I just started setting up a Jellyfin server and am moving all of my old DVD backups off of an ancient NAS that doesn’t play well with modern TVs or Chromecast. Can’t cast half the videos anymore because crhomecast says F you to certain audio and video formats, but jellyfin has zero trouble talking to my TV. It was going so well that I thought I might try to back up some of the aging DVD/BluRays we have laying around because they don’t last forever and I’d hate to lose these titles. I used to use Handbrake/AnyDVD, but it seems AnyDVD is defunct these days… What are people using to back up their personal DVD collections these days? I prefer Windows apps, but I do have a good linux system that I can use to back them up with too, it’s just slower than my Win PC.
For DVDs, I used Handbrake initially, then switched to MakeMKV. For Bluray, I used MakeMKV and flashed my Bluray drive w/ Libredrive so it can rip UHD disks.
I have only done this on Linux, so I don’t know what this looks like for Windows, but it’s really quite smooth IMO.
It’s in perpetual beta and is free as long as you don’t want to run multiple copies at a time. I had so many DVDs to rip I bought a license. It can also rip UHD Blu-rays if you have the correct drive. Not sure why it would say it’s too old, are your date settings in windows correct? The forum is filled with people doing exactly what you describe and is a great resource.
https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20579
Assuming you mean commercial DVDs, handbrake+libdvdcss.
It’s pretty much ‘insert disk, hit button, wait some amount of time, video file!’
Would recommend, however, that you do not use AMF (AMD) for encoding, and just stick to QSV/NVENC/x264/x256 because AMD’s quality is uh, less than stellar and you probably want the best possible quality for archiving your DVDs.
It’s still a quality-at-a-given-bitrate deficient.
If you’re doing temporary encoding for like, streaming, or something where real-time encoding performance matters it’s still probably the way to go, but if you’re wanting to create high-quality archival stuff it’s still not quite as good as your other options.
Granted, x265 on the cpu is probably still the way to go (excepting maybe if you’re doing AV1 on an ARC gpu), but nvenc and qsv still outclass AMF.
Wish AMD would get a little more serious and bring that up to par, but they seem to be waffling on what they even want to do for consumer gpus so I’m not really holding my breath here.
If you are going to worry about archival then when reencode it at all? Just remux the content from the dvd into a suitable container and be done with it.
And, if you have the disk space, not an unreasonable one, but for me? DVD quality is pretty bad compared to anything newer and I’ve never noticed any real degredation transcoding a mpeg-2 stream to x265 which is like 25% the filesize, but that’s very ymmv.
Not sure what I did incorrectly, but that was the route I started on before looking for other ways to backup my collection… I dropped the libdvdcss in my Handbrake directory as was suggested on other sites, but Handbrake throws an error every time.
I guess I could have included that. It’s just a generic muti-error output stating it couldn’t find any files or that the source may be copyright protected - something I figured libdvdcss was supposed to work around.
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For DVDs, I used Handbrake initially, then switched to MakeMKV. For Bluray, I used MakeMKV and flashed my Bluray drive w/ Libredrive so it can rip UHD disks.
I have only done this on Linux, so I don’t know what this looks like for Windows, but it’s really quite smooth IMO.
Any chance of bricking a drive with libredrive?
EDIT: My drive isn’t supported anyway. Thanks, though.
Yup, there’s a chance. If you get another or if anyone else is interested, please do your research first.
Mine worked completely fine, but I also did a fair amount of research before picking one up.
I’ve been using and reasonably satisfied with A.R.M. https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping-machine
It uses MakeMKV and Handbrake, but streamlines the whole process.
MakeMKV is pretty much the standard for ripping Blu-rays. You can then use handbrake to reencode to something more efficient.
Hmm…gave that a try just now and it said the version was too old (? odd, it was the latest listed) and asked for a registration…
It’s in perpetual beta and is free as long as you don’t want to run multiple copies at a time. I had so many DVDs to rip I bought a license. It can also rip UHD Blu-rays if you have the correct drive. Not sure why it would say it’s too old, are your date settings in windows correct? The forum is filled with people doing exactly what you describe and is a great resource. https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20579
I poked around and found the solution to the issue in the MakeMKV forums probably just as you posted this. Thank you.
Just an aside, but it may help others who have this issue to share the solution that worked for you
It’s what jj122 posted… Click the link, then the link in the comment s/he linked to.
Assuming you mean commercial DVDs, handbrake+libdvdcss.
It’s pretty much ‘insert disk, hit button, wait some amount of time, video file!’
Would recommend, however, that you do not use AMF (AMD) for encoding, and just stick to QSV/NVENC/x264/x256 because AMD’s quality is uh, less than stellar and you probably want the best possible quality for archiving your DVDs.
Just use the defaults. It is much slower and CPU heavy but the end result is way better
Isn’t AMD’s HEVC/265 still decent, specifically? I feel like I read that somewhere years back. 264 has always been a weak spot for them, however.
It’s still a quality-at-a-given-bitrate deficient.
If you’re doing temporary encoding for like, streaming, or something where real-time encoding performance matters it’s still probably the way to go, but if you’re wanting to create high-quality archival stuff it’s still not quite as good as your other options.
Granted, x265 on the cpu is probably still the way to go (excepting maybe if you’re doing AV1 on an ARC gpu), but nvenc and qsv still outclass AMF.
Wish AMD would get a little more serious and bring that up to par, but they seem to be waffling on what they even want to do for consumer gpus so I’m not really holding my breath here.
If you are going to worry about archival then when reencode it at all? Just remux the content from the dvd into a suitable container and be done with it.
That’s also an option, yeah.
And, if you have the disk space, not an unreasonable one, but for me? DVD quality is pretty bad compared to anything newer and I’ve never noticed any real degredation transcoding a mpeg-2 stream to x265 which is like 25% the filesize, but that’s very ymmv.
Not sure what I did incorrectly, but that was the route I started on before looking for other ways to backup my collection… I dropped the libdvdcss in my Handbrake directory as was suggested on other sites, but Handbrake throws an error every time.
Does the error have any text that might be helpful?
I guess I could have included that. It’s just a generic muti-error output stating it couldn’t find any files or that the source may be copyright protected - something I figured libdvdcss was supposed to work around.