How to store non copy protected DVDs?

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stuffed

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#71682 15-Nov-2010 12:45

Am new to this particular forum so excuse any dumb comments!

After importing a VCR in 1979, now have about 50 great DVD’s of family and friends – and growing.

Now technology has moved on a little so surely I now can store and play these on some other devise other than a steam DVD?

What program/devise is there to enable me to:

Store as many DVD’s (my own – not copy protected) as like?

Be able to select the DVD then select the Chapter?

Have HDMI out and a remote

Can this be done via a PC?

Many thanks

Why work on Wednesday and stuff up 2 good long weekends

Disrespective

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#404827 15-Nov-2010 13:04

It can certainly be done via PC. I'm sure there are other options too but the PC would be simple if you had spare parts lying around.

You'd just need to rip the DVD's using anything (Probably copy/paste would work fine as they're home made DVD's) into a folder where all the films will live. The hdd will have to be fairly large to hold 50 video_ts folders but it's not outside of the realms of affordable by any means.

Then install any of the myriad htpc software solutions available (Windows Media Center, Mediaportal e.t.c.) and you should be away and laughing after a little setup.

You can buy the Media Center remote/receiver packages for about $50 from memory online which will work with pretty much any PC you choose.

richms

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#404828 15-Nov-2010 13:04

Just rip them to harddrive and open the folder in VLC to play them is the easiest.

Richard rich.ms

josephhinvest

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#404848 15-Nov-2010 13:35

richms: Just rip them to harddrive and open the folder in VLC to play them is the easiest.

+1. Agreed. 50 DVDs @ ~5 GB each is only around 250 GB.

My plan for my home movies, some still on Mini-DV, some on video DVD etc is to re-digitize where possible and store on hard disk. I was thinking of something along these lines, with a couple of 1.5 or 2 TB drives installed.
Then for real redundancy, possibly when funds allow, duplicate the whole setup for storage at parents house, for example.

I've had too many DVD-Rs and CD-Rs fail after a few years in storage to trust them, "live" i.e. hard disk storage is the way to go I think.

Cheers,
Joseph.

stuffed

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#404873 15-Nov-2010 14:16

Thanks you guys – am prepared to spend a few dollars - $2-$3k and would use plenty of storage but am more concerned about the front end software. With Windows Media – could you select a DVD – then select the chapters? And then be able to do that with a remote?

Thanks

Why work on Wednesday and stuff up 2 good long weekends

gehenna

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#404879 15-Nov-2010 14:23

stuffed: Thanks you guys – am prepared to spend a few dollars - $2-$3k and would use plenty of storage but am more concerned about the front end software. With Windows Media – could you select a DVD – then select the chapters? And then be able to do that with a remote?

Thanks

Yes. WMC is brilliant like that.

stuffed

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#404898 15-Nov-2010 15:02

Now told you this is new stuff for me – how do I import DVD’s onto my HDD so that can play in WMC? W7 Pro.
Thanks

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wellygary

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#404911 15-Nov-2010 15:29

Just Drag the whole root folder of each DVD onto you HDD, and give the newly created folder a distinct name,

stuffed

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#404925 15-Nov-2010 15:59

OK – I put a DVD in the drive – there are 2 Folders – Audio_TS and Video_TS have dragged them into a new folder but obviously that is not correct as Windows Media Center does not recognize them!

Guys think beginner here with this stuff anyway……………………! Wot now?

Why work on Wednesday and stuff up 2 good long weekends

MCEabused

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#404942 15-Nov-2010 16:28

Sounds like you have not added the DVDs folder to the "Media library"
eg D:\DVDs\your-Movie-name\VIDEO_TS\

you need to go to Media center > settings > media library tick "Movies"and then add the location of your dvd's. In my example "d:\DVDs" just change it to where your dropped yours

as a bonus download the dvd's cover art and save it in the your-Movie-nameour-Movie-name folder as "folder.jpg" and the artwork will show in 7 Media centers browser

(this also works for avi, mpg etc too as long as they are in thier own Named folder)

timmmay

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#405492 16-Nov-2010 18:53

If you want to compress the huge DVD files to mpeg4 use the free software "Handbrake". It will rip the DVDs for you then encode to DVD, saving about 75% of the space. I think chapters could be separate mp4 files, which you could rename and play directly via any media player you like.

urban

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#405524 16-Nov-2010 20:16

You could also rip them as ISO's, just download the trial version of ANYDVD HD and then just playback on your PC via VLC MediaPlayer.

If you want to shrink the dvd size down a bit as well you could use DVDSHRINK, but I suggest you don't as you lose picture quality.

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Disrespective

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#405529 16-Nov-2010 20:22

timmmay: If you want to compress the huge DVD files to mpeg4 use the free software "Handbrake". It will rip the DVDs for you then encode to DVD, saving about 75% of the space. I think chapters could be separate mp4 files, which you could rename and play directly via any media player you like.

This will definitely work but he'll lose any custom menu setups he might have made.