Best practice for archiving DVD for future media center?

[Handruin]

Is there a best practice that any of you follow for turning your physical media DVD into a digital form? I have a several hundred DVDs between my girlfriend and I that I'm starting to convert them from their physical media to digital files on my hard drives. I have AnyDVD software which gives me the option to rip as an ISO or as the DVD structure. So far I'm copying as the ISO right now to keep it self contained figuring I can extract it later if needed.

I'm not entirely sure what to do with them next. Overall I'd like to store all these DVDs in some structure on a file system. I'd like to have some way to stream them over my in-house network to a device connected to my TV. I'd like to retain the full quality of the DVDs in both visual and audio. I'd also like to know if there's a decent way to tag the movies with meta information (name, director, movie type, etc) aside from a basic spreadsheet.

As of right now my current means to get the digital media to my TV is via an xbox 360 over wireless N. I know this probably limits some of my options for right now, but with future consideration of a HTPC, what way should I store the DVDs?

The short term I'll probably convert the movies to play over the xbox using some sort of re-encoding software. Eventually I'll want to be doing bluray as well.

 

[MaxBurn]

I have gotten quite comfortable with file form. Also if it is nothing special on the extras I rip the main movie only using dvdfab, store that as file mode also. Win 7 media center also likes file mode so that's a plus.

Not as comfortable with bluray though so I am storing those in ISO for the moment.

Current media players have no problem with either mode so I think it is up to you.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm ripping and encoding just the movies for both DVD and BR. In hindsight, if storage space wasn't a concern, I would do ISO for everything. IIRC, MPC-HC will play ISOs straight.

 

[Chewy509]

I rip straight ISOs for plain archiving...

 

[Handruin]

Do you just store them in folders or one large list of movies?

 

[MaxBurn]

I separate per media type minium. One folder for DVD another for bluray etc, maybe subfolders for main movie verses whole disk? I can see it paying off somewhere down the line to be organized about this.

 

[Handruin]

How do you normally watch your archived movies? Are you watching at the computer or do you use some type of home theater PC when using media center?

 

[MaxBurn]

For now HTPC. I have a HDMI video splitter and one end goes to my TV in the living room. Sound I used to just split the analog also and send one to the receiver 5.1 analog in but I have a new receiver now and I am using optical. It has a lip synch problem but the new receiver can fix that, my old one couldn't that I could find. Typical story, HTPC is a pain but you can get most things to work after realizing it is a time vampire.

At the moment I am using win 7 media center for watching DVD's. With that and file mode it just picks them up and works.

All my problems are bluray at the moment, to play those I mount the ISO with daemon tools and play in Power DVD 9. Far from perfect is usually works fine and as a bonus the media center remote works with Power DVD 9. Problems like I just ran into with Terminator 3 won't play are crap you have to deal with on things like this, says won't play from virtual drive and internet rumors say just play it in power DVD 8 so now I have to have a whole nother app to play that one movie.


I am very much trying to get away from HTPC and recently tried a Patriot box. I put a pretty through review on newegg but it is a bluray main movie player only so it would only have come close to what I wanted if it worked right, unfortunately the networking is weak and won't play bluray over network worth anything.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16822219002

For bluray nothing is perfect at the moment and they are only two players that come close enough IMO to be worth looking at, the popcorn c200 and the HDI dune players. They both support (with current firmware) bluray menus and all the HD sound formats. The popcorn has come through some real problems in its firmware but seems to be good now, the dune was much more near perfect out of the gate. Both play back file mode or ISO file on network shares fine. I ordered a dune base as I felt a little better with the polished firmware. I am sure that by the end of the year this will all be sorted out and a bunch of boxes available that do this just fine, this is just where we are now.

 

[Stereodude]

I use ISO for BD and DVD, but in general I don't rip my stuff. I don't rewatch stuff enough to warrant all the HD space consumed to keep it all online.

For playback I use a HTPC. I mount the .ISO with Daemon Tools and and play the movie with Arcsoft Total Media Theater 3.

 

[Chewy509]

How do you normally watch your archived movies? Are you watching at the computer or do you use some type of home theater PC when using media center?

Just on a PC, and mplayer can play the ISOs directly...

 

[Chewy509]

Do you just store them in folders or one large list of movies?

Individual folders for movies, and a single folder for a TV Series, ag all Stargate SG-1 seasons are in a single folder called "Stargate SG-1", with each ISO prefixed with season number and disk number eg 01-01.

 

[Gilbo]

I rip the whole disk, folder structure intact, and then play it as a DVD. This way I keep menus, special features etc.

It's identical, in terms of archiving, to ripping the ISO, which I noticed a lot of people above recommended. It does however take up a lot of space, because you're stuck with the original, inefficient MPEG-2 compression.

Someone should really make a piece of software that keeps menus and special features but transcodes the video itself to be h.264 to save space. It would be nice if it did it automagical with no fiddling.


For playing I use VLC, "Open Disc" and point it at the root folder of the copied DVD's file structure. Works great. For ripping I use AnyDVD on the PC and vobcopy on Linux.

 

[ddrueding]

Someone should really make a piece of software that keeps menus and special features but transcodes the video itself to be h.264 to save space. It would be nice if it did it automagical with no fiddling.

Couldn't agree more. I would pay quite a bit for such a thing. The folks at SlySoft should put one together.

 

[Sol]

Really?

I can see why you might want the special features (I don't think much of them but I know some people like to watch them) but the menus on DVDs and BDs always annoy me. If I stick a disk in then I want to watch a movie or an episode of a show now! The menus are just slow and annoying when I have a HTPC (Or in my case a DLNA media server and PS3) which can do the same job faster and better. I'd prefer to rip each title to its own file with something like handbrake and ditch the menus (And the copyright warnings) entirely. Chuck each movie with associated features in a directory and just organize series by season with features in a subdirectory. For BDs I think the best option would just be to remux each title in to a nicer container and keep the encoding as it is but drop the menus and dire warnings of doom.

I guess the main advantage of this approach for me is that the device playing the files has a much better idea of what they are so I can use a simpler device with a simpler interface. (I'm guessing mounting, playing and using DVD/BD menus needs a full keyboard and mouse set up or some serious scripting where I mostly get away with just a remote, which is not seriously important but is kind of nice)

 

[Mercutio]

Generally speaking, I convert BDs and DVDs to fairly high bit-rate MP4 or .mkvs with Handbrake or Nero Vision (Vision seems to be faster, Handbrake has tons more options for quality), or RipBot264 for BDs. I preserve special features and store them with the main movie file and attach director's commentary as secondary or tertiary audio tracks.

On average, I shoot for a file size of 1.4GB for a typical 90 minute DVD, and 5 - 8GB for a BD rip. I tend to fiddle with settings to maximize file quality for that bit rate, and let my i7s work as long as they have to in order to get to that point.

For organization, movies just get stuck in a "movies" folder on a file server with limited breakdown by genre (Western vs. Comedy vs. Documentary), while TV shows are organized in directories by their name and season, then are listed by episode number. Depending on the content and my needs, I play things back with PowerDVD or MPC.

 

[mubs]

I tried Handbrake a few months ago and it took ages to extract a 5-minute chapter from a DVD. I was so disheartened that I haven't tried it since. Machine is an Amd64 X2 4400+ (2.2 GHz) with 2GB RAM, WinXP SP3 32-bit.

I am now finding that when I am viewing pictures taken with a 12MP camera, it takes about 3-4 seconds to display the next picture. One core gets maxed out during that time. How much faster will an i7 be, I wonder.

 

[ddrueding]

A whole lot? It also depends on your storage subsystem.

 

[Handruin]

mubs, I went from a similar system to yours (AMD X2 4600+ with 2GB RAM) to a core i7 860 and it felt a lot faster. One of the biggest things I noticed was using my Canon DPP software and how much faster it is to render images when just previewing them. I went from 3-5 seconds down to less than one second to preview. When I actually processed them from RAW to jpg it was also a lot faster. Granted I'm loading 10MP vs your 12MP, but if I noticed a substantial improvement, I assume you would also.

If you want specific numbers, let me know. I still have both machines running.