Discs to Digital - How?

[koberulz]

I've seen a few people on here mention buying discs, but ripping them and running their collection of a hard drive. I'm curious as to how this works.

I would assume the easiest way for standard Blu would be to simply copy across the M2TS file for the main feature, but this doesn't work if there are multiple cuts or with DVDs.

Storage seems like a huge issue. BDs are big, and some collections here number in the thousands. Where do you get that much storage? Do you have to swap out hard drives constantly, and doesn't that defeat the purpose?

How do you sort your collection? How do you browse it? How do you get it from the drive to the TV?

[MifuneFan]

It's against this site's rules to discuss that.

[koberulz]

I'm not asking for anything that would require circumventing copy protection.

I assume if one were able to do so, any related knowledge would be transferable, but nonetheless that's not what I'm interested in discussing.

[MifuneFan]

I'm just basing this on what I've seen. Mods tend to quash any discussion of converting a physical BD into a digital file on an HDD, and related subjects.

If anyone wants to answer the question go ahead, just know that mods may delete this topic.

[koberulz]

I'm quite content to assume I have a collection of video files I want to organise and view, if that will make the mods happier.

I am in fact currently in the process of digitising some old home VHS tapes, the end result of which will be video files that need organising, so it becomes as relevant there as it would to any hypothetical conversion of my movie collection.

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Google MKV transcoder.

[StingingVelvet]

The sheer size of the HDD space I would need to backup 1800 movies is staggering to me. Seems like a non-starter. Same for "DRM free games!" sites like GOG, there's no way I can backup 300 games, so what's the point? This only works with music because of the small file sizes.

It's streaming or discs, IMO.

[bigshot]

There are exceptions to the law.

I'm the director of a non-profit digital archive serving film makers. According to a ruling by the copyright office two years ago, it is legal for non-profit archives and public libraries to circumvent copy protection for archival purposes. I can legally rip blu-ray discs. We archive other types of media as well, but I estimate our archives including backups are over 200TB. We use hard drive arrays with built in backup protection, not external hard drives.

[dig311dug]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

The sheer size of the HDD space I would need to backup 1800 movies is staggering to me. Seems like a non-starter.

This.
for me it would be 37.5gb (averaging a bd 25 and 50) x 3309 discs = 124,087.50gigs would equal 124.0875 terabytes.

10tb hardrvies = $200 * 13 hardrives =

$2,600 to convert to digital, not to mention the time... which would be incalculable.

[kraven]

Talking about it, isn't the same as doing it.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by bigshot

There are exceptions to the law.

I'm the director of a non-profit digital archive serving film makers. According to a ruling by the copyright office two years ago, it is legal for non-profit archives and public libraries to circumvent copy protection for archival purposes. I can legally rip blu-ray discs.

The laws are full of exceptions for this sort of stuff really. For example I remember it was actually legal to record a film in a theater in the UK as long as it was for personal use a few years ago because of the way they worded the laws (no longer the case incase anybody is getting ideas).

[El_Fez]

Just for a benchmark, I've got a 10 TB hard drive for the Video Nasty Project.

Of the 72 nasties (save for the handful that are still only on VHS) ripped from Blu and DVD, the 80 from the third list, all the raw footage we've shot of ourselves discussing the movies and then about 100 non-nasty movies that have come up during the discussion, I think my drive is hovering about 80% full. And that's me dumping all the extras and whatnot and just keeping the movie's mp4.

I cant imagine ripping my entire collection. I'd need at least eight more 10tb drives!

[veritas]

Originally Posted by dig311dug

This.
for me it would be 37.5gb (averaging a bd 25 and 50) x 3309 discs = 124,087.50gigs would equal 124.0875 terabytes.

10tb hardrvies = $200 * 13 hardrives =

$2,600 to convert to digital, not to mention the time... which would be incalculable.

your math is way off though if they used HEVC. By going to a higher effeciency encoder the size would drop down by 62% on 1080p materials so the average size for a disc image would be 14.25gb per disc. In general people would not make a disc image though so it would drop a in half again to about 7gb to get just the movie at blu ray quality. By that math it would require about 2 to 3 hard drives to hold your entire collection.

This is why people are annoyed with itunes and vudu not using hevc for streaming services they could easily give us blu ray quality streams without cutting corners all they have to do is pay for a newer encoder.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by veritas

your math is way off though if they used HEVC. By going to a higher effeciency encoder the size would drop down by 62% on 1080p materials so the average size for a disc image would be 14.25gb per disc. In general people would not make a disc image though so it would drop a in half again to about 7gb to get just the movie at blu ray quality. By that math it would require about 2 to 3 hard drives to hold your entire collection.

You're not getting "blu-ray quality" if you further compress it like that, even with a good encoder. There are people on this forum who freak out and see the difference if the bitrate of a UHD falls below 50, so they're obviously not gonna be happy with 7GB for 1080p. Anyone who would be happy with that probably switched to Vudu anyway.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

You're not getting "blu-ray quality" if you further compress it like that, even with a good encoder. There are people on this forum who freak out and see the difference if the bitrate of a UHD falls below 50, so they're obviously not gonna be happy with 7GB for 1080p. Anyone who would be happy with that probably switched to Vudu anyway.

That's just the difference in coding efficiency of h.264 vs h.265. it stores the data differently with a larger tree to pull from so its more efficient. Those size drops would be pixel for pixel the same more or less its just how the information stored and put back together. As for uhd they actually do use h.265 which is why the discs aren't much bigger.

the main changes would be that it takes more computational power so your computer would use more power because its processing more.

if vudu or itunes used h.265 instead of .264 they would average around 2GB per video

[handcraftedbits]

It's quite unfortunate that the mods don't like discussing this topic, as I've ripped my entire collection in full quality to my NAS and could share quite a bit of information on the subject. It's really the best way to go if you can swing it (money- and time-wise). With the right software, it's like having your own private Netflix that has much better video/audio quality and movies that are actually good.

Originally Posted by koberulz

I'm not asking for anything that would require circumventing copy protection.

That's the rub -- copying your Blus to HDD requires circumventing copy protection. I tend to look at it from the perspective that:

a) I bought the damn discs
b) I'm not going to upload them anywhere

so

c) I don't really care if it's "against the law"

But to each his own...

Originally Posted by koberulz

Storage seems like a huge issue. BDs are big, and some collections here number in the thousands. Where do you get that much storage? Do you have to swap out hard drives constantly, and doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Well generally what you do is use a small NAS (Network-Attached Storage) device (think, baby computer) with a bunch of disks and share it as a "logical disk" over the network.

If you have a sensibly-sized collection, it's not crazy expensive to buy all the disks you need. Personally I tend to wonder what people with 3K+ discs are thinking, they probably haven't watched every movie they own, and if they have, there's probably a significant chunk that aren't really "favorite movies" that are worth keeping around.

[dig311dug]

Originally Posted by veritas

your math is way off though if they used HEVC. By going to a higher effeciency encoder the size would drop down by 62% on 1080p materials so the average size for a disc image would be 14.25gb per disc. In general people would not make a disc image though so it would drop a in half again to about 7gb to get just the movie at blu ray quality. By that math it would require about 2 to 3 hard drives to hold your entire collection.

This is why people are annoyed with itunes and vudu not using hevc for streaming services they could easily give us blu ray quality streams without cutting corners all they have to do is pay for a newer encoder.

it would still be lower quality (if ever so slightly) and not include special features though, correct?

regardless, my time is worth billions and billions and billions of doll hairs.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by handcraftedbits

That's the rub -- copying your Blus to HDD requires circumventing copy protection.

Sure, but that's about the least-interesting aspect; I'm more interested in the logistics and storage and such, which has nothing to do with copy protection whatsoever.

Obviously one could apply the same principles to video files created by circumventing copy protection, but it's not necessarily inherent to the process of archiving video files.

[handcraftedbits]

Originally Posted by koberulz

Sure, but that's about the least-interesting aspect

Agreed, but I think that's the main sticking point to discussing the technical aspects here on the forum: you'd be explaining to people how to "break the law", and the forum by extension would be seen to be promoting such behavior.

[koberulz]

Not if you're only discussing the storage, sorting, and viewing of a large archive of video files.