Making backups of your dvd/blue-ray collections

nodle

nodle

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So I think I posted in a thread about trying to get my dvds/blue-rays backed up on stored on my Drobo then hopefully pushed out through Plex. So I thought I would keep track of my journey and see what works and what doesn't.

I first started with getting a blue-ray/dvd reader. I just ordered one this morning.

Pioneer Dvd/Blue-ray

I was going to just get an external dvd since it was way cheaper, but I have quite a few Blue-Rays to.

I am going to start with MakeMKV first.

 
It's easy enough to do. I'm pretty sure there's a thread around here somewhere from when I was doing this.  Makemkv is very simple to use.  Plex works great

Here's the thing... it works great locally, but you don't get to take you flicks on the go.

Consider Vudu instead, you can use the PC application to read your discs or just scan barcodes with the app on your phone (have to be at your billing address when you do this) and convert your disc to digital with them.  $2 per BD or $5 for a DVD upgrade to HD quality.  Also with the phone you can do one movie for free.

NOTE:  This won't work for Disney since they do their own (better) digital thing, but for a pretty small fee you can have an ultraviolet copy of your movies that isn't yoru problem to store/maintain and you can watch it from home or on the go.

 
Thanks @ndboarder for the info. This will be all local. Honestly I just want to get them all somewhat backed up before my Daughter scratches/destroys them all. (she is in the movie watching age). Plus this will eliminate the need to swap discs. My only two concerns are:

  1. Will my Drobo be able to handle the transcoding.
     
     
     
  2. How well will they stream over wi-fi.
     
     
     
  3. Will I have enough storage for all of this lol.
     
     
     





 
Well tested out my first two backups. My first one was a Blue-Ray. Basically I am just taking the movie out only no extras. It clocked in about 20 gigs. The DVD backup came in about 4 gigs. So there is quite a difference between the two. Also the Blue-ray took about 120 minutes for the backup, the DVD about 10 minutes. So a big difference there also. Using just MakeMKV at the moment. It's easy enough. I haven't got in the streaming aspect of it yet.
 
You could play with your settings a bit, but maybe you are going for the large size and not much compression on the video.

Streaming is pretty simple, Plex works very well on your local network where your speeds should be capable of streaming at the full bitrate.  It could stream remotely too, but unless you have fiber with huge uploads it will have to transcode on the fly, and in my experience that takes a pretty beefy machine (more than any machine I have could handle keeping up with when I tested)

 
I had to go back and re-do a couple of videos I made. I noticed they had subtitles. I found that after the first initial scan you need to click the down arrow then you can remove foreign subtitles and  audio streams out of it.

Ya I have been reading on transcoding. This would all be local network with only 1 person streaming at a time. Max would even be two. Still considering trying my Drobo because it has this built in, but I have heard bad things about it. I started looking at small machines to basically be my server. Been looking at a Lenovo TS140, they are fairly cheap servers. But trying to decided if I just want to build my own. Was considering maybe even running loading something like Windows Server 2012 R2 or something on it.

 
If it is just for plex locally, you don't need much and you might as well try your Drobo before you waste money building or buying something just for streaming these things locally.  I would think the Drobo should work fine if you have them in a format and size that it can stream locally without needing to do any transcoding

Running a costly Server OS like 2012 R2 is pretty pointless if you do go the route of a dedicated machine for this - but honestly unless you are going to try to access these remotely you don't need a standalone box.  If you are going to try to do remotely you need something with a powerful CPU and GPU - so basically a gaming rig - where a client OS will probably work out better than server OS anyway.  Plus if you are going to head into that kind of investment, just save yourself the headaches and use the VuDu app go convert your stuff to digital copies for a couple bucks each - then they store for you, and all the fun so you can stream it local or remote exactly the same, and it takes less than a minute per disc rather than a couple hours.

 
Looks like you can use Plex Cloud where you don't even need a server.
 
Looks like you can use Plex Cloud where you don't even need a server.
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yeah, I thought of mentioning that option, BUT depending on which service(s) you use with it there could be objections to the content you plan to put on your media server...  Home movies, music, etc you could get by with, but it still isn't strictly legal to "backup" a movie

 
but it still isn't strictly legal to "backup" a movie
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Apparently they have never had a Daughter go through your movie collection. I am more worried about never being able to play my dvds or blue-rays again.

 
Apparently they have never had a Daughter go through your movie collection. I am more worried about never being able to play my dvds or blue-rays again.
Click to expand...
Apparently not... Either way, for your local use scenario your Drobo is what I would try first.  You don't have to upload huge amounts to a service where you'll have to pay to have enough storage for numerous movies

 
Basically ever time I sit down at my computer I grab either a Blue-Ray or a DVD and start to rip it. It will take some time but I am slowly getting there. Mostly just getting everything backed up at this time until it's time to try out Plex streaming.
 
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