DVD Ripping

[ledzilla]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience ripping DVDs to their hard drives? I'm trying to put together a household media server, and rip all my DVDs (movies and TV shows) to my computer. I've found a few programs, but in order to have even somewhat decent quality, it sucks up a lot of disk space. Back when I was going to school, I managed to pull the entire series of Babylon 5 from the network, and the video quality is great, with about 350MB per 45 minute episode, and resolution around 360x240 (varies from episode to episode, but this is a close approximation). These files play well on my 31" CRT television and in full screen mode on my 22" widescreen LCD monitor. They just about as good as if I was playing them from a DVD and not a small-ish file on my computer. Does anyone know what program or programs are used to generate high quality, low file size videos? I ultimately plan to stripe a pair of 1TB SATA drives for al the video, but I don't want to unnecessarily waste space.

[252life]

I use StaxRip it's free and easy to use.

[TiTo35]

That helps me also...I was using some free shareware and it magically disappeared:rolleyes:. But ledzilla an external hard drive will save alot of space on your comp. I rip every dvd I can get my hands on and put them right on my external HD...and its only 150Gs. I have a ton of music and about 50 movies? With 60Gs to go. So I can imagine what 1T what do for you!:bows:

[ledzilla]

Well, right now I have movies and TV shows shared across two hard drives... One is 300GB, the other 400GB. Both have less than 20GB of free space on each of them. But, to be fair, the 300GB also has odd video, installer files, patch installers, music, photos, and a variety of docs. The 400GB has nothing but video on it. In both cases, this is video I've extracted from my old school's network, found on various video sites, and downloaded via a few torrents. I haven't even begun to rip my DVDs yet. Maybe I need to build myself a rackmount RAID server for this project. hehe Anyway, I'm about to head home. I'll give that program a try tonight.

[duhtroll]

Try DVDShrink. It helps get around encryption to make your backup copies. ;) And free.

[rumble]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience ripping DVDs to their hard drives? I'm trying to put together a household media server, and rip all my DVDs (movies and TV shows) to my computer. I've found a few programs, but in order to have even somewhat decent quality, it sucks up a lot of disk space. Back when I was going to school, I managed to pull the entire series of Babylon 5 from the network, and the video quality is great, with about 350MB per 45 minute episode, and resolution around 360x240 (varies from episode to episode, but this is a close approximation). These files play well on my 31" CRT television and in full screen mode on my 22" widescreen LCD monitor. They just about as good as if I was playing them from a DVD and not a small-ish file on my computer. Does anyone know what program or programs are used to generate high quality, low file size videos? I ultimately plan to stripe a pair of 1TB SATA drives for al the video, but I don't want to unnecessarily waste space.

FWIW,

Im kind of a klutz when it comes to computer stuff like this but with my Apple & Handbrake it's a snap. Each full length movie is about a gig with decent resolution.

[Aren Jay]

Convert to MPEG4.

[Windsor58]

I recently picked up a 2T network storage device (for around $400) so I could put my CDs and DVDs on it, as well as backup the 3 machines on my home network. I haven't done any video, yet. I set up periodic backups and I'm still trying to get all my CDs on there.
Thanks for the info on software to rip the DVDs.

[ledzilla]

I'm currently creating dvd quality avi files from a tv dvd with Xilsoft DVD Ripper (Robot Chicken... funny), since I can't see how to separate episodes with StaxRip. But I was able to configure StaxRip to create properly compressed files from the ones I've been generating. But it will work greatly as the only ripping program when I start ripping movies. So far, I'm quite impressed and very happy. Great suggestion, 252life. Now, when I get those damned 1TB drives set up in RAID 0, then I'll really be cooking with gas... 93 octane, for sure. hehe