So my wife wants to get all the dvds and CD's out of the family room and out of site. After looking around I have come up with a solution that works for now and for a while that will be upgradeable. We will be useing some old towers to sotre the media on ther use them to stream to the reviever and to the TV as is now. Can't really seem to get any good up to date ifo on how to get my DVD's onto the hard drive's though. So if anyone could give me some starting places that woul dbe great. The Cd's are not as big a deal but if someone knows of software that will do FLAC I woul dalso appreaciate it. Thaks in advance for any advice!

So my wife wants to get all the dvds and CD's out of the family room and out of site. After looking around I have come up with a solution that works for now and for a while that will be upgradeable. We will be useing some old towers to sotre the media on ther use them to stream to the reviever and to the TV as is now. Can't really seem to get any good up to date ifo on how to get my DVD's onto the hard drive's though. So if anyone could give me some starting places that woul dbe great. The Cd's are not as big a deal but if someone knows of software that will do FLAC I woul dalso appreaciate it. Thaks in advance for any advice!

DVDShrink, or AutoGK for DVD's depending on if you just want to rip them, or if you want to encode them into smaller files, and EAC for CD's.

I do not want to compress the DVD's. Getting rid of some of the extras would be ok though. Thanks for the feedback. Is a decrypter needed?

I do not want to compress the DVD's. Getting rid of some of the extras would be ok though. Thanks for the feedback. Is a decrypter needed?

I would just use dvdshrink. No decrypter needed. Shrink works on 99% of the DVD's I've used it on. (Some Disney movies give it a hard time)

No need to compress. Just strip out whatever extras you want.

Try DVDFab (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDFab_Decrypter), the free version should do everything you need. If you want to eventually get into Blu Rays then I would suggest AnyDVD (although not free). I ran into many bugs with DVDFab and Blu Ray (I use AnyDVD for my Blu Rays), but DVDFab has worked like a champ with my standard dvds.

I think makemkv can keep audio tracks, subtitles and chapters.

I think makemkv can keep audio tracks, subtitles and chapters.

Yes it can but you still need a decrypter like AnyDVD running in the background to handle encrypted discs.

Also, forgot to mention, I had done a quick Wiki on another site showing some basic steps for AnyDVD and DVDFab:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/wiki/index.php/Ripping_a_DVD

Thanks for the replies. I tried dvdshrink on one so far. Worked well enough but I see some line running down the side of the frame. Could this be the player? I am using windows media 11. Is there something better? I tried dvdfab before but I was told the registration key was incorrect. I will try the site that was posted and give it another try. Thanks for the help I will keep tring things out. Also how do you know what file to play? There seems to be a bunch of the same file names with different extensions.

Thanks for the replies. I tried dvdshrink on one so far. Worked well enough but I see some line running down the side of the frame. Could this be the player? I am using windows media 11. Is there something better? I tried dvdfab before but I was told the registration key was incorrect. I will try the site that was posted and give it another try. Thanks for the help I will keep tring things out. Also how do you know what file to play? There seems to be a bunch of the same file names with different extensions.

Which files are you referring to, after you rip the dvd the vobs that are created in the Video_TS folder?

Yes there are IFO, BUP, VOB. Those are all in the file Video_TS.

Yes there are IFO, BUP, VOB. Those are all in the file Video_TS.

The VOB files make up the entire movie (generally split into approx 1GB pieces). The ifo file is what has the "playlist" and will play the split vobs together as one. You can use a program like VOBMerge to combine the VOBs into one big VOB.

Oddly enough I have found that playing individual vobs in WMP yields mixed results, whereas when I play the same VOB through PowerDVD or in VMC it looks fine.

So it is the IFO file that I sould be using then? Is one of the other programs better to use to play the movies? Again thanks for the help.

I find it much 'cleaner' to set dvdshrink to save the movie as an iso instead of vobs, ifo, buf etc.

iso saves as one file.

vobs saves as multiple files in a folder.

As far as a player I use both wmp 11 or vlc. Both work well.

Then I must be doing something wrong as wmp will not play the iso. Also when I went and checked out the other movie I had done wth dvdshrink that had the line down the side the line was gone!? Same player was used.

Yes it can but you still need a decrypter like AnyDVD running in the background to handle encrypted discs.
I think makemkv can handle encrypted DVD discs, I guess AnyDVD is needed for Blu-ray.

I think makemkv can handle encrypted DVD discs, I guess AnyDVD is needed for Blu-ray.

Hmmm..honestly I always have AnyDVD running in the background so I just assumed. I will have to test this out later if MakeMKV works without a decrypter running in the background.

Then I must be doing something wrong as wmp will not play the iso. Also when I went and checked out the other movie I had done wth dvdshrink that had the line down the side the line was gone!? Same player was used.

If you are using an iso, than you would want to use a virtual drive, something like Daemon Tools (which I believe has a free version), then you mount the .iso, and it will play just like a normal DVD in which ever player you choose.

Then I must be doing something wrong as wmp will not play the iso. Also when I went and checked out the other movie I had done wth dvdshrink that had the line down the side the line was gone!? Same player was used.

I'm using wmp 11 and have no problem with iso.

Not sure what the issue would be.

The player says it does not recognize the file extension .iso but it tries to play it. I end up getting to main menu but that is as far as it will go. I cannot select any of the options and when I try to do that or anthing else it freezes up the player and then will not close for a while! It has no problems with the .ifo or .vob files where as the my other tower that has the same player does have problems! I will have to try those daemon tools maybe. Is there any benefit to using one file over the other? I notice the ISO is only one icon where as the others are multiple files. Is there any other real differences? Thanks again.