Backing up DVDs / Blurays question!

[Jon Jon]

Hey there! Long time no see .

After learning that the Dragon Boxes were truly a limited run, I want to back up all of my sets onto my computer. Idealistically, I'd like to back them up without any conversion (the vobs and etc., possibly throw them into MKV containers) and also stick them onto an external hard drive (My Dragon Ball Drive). I would also like this to be viewable via my TV without streaming. I do own a PS3, but I don't think it would read straight up VOBs or MKVs).

My question is, what is the best way of going about this? If it is worth it to me to invest in a cheap player that WOULD play these (a roku, perhaps) let me know. I am curious and I'd like to approach this in a smart manner.

Blurays I assume would require a different approach (I've just tossed them into MKV containers when I'd make clips and etc.).

All help would be appreciated, thanks

EDIT: I'd also like to be able to utilize the menus and etc. Essentially, I would like to be able to open each disc back up as if I am putting the disc into my PS3, or whatever device I would be using to do so).

[Gohaz]

There are a few players out there that will play mkv files... they have usb ports so it would be great for uses with an external hd... if you can't find one of those, I think the best solution would be a blu-ray, no questions!

Edit: Found this one on amazon http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-W ... B001JZFQU4

[Jon Jon]

There are a few players out there that will play mkv files... they have usb ports so it would be great for uses with an external hd... if you can't find one of those, I think the best solution would be a blu-ray, no questions!

Edit: Found this one on amazon http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-W ... B001JZFQU4

Thanks for the input. I'd hope to look into a cheaper option...possibly the roku box?

I would also like to be able to pretty much view them as if i was inserting the disc (accessing the menu and etc. too) by doing this. Though this WD player is definitely a good place to start.Would be easier to have a player than having to hook my computer up through hdmi to do this.

[Ashura]

Actually, the PS3 will straight up read vobs. Not sure what the caveats are anymore, though.

As for menus, I doubt you'll be able to keep those unless you do a 1:1 backup of the DVD, which isn't hard with imgburn. What I do generally is I have 1:1 vobs dumped onto my media drive, and I serve them through a mac mini that I have installed Boxee on.

[DBfan4life]

If you already have a DVD ripper than just back up the DVD contents than stick it all in a hard drive and you can connect the USB to your PS3 and watch.

[MarcFBR]

Let's all tread carefully in this thread, because I can easily imagine it getting locked.


Unless you are just going to do 'disk backups' and just keep them on the hard drive as an iso when you need them, you won't get the menus.

Best way is probably to strip out the vob data episode by episode, use a muxer to put everything in an MKV, and just label the files well.


The current WDTV (the new model of the WDTV Live) is likely the choice for you if you want to watch them 1:1 with no potential issues cropping up.

Amazon Link to current WDTV Live

Doing it on the Roku will require a live transcoder setup. There isn't any official Roku channel that can do that. There are a few unofficial ones, but at any time Roku could in theory kill that channel and therefore break what you need it to do.

WDTV would be better in your case because it does have the codec support internal to the device, with built in Wifi if you want to hook it up to a network.

I've set up most of the potential variants for 'media on the tv' type setups. My personal setup doesn't include one (because I have a more detailed setup) but WDTV is the best choice for 'it just works' and 'it just works well.' Outside of a few issues that likely won't crop up for what you are specifically asking for, it'll be the perfect setup.

The Roku honestly won't work well for what you want.

The other method would be to use a program that can be used to rejigger the VOBs and you could name them and put them on a hard drive. The issue there is, the PS3 is ludicrously picky about stuff. I've seen media servers specifically setup to stream to the PS3 sometimes fail on occasion. It's generally better to get a media player that can just do it properly.


Truth be told you honestly don't need them to be 1:1. Transcoding from DVD works relatively well for home use, and you can tweak settings relatively quickly and easily to make it look identical, even if you don't save much in the way of filesize. But I'm not recommending any of those methods since you asked for no reencoding.

Best method is still most definitely getting a competent standalone media box. They generally work quite well, are relatively affordable, and the good ones even add features as time goes on.

[Ashura]

So long as people are only talking about putting media on their media servers that they own legitimately, I think we're a-okay.

Best method is still most definitely getting a competent standalone media box. They generally work quite well, are relatively affordable, and the good ones even add features as time goes on.

Get, or build. If you have a decent computer hanging around you can dump something like Boxee on it and use your iphone/ipod/android to control it. I had an old Mac Mini laying around and this worked out fairly well for me. Boxee's not amazing, but it it's fairly simple in what it does if you have a spare PC hanging around.

[MarcFBR]

Get, or build. If you have a decent computer hanging around you can dump something like Boxee on it and use your iphone/ipod/android to control it. I had an old Mac Mini laying around and this worked out fairly well for me. Boxee's not amazing, but it it's fairly simple in what it does if you have a spare PC hanging around.

No doubt that is a great method (I have a Mac Mini with Plex as my primary media device.) But it also requires extra effort and more potential of failure points. Software or OS updates can cause potential issues, it requires a vigilance on keeping everything properly updated and working correct. It can be a great setup.

But for most people getting a small standalone media box is a better option. Especially the 'modern' media boxes that generally have decent interfaces, have support for most types of files, and include numerous web services.

At some point spending 100 bucks is just a better option for most people.

[Jon Jon]

All very good points from you guys. That WD drive is very attractive, especially since that 1TB is big enough to house my dragon boxes, movies, and DBGT season sets with 1:1 dvd back ups. I really do like that idea.

Granted, menu access would be out of the question, I could just use my copy of MakeMKV (what I use to rip my blurays) and just copy each disc into an MKV and store them that way. Just as long as that WD drive will let me fumble through the different audio and subtitle tracks without an issue I'll be happy. This idea is attractive too if I want to take it and go watch at a friend's or something...just bring the box.

Judging by what you guys are saying, it turns out that if I DO want access to the menus, I'll have to do disc back ups + remove the copyright protection (DVD Fab does that nicely). However, I'd rather not hook a computer up to my TV. It's really more of a pain than it's worth. Like I said, I could just plug my desktop into it via HDMI and call it a day, but I just like the option of using a remote to hit play and that's it. No fumbling through VLC player or something with a mouse and etc. and have to fiddle. I like being able to just loaf with a remote and it just works. It's a big reason why I use my PS3 for everything DVD, Bluray, and streaming related and NOT my PC.

Thanks for the recommendations! It's greatly appreciated . Now I just need to come up with some money for that drive and get to work essentially haha.

EDIT: Especially with my Dragon Box 2. I really want a back up of that after seeing how much they cost now D:

Also, I am aware of how picky the PS3 is. It baffles me sometimes.

[MarcFBR]

That WD drive is very attractive, especially since that 1TB is big enough to house my dragon boxes, movies, and DBGT season sets with 1:1 dvd back ups. I really do like that idea.

To be clear, the one I linked to does not have a drive in it, you'd have to plug in an external hard drive.

The WDTV Live Hub DOES have a hard drive in it though.

Amazon Link to WDTV Live Hub

The WDTV Live Hub is largely the same device, but with a built in 1TB hard drive. But the hub does not have Wifi built in so you would have to buy a compatible dongle for Wifi.

WDTV without the hard drive is 100. WDTV with is 200. 1tb externals are easily found for under 100 dollars, and you wouldn't need to buy a Wifi dongle.

I can understand the niceness of having an HDD built into the box and not having to deal with it. Especially if you plan on taking it with you places. Having a hard drive built into the box adds some nice portability to it.

[Paradox295]

All very good points from you guys. That WD drive is very attractive, especially since that 1TB is big enough to house my dragon boxes, movies, and DBGT season sets with 1:1 dvd back ups. I really do like that idea.

Granted, menu access would be out of the question, I could just use my copy of MakeMKV (what I use to rip my blurays) and just copy each disc into an MKV and store them that way. Just as long as that WD drive will let me fumble through the different audio and subtitle tracks without an issue I'll be happy. This idea is attractive too if I want to take it and go watch at a friend's or something...just bring the box.

Judging by what you guys are saying, it turns out that if I DO want access to the menus, I'll have to do disc back ups + remove the copyright protection (DVD Fab does that nicely). However, I'd rather not hook a computer up to my TV. It's really more of a pain than it's worth. Like I said, I could just plug my desktop into it via HDMI and call it a day, but I just like the option of using a remote to hit play and that's it. No fumbling through VLC player or something with a mouse and etc. and have to fiddle. I like being able to just loaf with a remote and it just works. It's a big reason why I use my PS3 for everything DVD, Bluray, and streaming related and NOT my PC.

Thanks for the recommendations! It's greatly appreciated . Now I just need to come up with some money for that drive and get to work essentially haha.

EDIT: Especially with my Dragon Box 2. I really want a back up of that after seeing how much they cost now D:

Also, I am aware of how picky the PS3 is. It baffles me sometimes.

This is what I would do.

1) Backup the DVDs to ISO using ImgBurn or DVDFab
2) Unzip the Vobs using Winrar or 7Zip
3) Remux the Vobs to MKV with Mkvtoolnix. Make sure to set the 4:3 flag.
4) ???
5) Profit

You could also rip the subtitles, save them as .srt and mux those in, but not sure how to go about doing that..

[Jon Jon]

@MarcFBR

I'm hoping to score it for cheaper come Black Friday. If not, it's still a good possibility. It's really for the convenience factor. If I want to bring it with me to watch with friends, I can do that.

Also, if I wanted to use it for Amazon Instant (I am a prime member), I have a wired network set up, so that's no big.

Granted, I could just go the cheaper route and just use one of my NAS enclosures, dump a bigger drive into it, and just have the WD player access it over my network. hell I could just buy a new drive for my desktop (been meaning to anyway) and set it up as a share anyway.

In fact, this is probably the better idea.

@Paradox295

MakeMKV does the same exact thing, it's all automatic too. Just tell it what to throw into the MKV container. Hell, I might even just leave out the English track to save on space. I've used this to do a few of the discs as well as a few of my Dragon Ball Kai blurays to do rips and it works very well.

[Jon Jon]

UPDATE:

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I figure I'd come back and update you guys on my progress.

I just took the easy step and hooked up my PC to my TV. However, now that I use a wireless headset for my PC exclusively, it is only the default output when I turn it on.

So now, my idea is to simply use Windows Media Center. I tried using XMBC, but it seemed to have issues with using the HDMI out audio (the sound processor on my Radeon 5670) to output to my TV. I used this guide to set up WMC to read ISOs properly.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11071/au ... ia-center/

This works FLAWLESSLY. I so far have backed up sets 1-6. I will be backing up 7 over the weekend. I just watched a couple of discs from set 6 and it automatically loads each ISO flawlessly and accesses the DVD menus and etc. without a problem. Now, I just need to get an aux cable as well as a splitter so I can have my PS3 and PC hooked up to my speakers at the same time. I also plan to buy a windows media center remote as well.

If you guys have any recommendations for remotes that are under $30 USD, I'm all ears.

Also, if you guys have any recommendations or comments, I'm all ears as well. Thanks again guys!