Archiving loads of old DVDs

DampDog

DampDog

DampDog

Soldato
Joined
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North Staffs
So as I'm stuck in and have time on my hands I thought I'd have a tidy up and possibly archive all my old dvd's so I can stick the disks in a box in the garage but still have access to them.

What's the easiest/cheapest way to do it?

I don't have a smart TV so was thinking of buying a Raspberry Pi, using an old spare drive. If that's a way to go what the best media server software to use, I've only really ever seen kodi.

Or maybe a NAS?

I know nowt about it, which is why I'm asking. Has to be easy so a novice can do it (me) and cheap. ( I quite fancy buying a Pi anyway)
 
mrbell1984 said:
You want something more beefier than a RPI that's for sure. Some people have done this over years and if you have over 100 it's going to take you a VERY long time to archive this amount.
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I wasn't thinking about using the Pi to archive them, just to access them. (I'll probably archive them to a drive on my PC first) But yeah, I'm sure it gonna take some time. No rush though.
 
The time drags due to the read speed of the DVD drive i've found in the past - an 8x DVD drive will still take 15 mins to copy over a 2 hour film.

But,

Do you already have a streaming / on demand service that you use to watch films ? If so, how many in your archive are available on that ? If they are, then they are likely to be of better quality than the DVD's. NowTV is criticised for being a lowly 720p ( which is still quite watchable really ), but thats still better than PAL DVD's. It simply may not be worth converting stuff that you can have access to via an on demand setup.
 
Cheers. Ok, it seams I'm in the position, where it's one of those "its seemed a good idea at the time" moments. As you say times have moved on, maybe it's time to offload them to the local charity shop. I may still looking at getting a Pi, for streaming and just to have a play.
 
After copying the DVDs across, use HandBrake to encode the videos. You can spend a fair amount of time just finding the right settings which are acceptable.
 
darael said:
After copying the DVDs across, use HandBrake to encode the videos. You can spend a fair amount of time just finding the right settings which are acceptable.
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It's much less time consuming just ripping them with MakeMKV. With storage as cheap as it is now its not worth re-encoding to save space IMHO
 
Frozennova said:
It's much less time consuming just ripping them with MakeMKV. With storage as cheap as it is now its not worth re-encoding to save space IMHO
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Agreed ! I only re-encode blu rays.

Its one of those job best done as a background task while you're doing something else. Sitting there endlessly feeding discs to your PC gets old fast (or rather ... slowly).

For playback we use plex client on amazon fire (no smart TV's in the house) and plex server is running on my NAS. Used to use kodi, but it was a faff with install on the fires, whereas plex is officially supported. Kodi also caused other issues, we usually had to restart the boxes after using it so anything else could work properly - iplayer etc.
 
Donnie Fisher said:
The time drags due to the read speed of the DVD drive i've found in the past - an 8x DVD drive will still take 15 mins to copy over a 2 hour film.

But,

Do you already have a streaming / on demand service that you use to watch films ? If so, how many in your archive are available on that ? If they are, then they are likely to be of better quality than the DVD's. NowTV is criticised for being a lowly 720p ( which is still quite watchable really ), but thats still better than PAL DVD's. It simply may not be worth converting stuff that you can have access to via an on demand setup.
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I just subscribed to a service provider called N.... X for my children. When I tried to search a movie I have on dvd called Trading Places (1983) nothing appeared. So much for N... X
When
 
I'm not tech savvy at all but if it's about making space then what I did was buy DVD sleeves and take them all out of their plastic cases. I have around 350 something DVDs so it's made a huge difference!

I don't have the binders to put them in as they say they only hold I think 20-25 so I'm currently trying to find a storage box with a lid that I can pop them into. They're currently sat in a cardboard box about 20cm x 20cm x 40cm whereas before they took up about 3/4 shelves on my bookcase.

:)
 
something daft already!! said:
It is not legal to rip copy written CDs or DVDs in this country.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-hard-drives-uk-high-court-says-10402163.html

Anyone doing so is breaking UK law.
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Surely it's legal as long as you own the films and music? E.g. I have about 300 CD albums including a lot of Now albums. Years ago, I ripped them all onto my PC. This means that they're all in one place and I can use the PC as a jukebox. I still have the CDs, so someone please tell me what's wrong I done there. Also, what's to stop me from copying the same music onto an MP3 player or phone? Answer me :p

As for films, most of my DVD / blu-ray collection is Disney, Marvel and other animation. I'm subbed to D+ for a year so that's most of my collection coved. Others have mentioned Netflix (although apparently we're not allowed to mention Netflix in this thread), so the OP could use that. Also, Amazon Prime and Lovefilm.
 
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