Question for the guys with HUGE Blu Ray collections

Use ClownBD to rip only the main movie, the HD sound track and any subtitles you want (with no quality drop). Everything else is gone.

The output can be just a regular Blu-Ray folder structure, ISO, MKV, etc.

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=25818

I'd love to find out as well. I currently rip to ISO, since that's the most streamlined process I could find, but it just takes up too much room. Hard drives are cheap, but I can't stand the waste.

I don't have a huge collection (only around 20 right now), but I use AnyDVD to rip, then BD Rebuilder to create a movie-only MKV. Codecs added to allow playback in Windows Media Center. Most movies shrink down to a very reasonable size - 4 to 12 GBs, with very little noticeable loss of video quality. Nine times out of ten, if I want to watch a movie, I leave the BluRay in the case and watch the MKV on my HTPC.

You can also use BD Rebuilder to shrink a dual-layer BluRay disc to fit on a single-layer BD-R, if you prefer a physical backup.

1:1 copies, such as ripping with AnyDVD or MakeMKV, will take only as long as it takes to rip the disk with your drive. Anything that is NOT a 1:1 copy will take time for re-encoding - depending on quality level desired, it may take about twice to three times the length of the movie being backed up to complete the backup. At least, that's how long it takes on my six-core AMD Phenom II 1090T.

MakeMKV will rip the movie straight to an MKV with no quality loss. Handbrake can be used to take that MKV down to a smaller size, but there will be a quality difference if you're OCD about that.

I keep only the largest .m2ts file.
That means , Uncompressed video stream, HD audio & subtitles only.

Cons
- No extras
- much more space than x264

Pros
- best Video & audio quality
- Saving ripping time
- Speed, no bd menu, intro etc. just the main movie.
- no need of extra software for mounting .ISOs
- not installing extra filters & programs (i.e. avisynth , ffdshow , haali) for encoding to x264.

+1 for MakeMKV. I used to use AnyDVD HD for ripping and then stripped out the extras with Clown_BD. Problem was, iso playback on PCs from my server was sporatic at best. I tried MakeMKV with XBMC and it solved all of my playback problems. MakeMKV allows you to select only the audio and video tracks you want to keep with 1:1 quality. It also works great for ripping discs of TV shows with multiple episodes as it rips each one to a separate mkv file. I liked it well enough to convert my entire collection of over 900 DVD folders and Blu-Ray iso's to mkv's. Mkv format is also more device-friendly than iso's if you plan on using any portable devices or media players.

I also use MakeMKV for storing my DVDs and Blu-Rays on my media server. As posted earlier, the process takes only as long as the drives ability to read the disc and how much of the data you are wanting to copy. It is a time consuming process, as I'm still in the process of ripping our physical discs (working on it off and on as I get a chance for the past few weeks), but it is nice to be able to pull up the movie with cover art and backdrops within MediaBrowser. Also, no more hunting for the physical disc when the kids want to watch a movie is a plus.

I use BluRip to create MKV from my choice of selected video/audio/subtitle streams.

I use eac3to to rip out the main video and HD audio tracks along with chapters. Then I use mkvmerge to merge them into an MKV file. It's more of a manual process than perhaps makemkv or clownbd but I'm used to it and doesn't really take me any longer.

Another vote for MakeMKV. I always take the main movie and the lossless audio track plus any relevant dubs or subs. XBMC for playback from the server.

OP, you are thinking about this the wrong way. If you save the movie onto a hard drive that copy becomes your working copy, and the disk itself becomes your backup.

And add another vote for Make MKV. I rip the main title only, except in the case of kids movies that have shorts on them (usually Pixar, Dreamworks). I have a separate library on Media Browser just for those shorts.

This. (assuming you aren't transcoding or otherwise altering the data in a time/labor expensive manner AND assuming these are are rips from discs you own)

The problem is not that you don't have a backup; it's that your recovery process is slow and laborious. You'll probably get a better bang for the buck by focusing on improving that process instead of making (and maintaining!) a whole new backup system. One of the huge benefits of this method is that every time you add new content to your library, you are simultaneously testing and retraining yourself on your disaster recovery process. The value of this shouldn't be understated. One of the things I've learned working as a storage admin: when untrained people are thrown into a DR scenario, they are just as likely to worsen the situation as improve it.

Things to look at: streamlining your ripping, learning the batch processing features of your ripping software, upgrading your ripping software, building a multi-drive ripping box, training a kid and paying them. or just outsourcing your ripping entirely.

Things to avoid: single points of failure that could wipe out your whole working set. Your worst case scenario is having to rerip everything at once. Having to rerip a small fraction is far more bearable, especially if you also add new content on a regular basis.


If you are doing heavy transcoding or pulling from sources without physical media, then you'll want to look at a different backup solution.

You'd probably like Blurip. I used to do the same as you. All Blurip is, is a gui batch scripter that uses the other programs, such as eac3to, mkvmerge, etc. You can break it down to do only certain parts of the process (only demux or only remux).

+1 for MakeMKV and Handbrake

Have about 100 br and hddvd, 300 dvd. I rip everything to file format and store on my whs. Physical discs go into storage, flexraid on the whs for parity redundancy

I've used MakeMKV for a few of my blu ray movies and DVDFab for my DVDs. Once I build a server I would like to keep the formats as simple as possible so I might just rip everything to .mkv format.

I am a minority here.
I rip disks w/AnyDVDHD, then make .iso files.
I double-click on .iso file, it gets loaded and PowerDVD starts.
I could probably save some HDD space by using MakeMKV, but I don't want to. at most I'll get something like 300GB.

I used to convert my DVD's to DivX to save space back in the day, but I had so many that ended up with the audio off, that I just got fed up and bought a bunch of hard drives. Much easier and much happier now!

Another vote for MakeMKV.

I select the biggest m2ts file and use tsmuxer to rip only the video and one HD audio track.

I convert to MKV for compatibility and WAF. You can't internet stream ISO but you can MKV. And hopefully when the Ceton Echo 7MC extender is released this year, it will work with bluray quality MKVs. It will not work with ISO for sure. MKV also has greater WAF in my case. Clicking on an ISO in Media Browser to get the 'video error' message to then several seconds later be prompted to 'play disc' confuses her. Sometimes she backs out before the 'play disc' can appear and then it never does, even though the disc is now mounted and ready to be played if she went to TMT5.

Not my problem, buddy.

My wife has her own entertainment center in the kitchen, and she watches there whatever she wants to.

If we are watching a movie together, double-click on the .iso file is all it takes.

And yes, streaming is cool. However, I do have a dedicated HTPCs connected to the all of my screens. With my hardwired network, playing a movie from the remote HTPC or shared HDD thru the router is a breeze.

Old dogs just don't want learn new tricks I guess.

I have 800 lossless BR's (movies and TV shows) and 50 HD DVD's, and my overall collection is 1500 movies and 60 complete TV series. No iso's. All mkv's and m2ts.

I use:

1) AnyDVD HD and Clown BD for HD DVD's -- this allows me to rip the films and retain HD audio tracks without the ever-annoying framerate bug on HD DVD's with MakeMKV

2) MakeMKV (keeping HD Audio tracks) for everything else.

I have everything on my server, with Plex for my OS X HTPC clients, and MediaBrowser for my Windows clients.

This.

Except I just keep the MKV that makemkv makes and don't bother to handbrake it. I don't mind the 25-30GB size as I like the original quality at 1080p and full audio. Yes. $129 for a 3TB drive.

I was not referring to streaming within my home network. I have the same setup as you within my home at every TV. I stream over the internet with Remote Potato. You can't do that with ISO.
Blah. You use a mouse??

Why wont it work with iso (or folder) for sure?