I got a bunch of DVDs my local library was getting rid of and there are a few very obscure ones that I would like to archive. However I am unsure how to get the data from the DVD into a shareable format what’s the easiest way to do this? Thanks!
I haven’t ripped an optical disk in many years, but a lot of folks recommend Handbrake.
Handbrake is the answer. I did this somewhat recently for a friend and it worked flawlessly
Handbrake would have been my recommendation a decade ago so I’m glad to see that it’s still relevant.
I should have added: you can get an external USB DVD drive pretty cheap from the usual places. Second hand market will be very cheap. Just make sure it’s compatible with the disks. For example, the US, Europe and Japan all have different formats.
Yea, like $15
But they are slooow for ripping, about 4x longer to rip the same DVD.
My internal drive rip’s a DVD in 10-15 minutes, the external takes an hour.
I’m pretty sure it’s a USB bottleneck. Maybe there’s USB 3 drives?
Yeah, there are USB 3.0 drives. Ultimately, the speeds will get bottlenecked by disc read speeds, instead of USB.
Yes, they can be slow. This is a case-by-case thing. If you plan on ripping a LOT of optical disks you may want an internal drive. If you just want to archive a few disks like the OP, an external makes more sense to me.
You can get a USB 3.0 external drive, too, but they are more expensive. The Hitachi LG Data Storage GP96Y is supposed to be quite good, and works with phones, too.
Makemkv is great.
Used everyone’s advice and it got me just want I needed thank you everyone!
Besides Handbrake, MakeMKV is great for ripping the DVDs to MKV, then you can convert to whatever you want with Handbrake (if needed).
Would this work with TV show DVDs that have several episodes on a disk?
Yep
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ8ijmy3qPo
Im just gonna leave this here
I was expecting YOU WOULDN’T ARCHIVE A CAR
Use MakeMKV. It is really good. It will give you files to work with, and automatically extract all good ones.
Then use Handbrake. You may also directly use handbrake, I dont know I used a total Potato (intel core duo) for the first step, no chance for encoding.
I literally just did that. DVDs have pretty uncompressed video, like an old movie is 8GB or bigger.
Have a look at the back cover of the DVD, mine had “PAL” written on it.
Recommended settings if you only want to use it with VLC or MPV, not strange media players.
- container: use mkv. It is free, works very well and has a funny name.
- video: AV1 (it is completely free and really good for the future. For better support use h264, but it is not as good)
- resolution: 570p or something, PAL
- compression rate: 25
- FPS: 22 or something, PAL
- audio: AAC or opus, AAC is the default
- bitrate 128kb/s for crappy movies, 160kb/s and up for music. But using more than the original DVD has makes no sense.
- make sure to add all tracks
- subtitles: also make sure to add all of them
Save these settings as custom preset “PAL DVDs”
Then run it. If you have multiple files from makemkv, you can “open directory” in handbrake, and then under “queue” “add multiple ones to queue” and select all of them. Make sure to have the preset chosen, and run.
I literally encoded all my DVDs with 720p, artificially increasing the size. I am not redoing everything, my laptop is heating for 50h or so. Working well but damn that takes time.
If the videos have grain, you may want to apply a grain filter. Grain is hard to compress, as it is random noise all over the place.
Like in JPG image compression, pictures are converted to areas of the same color, like this:
If you have grain, noise, in videos, the images cannot be compressed that well and the size can be double. So if it works well, use that to decrease the video size.
Jpeg, aac, opus, AV1 are all “lossy” so they will remove information that cannot be gotten back. Unlike zip for example, or jpeg-xl (JXL) for images, or FLAC for Audio.
But encoding something that is lossy, in a lossless format, makes no sense.
You can increase the size of a lossy encoded video, by re-encoding with better presets. Without adding any real information.
So test the presets first, and if you are unhappy, run them again but on the original files.
With the correct settings I got a 6GB movie down to 600MB or less, without notable data loss.
Just an FYI: what you’re trying to do is illegal. But it shouldn’t be and for what it’s worth, you have my blessing.
How so?
Fair Use says you can make copies of media for personal use (such as backup).
He was given the media, so owns the physical.
You know, I pulled a “dumb american” move and assumed OP was in the U.S. I’ll stand by the claim that what OP’s trying to do is illegal in the U.S. and write the rest of this comment under the assumption that OP is in the U.S.
I suppose I’m also assuming OP doesn’t have any special license to the content on the DVDs in question. But I’ll assume they’re talking about commercially available Hollywood movies for purposes of this comment.
Also, IANAL, and this isn’t legal advice.
But, the “backup copy” provision applies only to “computer programs”, not to movies, audio recordings, novels, etc.
Also, the backup copy provision isn’t considered part of “fair use”. Fair use is in 17 USC § 107. The backup copy provision is in 17 USC § 117. Whatever the case, nothing in what OP said indicates that anything they’re trying to do is for purposes of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching …, scholarship, or research”.
Beyond that, DVDs have DRM. And the DMCA makes it a felony to “circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title”. Basically, aside from a couple of provisions that don’t apply here, its a felony to circumvent DRM.
Whether OP owns the physical media isn’t relevant to any of the above.
It’s fucked, but that’s how it is.
Back in the day I used DVDDecrypter and DVDShrink
