Best Way to Back-Up Dragon Boxes?

[Takkun]

As of right now, I have not backed up any of my Dragon Boxes on to anything. My question is what and how is the best way to back them up on my computer? Specific software? And the best way to retain the quality of the video?

[Zestanor]

If you have an external hard drive the best thing to do would be to just dump each disc's contents (VIDEO_TS) onto it. 42 discs * 8.54 GB = 358.68 GB. In fact, if you have a computer with a large hard drive that isn't particularly being used, you could just dump them onto that, and load the VIDEO_TS into VLC just as if you had loaded the disc itself. DVD decrypter (ripper) works with the Dragon Boxes.

[eledoremassis02]

I made uncompressed ISO files of each disk..now I just want to burn them on Blu Ray. I had them on an external hardrive but that crashed.

[BluezaBladeNZ]

I really hope my HDD doesn't corrupt itself as it contains all the Japanese Dragon Box discs which came up to around 720gb.

[MarcFBR]

My feeling is that backing up the ISOs is nice, but unless you are sure you plan to reburn, there are better options.


Handbrake/Vidcoder- You can use more modern codecs to encode them. They'll largely look the same, but take up less space.

MakeMKV- Good for if you want to backup without any compression.


You'll lose the menus in those cases, but you could split them apart so you can keep them episode by episode rather than by disk.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

What kind of minute quality drop are we talking here, regarding the aforementioned ripping software?

[MarcFBR]

What kind of minute quality drop are we talking here, regarding the aforementioned ripping software?

On default video settings.... it'll depend on the person. Most people won't notice (that's for Handbrake and Vidcoder, for MakeMKV it'll just copy the data, not re-encode it.)

Only changes I'd recommend would be to obviously make sure its ripping both audio tracks, and the subtitles.

And make sure you set the container as MKV, handles multiple audio tracks and vobsubs well.


Here's an example using the disk I had in the drive, using default video settings. (And I should mention, caps are good as an example, but you always need to be aware a single screencap doesn't show how it will look in motion.)

http://db-destiny.net/encode-a.png

http://db-destiny.net/encode-b.png

One is DVD, the other is the reencode. I didn't alter either minus fixing the aspect ratio.

[dbboxkaifan]

AnyDVD HD and back it up as an ISO or VOB is always better than encoding to a video container file, as you'll always have the original quality of the video files.

Or do as Marc said.

Blu-rays are a lot bigger than DVDs and fill up an HDD much faster, though, normally they're worth due to the marvellous PQ/AQ quality they have.

[MarcFBR]

AnyDVD HD and back it up as an ISO or VOB is always better than encoding to a video container file, as you'll always have the original quality of the video files.

That isn't quite right. The container simply contains whatever you put in it. You could easily make an MKV with the original MPG2 and AC3 audio from the DVDs with no compression.

Blu-rays are a lot bigger than DVDs and fill up an HDD much faster, though, normally they're worth due to the marvellous PQ/AQ quality they have.

I assume he meant backing up the files ON a Blu-ray. Not going through and upscaling everything and then putting them on a DVD.

[Krycek7o2]

Blu-rays are a lot bigger than DVDs and fill up an HDD much faster, though, normally they're worth due to the marvellous PQ/AQ quality they have.

He's not upconverting, he would simply just make it BD compilation. I've been wanting to do this for while. Imagine all 26 DB DBox discs shrunk down to five BD discs!


I do recommend the MakeMKV method instead of encoding them to x264. This all depends if you have the space, though with the right setting, they can become indistinguishable.

[sumpter360]

Two programs:
AnyDVD HD
MagicDisc

AnyDVD HD decrypts the DVD's. MagicDisc creates ISO files.

And if you want to play the ISO files back, you can also mount them using MagicDisc. This ends up being exactly the same as if you were putting the actual disc in the drive. Then you could use VLC Player to play them

This is what I do. It works great!

[dbboxkaifan]

Two programs:
AnyDVD HD
MagicDisc

AnyDVD HD decrypts the DVD's. MagicDisc creates ISO files.

And if you want to play the ISO files back, you can mount them using MagicISO. This ends up being exactly the same as if you were putting the actual disc in the drive. Then you could use VLC Player to play them

This is what I do. It works great!

What's the point of using MagicDisc? AnyDVD HD makes ISO files while backing up the disc.

[sumpter360]

What's the point of using MagicDisc? AnyDVD HD makes ISO files while backing up the disc.

Hmm... That's a great question MagicDisc can both create and mount ISO's. It was what I learned to use first so I just stick with that.

[sangofe]

I really hope my HDD doesn't corrupt itself as it contains all the Japanese Dragon Box discs which came up to around 720gb.

Heh, I actually had that myself, and the bang, the hard drive crashed into the floor. Yay.

[Krycek7o2]

I really hope my HDD doesn't corrupt itself as it contains all the Japanese Dragon Box discs which came up to around 720gb.

Make a backup of the backup. I'm not kidding.
I've always been frighten of losing valuable data, reason why I usually end up spending more money just to keep my mind at ease.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Wonder how the Blu-Ray reburns would work. Do Blu-Rays have the "recommended time limits" for SD Video? Could you burn the entire menu structure of multiple DVDs and use another menu to move between them?

[Rukura]

I've actually been wanting to both backup all the episodes from my Dragon Boxes into my HDD and rip them as ISOs to re-burn them (damn you, region coding ). Only problem there is that my disc drive doesn't burn dual-layer discs...

So, MakeMKV to backup each individual episode uncompressed, and MagicDisc to create the ISOs?

[Krycek7o2]

Wonder how the Blu-Ray reburns would work. Do Blu-Rays have the "recommended time limits" for SD Video? Could you burn the entire menu structure of multiple DVDs and use another menu to move between them?

From what I understand, as long as it compliant with BD standards, you should be set.

I've actually been wanting to both backup all the episodes from my Dragon Boxes into my HDD and rip them as ISOs to re-burn them (damn you, region coding ). Only problem there is that my disc drive doesn't burn dual-layer discs...

So, MakeMKV to backup each individual episode uncompressed, and MagicDisc to create the ISOs?

With MakeMKV you can either do it by episode (if you're using the R2 discs) or as a whole movie. I suspect the FUNi DBox will appear as one long movie.
Also, I suggest you find if you DVD Player can be "hacked" via codes to make it region free. This way, you don't have to mess around with re-burning everything.

[Rukura]

With MakeMKV you can either do it by episode (if you're using the R2 discs) or as a whole movie. I suspect the FUNi DBox will appear as one long movie.
Also, I suggest you find if you DVD Player can be "hacked" via codes to make it region free. This way, you don't have to mess around with re-burning everything.

Yeah, I have the FUNi Boxes. Don't know how that's gonna work

My DVD player is basically my PS3. The only Dragon Ball discs I can play on it are my Dragon Box singles and Spain R2 Movie DBoxes. (Been basically watching my R1s on my laptop)

[Krycek7o2]

With MakeMKV you can either do it by episode (if you're using the R2 discs) or as a whole movie. I suspect the FUNi DBox will appear as one long movie.
Also, I suggest you find if you DVD Player can be "hacked" via codes to make it region free. This way, you don't have to mess around with re-burning everything.

Yeah, I have the FUNi Boxes. Don't know how that's gonna work

My DVD player is basically my PS3. The only Dragon Ball discs I can play on it are my Dragon Box singles and Spain R2 Movie DBoxes. (Been basically watching my R1s on my laptop)

Hmm, why not get a media player like the WDTV Live/Boxee Box or something similar and play the R1 ISO's off a portable HD. It will be better than re-burning everything and less time consuming. I've recently began doing this with my R2 DBox discs. I connect the portal drive to the Boxee Box and watch the individual ISO's. This is really a very ideal solution, all my custom subtitled discs are now on this 1TB drive.