Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Disc to Digital Part 1: Rippin!

This is the first article in a series of three about converting one's movie and TV library from DVD and Blu-ray discs to computer-based files fit for streaming.

About a decade ago I converted my CD music collection to MP3. It's been great to have my music collection portable and at hand to enjoy in a myriad of ways on multiple devices. I remember thinking at the time that it would be wonderful when movies could be handled in the same way.

Later, I became aware of a system called Kaleidescape that rips discs to digital copies. The big problem was that the system is cost-prohibitive, with the most basic implementation costing thousands of dollars.

A little while back I thought that there must be a more cost-effective way to convert my disc collection and enjoy them digitally, preferably with the Roku that I already owned. I did some research and settled on Plex. Plex is media streaming software. One of things that it enables you to do is to stream your content from a computer to your TV via a Roku over your wi-fi network. Best of all, both the media server software and the Roku client channel are free!


Once I found Plex, it only fell to me to settle on a process for converting my video DVDs and Blu-rays to digital files. I settled on a two part process, ripping the discs to MKV files and then transcoding them to MP4. Before I go into the details, some words about legality...

It is legal to create digital "backups" of discs that you have purchased. It is also legal to view these backups.

It is illegal to copy discs that you do not own, or to in any way distribute copies that you have created. Very substantial penalties will apply.

That being said, I use MakeMKV to rip my discs to digital files. The process is simple. First, insert the disc and then launch the application. Click on the drive image to scan the disc.



I only want the main feature so, after the scan completes, I uncheck everything except the largest file.


Then it's simply a matter of setting the output folder and clicking Make MKV. The process usually takes about 50-100% of the feature playing time.

MakeMKV is "free in Beta."

The resulting MKV file is rather large, 34 GB in this example. I then use Handbrake to transcode the file to MP4. This reduces the file size on the order of 75%. The process can take quite awhile though, up to 11 hours for a movie. I queue up the MKV files and let them run overnight or while I'm at work. I delete the large MKV files when processing is finished.

Handbrake has a lot of options and so can be very complicated to use. I simplify it to the extreme by just using the Apple TV 3 preset.


The output quality is FANTASTIC, indistinguishable from the source material to my eye, and I'm pretty picky.

Handbrake is free.

If you've been tallying the cost, you should already know that the sum cost for this solution using Plex, MakeMKV and Handbrake is $0!

Related:
Disc to Digital Part 2: Setting Up and Customizing Plex
Disc to Digital Part 3: That VUDU that You Do!

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