Converting media, AKA 4k/Blu Ray discs, to Hard Drive?

[K5SS]

Hello, what are you folks using to record your blu ray discs onto a hard drive or into a “cloud”? 

 

I am just now starting to consider recording all my discs onto some type of hard drive with cover art and movie information.

 

Have any of you gone through this process? If you have, I would love to hear from you.

 

I know 4k discs will take up a ton of room but with the affordability of modern hard drives, it seems within reach of the average home theater enthusiast.

 

Thoughts? 

 

 

Something like this would be ideal:

 

[Bronzeman62]

My theater includes a custom built HTPC which has a 4-Bay Sans Digital TowerRAID unit attached via ESATA connection.  It currently has 12 TB of storage but is capable up expanding to 16 TB of storage and I can double the capacity with a second unit.  I have a considerable collection of hundreds of blue rays and DVD's that I am adding to weekly that I want stored on my hard drive array.  My choice is based on the facts size of my collect and my desire to rip and store only uncompressed files that I rival the original in picture and sound all at my finger tips.  

 

You need three key applications to achieve your goal. 

1. A Ripper/Encoder this program is able to read/decode the media you want to store and then write the read/decoded information to your hard drive.  I've used many programs in the past but my favorite inexpensive one is "MakeMKV beta".  You can download at http://www.makemkv.com/download/ I've used it for years and have no complaints.  It's quick and easy to get great results every time. Another great one if you don't mind paying is AnyDVD HD.  I used it all the time back in the day before RedFox got a hold of it and jacked up the price.  There are a few other great programs out there that do way more but I just want a straight rip of the media into a "MKV" container for storage on the array.

 

2.  Next you'll need app to help you manage and organize your media files.  This app should also gather meta data about the media, rename when needed and organize the ripped files into a structure and naming convention that a media front end program such as Kodi (which you are showing as an example) can understand, navigate, and display within a media player's API.  The resulting structure makes it easy locate and play media files on PC enabled devices.  I've used both Media Center Master http://mediacentermaster.com/ which is a stand alone app that works with Kodi, or XBMC and Media Companion https://sourceforge.net/projects/mediacompanion/ which is a fully integrated Kodi solution for this purpose and found them both very capable.

 

3. Lastly you need a front end application that will navigate the file structure onto which you've saved your media files, Identify the files as to nature (movie, TV, Podcast etc.) and with this data create, modify, import, build and display the resulting database in a way you can deal with.  I use Kodi (formerly XBMC) it is "a free and open source media player application developed by the XBMC/Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet."  I run this on my HTPC and smart enabled AV devices.

 

I've ripped a few hundred Blu-rays so far and I'm in the process of updating the HTPC for 4k video and gaming 

 

Here is a picture of my HTPC eSATA attached storage array in my Pioneer rack

 

 

If you want more info let me know

 

Edited May 24, 2019 by Bronzeman62

[K5SS]

Thank you very much for the information! Looks like I have some research to do, when I get home tonight..

 

I knew I wasn’t the only one out there, looking to convert their physical media. Hopefully this thread can be referenced by others, who are looking to do the same. 

 

 I also want the exact same video and audio quality, otherwise I’d just continue to insert the discs. I am happy that you are uncompromising about this also!

[TMatt]

Do you really get the exact same quality video and audio by doing this?

[K5SS]

2 minutes ago, TMatt said:

Do you really get the exact same quality video and audio by doing this?

 

I believe that it is possible but so haven’t had a chance to dig into it very deep. I was planning on visiting an upscale audio shop, that’s local to me, this weekend to pick their brains on the subject.

 

If there is any drop in audio or video quality, I will just insert the discs, like I have been doing all these years. I just really love the idea of having all my movies on a huge HD, with cover art and movie information at my fingertips. 

 

 

[TasDom]

Looking into this also....I have a couple hundred Blu-rays and the convenience would be nice.

 

Some good discussion here..

http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/54963/digitizing-blurays-dvds

[Bronzeman62]

 

On 5/23/2019 at 12:10 PM, TMatt said:

Do you really get the exact same quality video and audio by doing this?

Yes the method I described extracts decrypted files from the disc your are ripping at full quality in both audio and video and writes them to your hard drive

 

This is a conversation covering your question on Reddit 

MakeMKV (the software) doesn't encode/transcode anything it just rips and strips encryption. A MakeMKV rip will be exactly the quality of the source material, no more no less.

Edited May 25, 2019 by Bronzeman62
More Consice Answer.

[Bronzeman62]

This is an excellent article for this topic

https://www.anandtech.com/show/5693/cinavia-drm-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-blurays-selfdestruction

 

[Coytee]

Thread from the dead warning!

 

Question...…  (for anyone)….

 

I have:

 

Number of music concerts (live) Blue Ray DVD's

Number of music concerts (live) DVD's

 

I would like to rip the audio ONLY off these and ultimately, add the audio tracks to my I-tunes folder so I can put them into my Ipod for when I'm out tractoring or backhoeing...

 

I'm currently trying one/two of the units mentioned above in this thread.  So far, either they don't rip audio ONLY or, I've simply not yet figured out which buttons to push (certainly a possible reality)

 

So, to be clear....  I have ZERO interest in ripping any video, only audio.

 

Will these do it and if not, anyone have any ideas of what I can use?  To be fair, I don't have a B/R player in my PC so I'll have to replace what I've got or get an outboard unit.  I have enough older DVD's to keep me busy for while.

 

Oh, and if I DO get a blue ray player....  may I presume that the blue ray player will also rip the audio from "normal DVD's'??? I'd like to use a single program and reader if possible.  (I realize current player won't read BR)

 

TIA

[AndreG.]

Although i haven´t used it for that purpose yet, maybe "Handbrake" offers that function. It´s free-ware and aviable for PC and Mac.

I´ll look into it when i´m back from work.

[bnormal1]

You could use MakeMKV to rip your blurays/dvd's but it will rip the video...no way around that.  If you only want the audio then what I would do after ripping in MakeMKV is to download mkvtoolnix (free) and then load the .mkv rip into it...You can then choose only the audio and save it. I don't believe you will lose any fidelity using this process .  Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I'm sure my process is a bit overkill but I use MakeMKV to backup my bluray discs.  I then use  subtitle edit to "pull" the subtitle from the rip.  I then edit the subtitle because the created subtitle usually has a few spelling errors and odd characters and save it as an external .srt file.  I'm old..I need subtitles.  I then run the original .mkv file through mkvtoolnix and strip out the subtitle.  Hope any of this makes sense.

 

thanks

 

Had to edit this cause I'm a putz!

Edited December 24, 2020 by bnormal1

[Coytee]

Interesting

 

I'll give this a try

 

Many thanks

[bnormal1]

Coytee, you're very welcome.  Let us know if that process worked for you....meanwhile, I'm off trying to figure out what I meant by, "and stip out the subtitle"...stip?  No idea...maybe snip....strip...that's it!

[cipstop]

@Coytee  I won't get into the ripping/extracting side of things (so as to not run afoul of any potential copyright issues), but assuming that it's already properly extracted etc., you can use tools like tsmuxer (a demuxer or demultiplexor) which would then separate the individual streams (video, audio tracks, etc.) apart into individual files. If I recall, Blu-ray files are normally packaged in mt2s files. In this case, it'd be the video track, audio track, and any other items. It'd be similar for DVDs.

[Coytee]

On 12/25/2020 at 3:24 AM, cipstop said:

@Coytee  I won't get into the ripping/extracting side of things (so as to not run afoul of any potential copyright issues), but assuming that it's already properly extracted etc., you can use tools like tsmuxer (a demuxer or demultiplexor) which would then separate the individual streams (video, audio tracks, etc.) apart into individual files. If I recall, Blu-ray files are normally packaged in mt2s files. In this case, it'd be the video track, audio track, and any other items. It'd be similar for DVDs.

 

 

Update:  I bought a BR player for PC.  I bought a ripper program....  seems it rips a SINGLE huge file (audio) and iTunes doesn't recognize it so I bought another program to convert what it creates into a Wav (among other choices) file.

 

Mind you I'm still figuring this out and since it's for when I'm mowing the fields, I'm ok if I don't hit the "best" choice.

 

That said, I was coming back to ask how to break this huge file down into individual tracks so I can hit shuffle.  I don't want to come across a DVD track during "shuffle" and that one track is entire concert over 2 hours long.  (I don't MIND that, I just like to vary at times)

 

So, is this tsmuxer the next step for me to break those files into individual tracks?  

 

For a dumbazz like me this has been an interesting journey of persistence!

 

I WILL get there one way or the other.