD collection?

[DevTech]

38 minutes ago, Technique said:

Scarface & Bad Boys

Ah, I hadn't heard of "bad Boys" before... It appears to have launched the career of Michael Bay

 

And hot off the press, you get to participate in a 2nd extortion if you want:

 

"Bad Boys was released in a two movie pack that includes Bad Boys II on Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 4, 2018"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Boys_(1995_film)

 

[Technique]

I thought the second one, while decent just wasn't as good as the first (usually the case). Like they tried too hard tbh.

 

Though what is Ultra HD Blu-ray? I assume it's Blu-rays bigger brother?

 

EDIT: And look at that guys, we're on page 11 now. So go on, who's the first to say ... are we on page 11? Well news for you ... yes we are.

[DevTech]

8 minutes ago, Technique said:

I thought the second one, while decent just wasn't as good as the first (usually the case). Like they tried too hard tbh.

 

Though what is Ultra HD Blu-ray? I assume it's Blu-rays bigger brother?

 

EDIT: And look at that guys, we're on page 11 now. So go on, who's the first to say ... are we on page 11? Well news for you ... yes we are.

Ultra HD is UHD often called 4K and is the next jump in resolution that the world is moving to.

 

Note 1: despite the improvement that UHD offers, there is some debate about the lack of 24 FPS which is what most movies have traditionally used on real photographic film. But even that will vanish as the trend increases of "filming" new movies on digital at 60 FPS or more...

 

Note 2: Non-Interlaced is also known as "Progressive" often abbreviated as "P" which is where "1080P" comes from

 

Please nobody complain that this is "too complicated" as I have already left out tons of information and cut it down to the bare essentials.

 

 

DVD:

 

Both formats are similar and often known as SD

 

Europe: 720 x 576 Interlaced at 25 FPS

 

U.S. 720 x 480 Interlaced at 30 FPS

 

Aspect Ratio is either 4:3 or 16:9 but a confusing aspect is that in either case the encoded resolution is identical. "Widescreen" just takes the same darned pixels and just pulls them like an elastic band to essentially result in even lower effective resolution than 4:3

 

 

HD: 

 

HD has two resolutions:

 

1280 x 720

 

1920 x 1080 (FHD = "Full HD")

 

And both can be Interlaced at 25 or 30 FPS or Non-Interlaced at 50 or 60 FPS and a few other frame rates such as cinema's 24 FPS.

 

Aspect Ratio is 16:9

 

 

UHD:

 

UHD has two resolutions:

 

3840 x 2160 (known as 4K)

 

7680 x 4320 (known as 8K)

 

There are no Interlaced frame rates, just Non-Interlaced at 60, 120 or 180 FPS

 

Aspect Ratio is 16:9

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television

 

 

 

[Technique]

Right, i'm in the process of ripping the Bad Boys movie for the simple reason of i have it in both Blu-Ray and also standard DVD, so i'm ripping the pair of them and will look at the comparison once in the Plex library. This may seem pointless to you guys but i'm just curious.

 

I've noticed something though. 2 questions really.

 

1) When i rip the Blu-Ray disc, i have to do a 'backup' it seems in MakeMKV but i have to leave 'Decrypt video files' unchecked otherwise

 

 

Yet when i go to rip the DVD version there is no 'Backup' option - it suddenly gets greyed out and instead i just click the big 'Open DVD disc' in the middle of the screen.

 

I also note the protection on the Blu-Ray is listed as AACS v17 whereas the DVD is CSS/CPPM (if this makes any difference?).

 

2) When i put the DVD in the drive it recognises it no problem. When i put the Blu-Ray in the Blu-Ray drive (which is 8 years old btw - Samsung DVDWBD SH-B083L according to My Computer) it's like it struggles reading it. Some times it doesn't and i have to open the tray, close the tray and eventually it'll recognise it. Not just this Blu-Ray. The main drive i use is the other drive too (the non-Blu Ray one).

[Technique]

Ok i've just pointed Plex to my library and it's sort of worked sort of hasn't.

 

It's picked up Bad Boys and unlike when i pointed it to Thor it actually 'worked its magic' as you say and gave the movie a title, said who the actors are etc etc. Brilliant.

 

I played the movie - albeit on my PC and not the TV and it worked, so that's a positive.

 

Only thing is, like i said there's only 1 of them - and i think it's the DVD version looking at the quality and not the blu-ray version. So question is why the Blu-Ray version doesn't show up on Plex?

 

When i go to the folder on my actual PC - the DVD version is 1 video file in 1 folder. The Blu-Ray is a stack of folders with various files all in a 'backup' parent folder.

 

Do i need to pay for MakeMKV to do Blu-Rays or something?

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

5 minutes ago, Technique said:

Ok i've just pointed Plex to my library and it's sort of worked sort of hasn't.

 

It's picked up Bad Boys and unlike when i pointed it to Thor it actually 'worked its magic' as you say and gave the movie a title, said who the actors are etc etc. Brilliant.

 

I played the movie - albeit on my PC and not the TV and it worked, so that's a positive.

 

Only thing is, like i said there's only 1 of them - and i think it's the DVD version looking at the quality and not the blu-ray version. So question is why the Blu-Ray version doesn't show up on Plex?

 

When i go to the folder on my actual PC - the DVD version is 1 video file in 1 folder. The Blu-Ray is a stack of folders with various files all in a 'backup' parent folder.

 

Do i need to pay for MakeMKV to do Blu-Rays or something?

Can you find the video file in the stack of folders? I'm not sure how far down Plex will look, I don't think it should be a problem but worth ruling that out.

[Technique]

Budman, you can come back in to the thread now

 

As said, i'll do this when i decide i have time, even if it's just 15 minutes. I've just tried it out on my TV now and it played the movie perfectly.

 

This is going to get addictive. LoL. Question is what now? Just rip all the DVDs and link or should i start playing with some kind of settings for some reason or what now that i've established 'it works'?

 

 

 

And yes i can sort of locate the video. It's in E:\Video\backup\BAD_BOYS\BDMV\STREAM - so 3 folders deep within the parent backup folder.

 

Only thing is, within that stream folder is 121 AVCHD video files totalling 37GB.

 

 

[Technique]

I've linked the folder to my Plex and it just loads every individual file and makes a right mess. Only thing is when they show up in Plex they're all different movies.

 

Is this where you need Handbrake to convert it in to 1 file or what? Looks like i can do DVDs at the moment but not Blu-Rays.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

4 minutes ago, Technique said:

Budman, you can come back in to the thread now

 

As said, i'll do this when i decide i have time, even if it's just 15 minutes. I've just tried it out on my TV now and it played the movie perfectly.

 

This is going to get addictive. LoL. Question is what now? Just rip all the DVDs and link or should i start playing with some kind of settings for some reason or what now that i've established 'it works'?

 

And yes i can sort of locate the video. It's in E:\Video\backup\BAD_BOYS\BDMV\STREAM - so 3 folders deep within the parent backup folder.

 

Only thing is, within that stream folder is 121 AVCHD video files totalling 37GB.

 

 

Well you know what works, no reason to try other things and the revert back to the default when things don't work 😛

 

Huh, may be it's broken it down into chapters or something. To be honest, I've not done this before but I've been lurking in the background with interest. I'll pass back to the more experience folk.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

7 minutes ago, Technique said:

I've linked the folder to my Plex and it just loads every individual file and makes a right mess. Only thing is when they show up in Plex they're all different movies.

 

Is this where you need Handbrake to convert it in to 1 file or what? Looks like i can do DVDs at the moment but not Blu-Rays.

So from what I've read online. MakeMKV should just make a copy on your BluRay and Handbrake is used then used to compress it. You should be able to merge the files into one using Handbrake too, but, again looking, online, MakeMKV should have done that from the start.

[Technique]

I've done a bit of Googling myself and found that i can do DVDs all day long forever & a day no problem.

 

Not for Blu-Ray though. https://www.makemkv.com/buy/

 

I was following the guide here https://www.howtogeek.com/161498/how-to-backup-your-dvd-and-blu-ray-movie-collection/ but when it kept saying about 30 day free & then paying i searched a bit more.

 

I went through the process & i'd be looking at a £50 payment. Forget that! If i had 200 blu rays then yeah but i only have a small handful. 

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, Technique said:

I've done a bit of Googling myself and found that i can do DVDs all day long forever & a day no problem.

 

Not for Blu-Ray though. https://www.makemkv.com/buy/

 

I was following the guide here https://www.howtogeek.com/161498/how-to-backup-your-dvd-and-blu-ray-movie-collection/ but when it kept saying about 30 day free & then paying i searched a bit more.

 

I went through the process & i'd be looking at a £50 payment. Forget that! If i had 200 blu rays then yeah but i only have a small handful. 

Quote

MakeMKV contains both freeware and shareware functionality. You may use MakeMKV to convert or stream DVD and AVCHD discs for free, as much as you want. Converting or streaming Blu-ray discs is shareware functionality. You can use shareware functionality for free during 30-days trial period. If you like MakeMKV and you want to use it after your 30-days trial version expires, you need to purchase a registration key.

You just need to do it all in 30 days 😛

[+BudMan MVC]

So makemkv is currently in between free and buy... The last version released trial has expired, need a new version 1.14.2 most likely for that to restart..  Or you could just buy it - its great software!

 

So for now just play with your DVDs..

 

So they look fine - then that is good!!  Your ready to rock.. You are renaming your video files right?  filebot is fantastic for that as well.. Use to be free, not any more..

 

Told you this hobby can get expensive hehehe

 

Did you do any music yet?  How are you watching on your TV - the firestick?

 

As to buying makemkv - you might have only a few bluray but how many dvd do you have?  You really should support such a fine product.

 

 

[Technique]

20 minutes ago, BudMan said:

So makemkv is currently in between free and buy... The last version released trial has expired, need a new version 1.14.2 most likely for that to restart..  Or you could just buy it - its great software!

 

So for now just play with your DVDs..

 

So they look fine - then that is good!!  Your ready to rock.. You are renaming your video files right?  filebot is fantastic for that as well.. Use to be free, not any more..

 

Told you this hobby can get expensive hehehe

 

Did you do any music yet?  How are you watching on your TV - the firestick?

 

As to buying makemkv - you might have only a few bluray but how many dvd do you have?  You really should support such a fine product.

 

 

I'm assuming i can't obtain an older version somewhere and do this all for free?

 

They look fine as in they look ok but not like the PS4 runs them. I'm fine with that though. Upscaling sounds like a headache and it'll turn me off very quickly if i start having to do too much.

 

As for renaming the videos - i've only done 1 and tbh i wouldn't need to? It (Plex) named the movie perfectly, or at least this one (Bad Boys). When i ripped Thor Ragnarok it just left it named as it was in the folder on my PC - something like T_01 or whatever.

 

I haven't actively ripped any music yet although it did find various albums on my PC without me asking it to. One thing at a time though Ripping the DVDs *should* be straight forward. You should see my audio collection though I'll need to think about how all that will be organised. The bought albums will be simple but it's the other audio i've collected over the years.

 

I have roughly 200 DVDs & probably about 5 blu rays at a guess.

[+BudMan MVC]

You should read..

https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/media-preparation/

 

Before you get too deep down the rabbit hole

 

So I have different libraries

Movies

TV

Home Video

Music

Audiobooks

 

Movies are pretty much root folder with just the movie files correctly named.. But there are folders to keep specific sorts of movies together - for example my bogart folder, james bond folder, etc.

TV - those are by show and sub folders of seasons.

Home Video is the tricky one - still really trying to figure out best way to sort all of that stuff.. I currently have it broken down by year and month for folders.. But that is for sure a work in progress and I change my mind on how going to finish it all the time..

Music - Artist and then album sub folders.

Audiobooks - Author and then book subfolders.

 

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

@BudMan You've probably mentioned this elsewhere, but how much storage do you have? 

 

[Technique]

5 minutes ago, BudMan said:

Music - Artist and then album sub folders.

 

Very easy for when you have actual albums from the artist.

 

What do you do though when you acquire tracks from an artist that were either on someone elses album (whos album you don't have/want) or even more than that - just a track that was released and not featured on an album.

Then there's unreleased tracks from the artist.

 

Just a couple examples.

[+BudMan MVC]

Put them under the artist in misc folder..

 

The info from the track will be pulled via how you tagged it.. I would assume you have all these mp3? tagged with all the info, etc.. mp3tag is your friend!

 

As to my storage... Currently running

Nas

Volume 1, 3x4TB raid 0

Volume 2 1x8TB

total = raw 20TB

Old Nas

drive pool 3x2TB for another 6TB total

PC, 3TB scrap drive..

 

Off nas

 

I am not a huge data hoarder sort of guy... This is the most storage I have ever had.. And only reason really is got that 8TB using points from steps I walk every day via a health program   Got a WD easystore and shucked it to put in nas... Used it for storage of data while changed over from SHR array to raid 0... Now its just storing copy of media..  (sort of backup) And my other nas also has that same media on it.. Auto copy every night any new media I add to plex folders on volume 1..

 

I have been putting on some 4K stuff so that has kind of ballooned in usage.. Prob do some clean up, might redo some of the stuff to x265 to save some space... Its really a debate do you recode your stuff with HEVC or just buy more space, etc..  Prob some stuff I could just delete if need be.. etc..

[Technique]

I just burned the file to CD. Not as an mp3 but as a playable CD so i guess it'll have no data stored.

 

Which will make this a very long process.

[+BudMan MVC]

So this misc audio is just on a CD.. Not a mp3 on the CD but like a CD you put in a player.. so like wav format  

 

Guess you got some tagging to do lucy hehehehe

 

As mentioned before, this becomes more of a hobby in management of your media and library and how you can organize it, etc. etc... It is a rabbit hole for sure!!!

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, Technique said:

I'm assuming i can't obtain an older version somewhere and do this all for free?

 

They look fine as in they look ok but not like the PS4 runs them. I'm fine with that though. Upscaling sounds like a headache and it'll turn me off very quickly if i start having to do too much.

 

As for renaming the videos - i've only done 1 and tbh i wouldn't need to? It (Plex) named the movie perfectly, or at least this one (Bad Boys). When i ripped Thor Ragnarok it just left it named as it was in the folder on my PC - something like T_01 or whatever.

 

I haven't actively ripped any music yet although it did find various albums on my PC without me asking it to. One thing at a time though Ripping the DVDs *should* be straight forward. You should see my audio collection though I'll need to think about how all that will be organised. The bought albums will be simple but it's the other audio i've collected over the years.

 

I have roughly 200 DVDs & probably about 5 blu rays at a guess.

There is all sorts of free software you can use for various things

 

Getting your DVD and BluRay onto the computer is known as Ripping and has various degrees of illegality depending on country. This article covers that:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping

 

Blu-Rays have a harder to crack protection system which is probably why they want cash out of you:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Access_Content_System

 

So MakeMKV is essentially a front-end to Handbrake to handle the "grey area" Ripping part:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HandBrake

 

"Handbrake transcodes video and audio from nearly any format to a handful of modern ones, but it does not defeat or circumvent copy protection"

 

"As with DVDs, HandBrake does not directly support the decryption of Blu-ray Discs. However, HandBrake can be used to transcode a Blu-ray Disc if DRM is first removed using a third-party application, such as MakeMKV. Unlike HandBrake, MakeMKV does not transcode; it removes the digital rights management from a Blu-ray Disc and creates an exact copy, at its original frame size and data rate, in a Matroska (MKV) multimedia container which can then be used as a source in HandBrake"

 

Another front-end to Handbrake is VidCoder which has the advantage over MakeMKV of being completely free open source software:

 

http://vidcoder.net

 

It is designed to work for most people without changing any settings, and includes a copy of Handbrake in the install. Being OSS, this program is up front with you about the ripping part:

 

-------

http://vidcoder.net/Documentation/RippingDiscs.html

 

DVDs - VidCoder can rip DVDs but does not defeat the CSS encryption found in most commercial DVDs. You’ve got several options to remove the encryption:

 

• AnyDVD HD ($121, removes encryption on the fly, best support for new titles)
• Passkey Lite (Free, removes encryption on the fly)
• MakeMKV (Free, requires copying to the hard drive before encoding)
• DVD Decrypter (Free, requires copying to the hard drive before encoding, no longer updated)

 

Blu-rays - VidCoder does not defeat AACS or BD+ Blu-ray encryption. There are a couple options for removing it:

 

• AnyDVD HD ($121, removes encryption on the fly, best support for new titles)
• Passkey Lite (Free, removes encryption on the fly)
• MakeMKV (Currently free in time-limited beta, requires copying to the hard drive before encoding)

 

-------

 

Looking at his sample images, I would be inclined to adjust his CRF number to 17 or 18, everything else looks great

 

http://vidcoder.net/Documentation/VideoQualityOptions.html

 

"You can experiment with a quality level easily by using the Encode Preview Clip button on the preview window in VidCoder. This will use whatever settings you have at the moment and can allow you to quickly try out different quality levels. This way, your videos always look good and have efficient file sizes. As an added bonus, Constant Quality encoding only requires one pass. It’s faster than 2-pass encoding and gets better results. I recommend always using it unless you have some strict limits on how big the files can be."

 

-------

 

 

Also, if you try it, use the Beta 4.21 or later version...

 

Unlike everyone else here I don't care if you never try this or if you take two months to get around to it. 

 

 

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, Technique said:

I've linked the folder to my Plex and it just loads every individual file and makes a right mess. Only thing is when they show up in Plex they're all different movies.

 

Is this where you need Handbrake to convert it in to 1 file or what? Looks like i can do DVDs at the moment but not Blu-Rays.

As you found out, MakeMKV does the "illeagal ripping" part for free on DVDs and wants money for Blu-Ray.

 

I suspect the mangled result comes from the copy protection mess and will work out when you figure out that issue.

 

VidCoder will rip the DVD or Blu-Ray and then compress to disk in a single pass if you have one of the listed copy protection cracking software in place.

 

And really, lots of other software out there that does this stuff too. I just mentioned VidCoder because it is similar to MakeMKV in using Handbrake as the compression engine.

 

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

MakeMKV is FREE while in beta ... including all functionality.  It has been in beta for years.  My jaw will literally drop if it ever comes out of beta.

 

Check this thread every few months for a new key.

 

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053

 

The current key is valid until today (end of November).  They'll probably post a new key today or tomorrow which will probably be good until the end of January (they seem to be on a two month cycle).

 

 

[DevTech]

This is interesting:

 

https://b3n.org/automatic-ripping-machine/

 

 

 

And from that article, I didn't know this:

 

A WARNING ABOUT SOME BLU-RAY DRIVES

 

Most Blu-Ray drives have an anti-feature called “riplock” where it will purposefully cripple the read-speed on dvds and blue-rays to around 2X to 4X instead of the advertised drive speed (I believe this to be false advertising).  If you have a normal 5 1/4″ drive bay I suggest getting the LG WH16NS40 16X blu-ray drive since it is known to not be speed limited.  LG seems to be one of the better drive manufacturers in my experience.

 

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

personally I don't bother with the ripping of the actual disc content; takes up too much space IMO also storing the disc backups.

 

I personally use DVDFab Passkey Lite (free tool) to decrypt the discs and Handbreak to directly transcode to mp4/mkv files (depending on if I want embedded subs or not)