DVD Storage

[Brandon]

I've looked up a bunch of various options and the links seem dated or so there is so many contradictory info out there, I don't know what's what.

 

Long story short, I want to toss my dvd's. What's the best, easiest, or just overall logical way to save dvd info somewhere to watch on a computer, PS4, etc,?

 

I bought a terabyte hard drive some years ago, but don't even know if that method or hard drive is dated. I just want to save everything in one location to watch whenever on different platforms......something maybe to take on trips, on a plane, or just load up in the home.

 

Is there equipment or software? Cloud or hard drive based?

 

Anyone here do something like this? 

[nate]

1 TB is not enough probably.  Best way to do it is to buy a good NAS and run Plex.

 

On a plane you wont have a fast enough internet connection to stream so you would need to add them to your laptop/mobile device storage.

[Brandon]

So some shit like this:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B00EVVGAD0/ref=zg_bs_13436301_1

 

Any guides? I see Plex has some FAQ, but this shit is foreign to me.

[nate]

To be honest man no matter what you will need to be kinda techy.

I am on my phone but I will post some suggestions tomorrow.

What kind of budget so you have? Are you PC or Mac? About how many DVDs do you have? Are you wanting to do bluray too?

Edited February 11, 2016 by nate

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'll probably buy some nerds services here at UCI for a day or some shit.

 

I didn't even think it required a budget. I figured I'd just spend a day popping in and out dvd's saving them to some device (like the little external hard drives) and then just hook it up to various places and play movies from the library.

 

Laptop is a Mac, does that mess up application for other media platforms?

 

I didn't fully go through storage, but maybe 4-5 of those Staples file sized boxes.....maybe 40 movies a box, 200 maybe. I only have one blu-ray......I gave up buying movies around the time they came out because I was tired of collecting them, so to speak.

 

Sounds as complicated as the Googling I was doing. I thought by now it would be a pretty simple process or somewhat plug and play these days.

 

Look forward to the suggestions, thanks man for the direction thus far.

[nate]

Yeah there aren't any devices that will just rip them for you, you will need software and storage for them.  200 movies is going to be around 200-400 gb depending on how you rip them.  You can expect it to take ~30 minutes per dvd on a newer Macbook Pro it could take a lot longer like 1-2 hours if you have an older or lower spec laptop because it isn't as simple as just copying what is on the DVD to your storage, it also has to be encoded which is what takes all the time.

 

A NAS would be something like: http://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Personal-2-41GHz-Transcoding-TS-251-US/dp/B00L8GHOQ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455198156&sr=8-1&keywords=qnap+turbo+nas

 

The reason why I choose that NAS is it is the most user friendly with Plex (https://plex.tv/) which is by far the easiest personal media streaming software to use.  You have your own user name and password and can access it from anywhere you have the net and the app, which is available on smart tvs, phones, tablets, laptops, smart dvd players, etc.

 

You would also want 2x: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B008JJLZ7G/ref=pd_sim_147_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51JgtpKWr-L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR112%2C160_&refRID=1MMPMVB6FXE28759F14Y

Or 2x: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B008JJLZ7G/ref=pd_sim_147_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51JgtpKWr-L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR112%2C160_&refRID=1MMPMVB6FXE28759F14Y

 

Just up to you, for $60 more you get an extra 1 tb of storage.  You probably don't need it though, 2tb sounds like more than enough.

 

For ripping the dvds you would use https://handbrake.fr/.  It is a free software that will rip the dvds and put them in a format that is friendly with Plex and all of your devices.  It has profiles already setup.  I would suggest using Universal or Apple TV 3 profile.

 

As you convert them you are going to want to copy them to your NAS, it needs to be setup on your home network, the setup time is probably an hour.  As you rip each file you will copy onto your NAS which will be represented as a shared folder on your network. Plex then does all the work of recognizing the file and listing it for you to play in the Plex app on whatever device you are using.  It is using your internet connection at home to host these files, almost any broadband connection is good enough for it.

 

Hope this helps.

[red321]

How are those QNRP NAS devices?

 

I need to come up with a better storage solution than continuing to buy usb external drives. At some point having 8 of them stacked up becomes a pain in the ass. I have about 20tb of external storage that I need to start moving to a better solution. 

[nate]

Red, they are awesome.  Like you I have a ton of media and I store it all on a NAS.  I have one of the much older 4 drive versions with 4x 3tb drives in it.  I have it set on redundancy so it is just 6tb with a full backup.

[gotbeer]

It's  pain in the ass.  I've been trying to convert my DVD's over. 

 

What I've been doing is using DVD Shrink to copy the files to the computer.  (since most of my dvd's are older, encryption has not been a problem so far)  After DVD shrink does it's thing, using Handbrake to convert the files to a Mp4 format. 

 

Then after that, copy it to whatever device you want. 

 

I've been using old hard drives, and a Aluratek hard drive mount.  Pretty much you just dock whatever hard drive you want to look at, and you can see it on your computer like an external drive. 

[Adam]

Damn dude. Honestly, I looked at this a few years ago. I ended up just buying some leather binders and sliding the discs into sleeves so I could toss the boxes. Saved a shit ton of space. If I'm travelling I'll just grab a few movies and slide them into a small folder.

 

When netflix first came out, I would get 5 movies at a time and burn them. It was a shitty, longish process back then. 

[red321]

Red, they are awesome.  Like you I have a ton of media and I store it all on a NAS.  I have one of the much older 4 drive versions with 4x 3tb drives in it.  I have it set on redundancy so it is just 6tb with a full backup.

 

Mine is all photos. Higher resolution is awesome...but it's a storage pain in the ass. Shot 64gb this weekend without even thinking about it. One friggen card. That adds up.

 

I was looking at turning one of my older desktops in to a freenas type of solution, just load it up with drives, but maybe I'll look at these drives. Most of the NAS I was looking at was expensive...these seem to be more moderately priced.

[nate]

freenas isn't a terrible idea either if you have the components.  If I ever build a completely new computer I will go that route.  Only because it has more juice than a regular NAS and I like to tinker with shit like that.  But honestly it only matters if you want it to transcode video on the fly.  Otherwise a NAS has more than enough juice.  Those QNAPs are better than the lower end Synologys because they have more power and a much better UI.

 

The other option using freenas would be one of those hp microservers.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KKJPCO/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687542&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00AKWUZ58&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=185HMTN3FMRBY5XKAHED

Edited February 11, 2016 by nate

[Brandon]

Damn dude. Honestly, I looked at this a few years ago. I ended up just buying some leather binders and sliding the discs into sleeves so I could toss the boxes. Saved a shit ton of space. If I'm travelling I'll just grab a few movies and slide them into a small folder.

When netflix first came out, I would get 5 movies at a time and burn them. It was a shitty, longish process back then.

I started this many years ago. The giant sleeve book then the mini 10 sleeve or whatever for travel.

I think I'll go this route for now to reduce space then look into what Nate proposed. I'm too illerate with the tech options and thought something easier would be available by now.

[nate]

I went the binder route too.  I also just went and pirated copies of many of the movies I already had and threw them on my NAS.

[Adam]

Its just too burdensome from a time standpoint to digitize all the movies. I think I've got 500 DVDs, not counting TV series. 

[Brandon]

Probably. Once I jump in I'll probably quite and hate it, but at least for the moment am motivated to toss them all.

I didn't even look in all the boxes, it could be close to yours with the tv series...and that's not what's already in the house.

What a bunch of clutter.

[Brandon]

On the time end, I always remember the thread Red did when he converted all his cds. It was a very long process.

[red321]

freenas isn't a terrible idea either if you have the components.  If I ever build a completely new computer I will go that route.  Only because it has more juice than a regular NAS and I like to tinker with shit like that.  But honestly it only matters if you want it to transcode video on the fly.  Otherwise a NAS has more than enough juice.  Those QNAPs are better than the lower end Synologys because they have more power and a much better UI.

 

The other option using freenas would be one of those hp microservers.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KKJPCO/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687542&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00AKWUZ58&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=185HMTN3FMRBY5XKAHED

 

That was what was holding me back from freenas...reality is I would need to upgrade the power supply, add a new network card, etc. etc. I just need lots of storage with efficient backup.

[red321]

On the time end, I always remember the thread Red did when he converted all his cds. It was a very long process.

 

yeah...that took for friggen ever. But it was easy, I just stacked them up by my computer and when I walked by...swapped it out.

 

something to keep in mind though...back up your files! Friggen pain in the ass recovering those files from a bad drive.

[mrwicked]

in summary: to do what you want, it's a bitch

in college we had a shared media server with tens of thousands of movies and tv shows when i lived at a commune with 150 other students

and it was built over years (you move into the house, you rip whatever movies you have that the server doesn't).

the entire house was networked, so you could access the servers 24/7 from anywhere

 

i looked into it a while ago for my place

basically i wanted to rip all my DVDs and have them accessible with an interface similar to iTunes on appletv

 

but you need

 - storage (nas)                                        // this is easy 

 - software to rip/decrypt them               // this is easy 

 - software to convert to friendly format // this is easy

 - software to play them (plex)                 // this is easy

 - a billion hours to sit and rip/store all your movies  // this is a f*cking nightmare and usually where the dream ends. i would hire someone to do it.

 

there is a british company that came out a year or so ago, and what it was is a box that does it all for you

you just load up your disc, set it and forget it, it handles it all and is accessible with apple tv

i don't know if its shipping yet, but when it does i want one

it's called OutClass AppleTV server

http://www.outclassmedia.co.uk

Edited February 11, 2016 by mrwicked

[Brandon]

yeah...that took for friggen ever. But it was easy, I just stacked them up by my computer and when I walked by...swapped it out.

something to keep in mind though...back up your files! Friggen pain in the ass recovering those files from a bad drive.

Yeah, I probably don't listen to music like I used to, but with the advent of Spotify, et al. I just find it easier to pay the monthly and get relatively close to what I probably own.

I think throwing those CDs out this weekend is going to happen. I can't even remember the last time I used one.

[Brandon]

in summary: to do what you want, it's a bitch

in college we had a shared media server with tens of thousands of movies and tv shows when i lived at a commune with 150 other students

and it was built over years (you move into the house, you rip whatever movies you have that the server doesn't).

the entire house was networked, so you could access the servers 24/7 from anywhere

i looked into it a while ago for my place

basically i wanted to rip all my DVDs and have them accessible with an interface similar to iTunes on appletv

but you need

- storage (nas) // this is easy

- software to rip/decrypt them // this is easy

- software to convert to friendly format // this is easy

- software to play them (plex) // this is easy

- a billion hours to sit and rip/store all your movies // this is a f*cking nightmare and usually where the dream ends. i would hire someone to do it.

there is a british company that came out a year or so ago, and what it was is a box that does it all for you

you just load up your disc, set it and forget it, it handles it all and is accessible with apple tv

i don't know if its shipping yet, but when it does i want one

it's called OutClass AppleTV server

http://www.outclassmedia.co.uk

Yeah, same exact goal. Have everything in one place, some simple looking interface for the library, stream or USB the movies to whatever device.

That auto load would be sick.

[red321]

Yeah, I probably don't listen to music like I used to, but with the advent of Spotify, et al. I just find it easier to pay the monthly and get relatively close to what I probably own.

I think throwing those CDs out this weekend is going to happen. I can't even remember the last time I used one.

 

As a Prime member, I tend to just bring up Prime Music and it has 90% of what I'm looking for.

 

I think the last CD I listened to I picked up at a show for a local band...I ripped it when I got home, uploaded it to my Amazon library and tossed the CD.

 

I have a huge tube of CDs downstairs, don't think I even know where that bin is though.