Hi everyone!
I have around 200 DVD (with movies) that I’d want to backup in order to save them from rotting or physical media disappearance.
My most powerful computer with a DVD drive is a 2012 MacBook Pro upgraded to 16gb of Ram with an SSD running Fedora 42.
If possible, I’d want to keep all the bonuses of the movies, but I could also just backup the movies if keeping the whole disc is too difficult.
My goal would be to keep the original quality.
Also 6-7 discs are already skipping scenes even if the disc shows no damage.
I’ve bought some of these discs 20 years ago with my teenager pocket money so I wouldn’t want to lose them.
Thanks for the help.
As I own these discs and nothing would be illegal in my country, I thought it would be better to post here instead of the piracy community.
Edit: I guess I’ll use Make MKV Beta as it seems to work well and VLC can open the MKV files. Thanks for your help!
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You should be able to make a complete backup of a DVD to an iso file using dd.
That would get you an exact copy of the disk with everything on it. And also, while 200 DVDs sounded a lot, it’s “only” 860GB (assuming 4,3GB/disk which I think is the most common for movies), so it’s not stupidly expensive either. Obviously you’ll want a RAID setup and most likely backups for that, so it’s more than just a single 1TB drive, but still quite manageable.
Actually, 8.5GB. Movies are typically on dual layer discs.
They would probably compress pretty well, I imagine.
Majority of the data (video) is already compressed as MPEG-2 so I’d think it doesn’t compress very well. But if you don’t have enough storage it’s always an option to re-encode video with something more modern and achieve smaller file sizes from that. But that also removes at least DVD menu and other ‘format dependent’ options.
But then would I be able to read them on any computer without burning them?
Yes. You could use vlc or even as an iso file just open them as a virtual drive.
I think VLC can also open them on Android.
accept reality. just like vhs…all those formats die. and no one will ever look at the shit again. your future tv will be bazillion K resolution, have another aspect ratio and so on… and if you really ever want to watch that one movie again there’'ll be better ways and better copies of the movie somewhere. you are wasting energy, polluting the environment and overestimating the value of your past memories.
It might be your reality but it’s clearly not mine.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewatched Alien or Terminator.
So yes it’s true that I’m using Netflix more than my DVD’s, but I’ll watch a lot of these movies again for sure.
Also, despite the low resolution, DVD’s now have some kind of charm in their picture quality and it’s perfectly good enough for me.
But, of course, someone who doesn’t enjoy cinema the way I do shouldn’t be going through such a hassle.
dvdbackup with the -M option makes a 1/1 clone of your dvd aswell as decrypts the video. One of the best ways to backup old dvds. Takes alot of storage tho and is cli rather if thats a plus or minus for yah.
you can make an iso, that is a digital replica. the iso can be played with for example vlc.
you can use makemkv, which creates an mkv file out of every video. this allows additional file managing, cause you get a lot of mkv files if the dvd has several bonuses. mkv wont change the encoding, cause its just a container.
as for the skipping…i used to clean up all my nonreadable dvds. just plain old simple soap and luke warm water. cleaned with microfiber cloth.
warner currently has a dvd rot replacment project, but people said you have to jump though too many hoops to make it work. and thats just warner, the other dont even care.
You really might want to consider using this:
https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping-machine
Something to keep in mind is that Riplock is a thing. It will make DVD reads slower.
I’d recommend using Make MKV if possible, and then you might use Handbrake to transcode it.
MakeMKV to backup the contents and if you need it in a different format Handbrake so it can be converted to MP4.
Automatic Ripping Machine can pull the main movie off a disc automatically, but I’m not sure about imaging the full disc. Once it’s set up, you just put a disc in and wait.
I came here for this. with 200 dvds, you put the ripping system somewhere you pass by often. pop one out and pop one in whenever you happen to walk by.
you can rip all features - though that may not include the menus.
Mini hijack but what software would yall recommend for vhs backups, preferably linux native? I figure need to do this before they start degrading. I have a capture card already, just was wondering the best software. I tried potplayer but didnt love it…id really need software with an auto shutoff so I can play a tape when I go to work or bed and not have 6 hours of blank recorded…
From what I can tell, OBS has an “Output Timer” setting that might be able to do the trick for you - just set the tape length and you should be good to go.
