2mo ago

How to backup around 200 DVD

Hi everyone!

I have around 200 DVD (with movies) that I’d want to backup in order to save them from rotting or physical media disappearance.

My most powerful computer with a DVD drive is a 2012 MacBook Pro upgraded to 16gb of Ram with an SSD running Fedora 42.

If possible, I’d want to keep all the bonuses of the movies, but I could also just backup the movies if keeping the whole disc is too difficult.

My goal would be to keep the original quality.

Also 6-7 discs are already skipping scenes even if the disc shows no damage.

I’ve bought some of these discs 20 years ago with my teenager pocket money so I wouldn’t want to lose them.

Thanks for the help.

As I own these discs and nothing would be illegal in my country, I thought it would be better to post here instead of the piracy community.

Edit: I guess I’ll use Make MKV Beta as it seems to work well and VLC can open the MKV files. Thanks for your help!

46 comments

You should be able to make a complete backup of a DVD to an iso file using dd.
https://www.systutorials.com/create-iso-image-on-linux/
- But then would I be able to read them on any computer without burning them?
  
  Yes. You could use vlc or even as an iso file just open them as a virtual drive.
- That would get you an exact copy of the disk with everything on it. And also, while 200 DVDs sounded a lot, it's "only" 860GB (assuming 4,3GB/disk which I think is the most common for movies), so it's not stupidly expensive either. Obviously you'll want a RAID setup and most likely backups for that, so it's more than just a single 1TB drive, but still quite manageable.
  
  Actually, 8.5GB. Movies are typically on dual layer discs.
  
  They would probably compress pretty well, I imagine.
- I used K3b for that. It can copy to image and even ignore errors if necessary, though I didn't yet have to try that. It's 8.5GB per disc, so get some 2TB HDD for that.
dvdbackup with the -M option makes a 1/1 clone of your dvd aswell as decrypts the video. One of the best ways to backup old dvds. Takes alot of storage tho and is cli rather if thats a plus or minus for yah.
Automatic Ripping Machine can pull the main movie off a disc automatically, but I'm not sure about imaging the full disc. Once it's set up, you just put a disc in and wait.
https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/
- I came here for this. with 200 dvds, you put the ripping system somewhere you pass by often. pop one out and pop one in whenever you happen to walk by.
  you can rip all features - though that may not include the menus.
you can make an iso, that is a digital replica. the iso can be played with for example vlc.
you can use makemkv, which creates an mkv file out of every video. this allows additional file managing, cause you get a lot of mkv files if the dvd has several bonuses. mkv wont change the encoding, cause its just a container.
as for the skipping...i used to clean up all my nonreadable dvds. just plain old simple soap and luke warm water. cleaned with microfiber cloth.
warner currently has a dvd rot replacment project, but people said you have to jump though too many hoops to make it work. and thats just warner, the other dont even care.
You could use dd to create full disk images. This maintains everything.
- I don't think this works correctly on copy protected media, although I'm not sure.
  
  I can use dd after running "lsdvd" on CSS protected DVDs.
  I have no idea why it works.
Yeah I miss DVD bonuses like directors commentary, cut scenes, bloopers and alternate scenes.
- How would one handle those extra scenes though, in storage as well as in a Jellyfin library?
  
  If you rip the DVD as a movie could you have directors commentary as a audio track?
  What about the extras as a season? Or single merged movie with chapters?
  
  Fantastic question
  
  Plex handles it like this:
  
  Local extras can be located alongside the main movie file in a directory named for the movie. They’re indicated by using specific naming at the end of the filename. Local inline extras will be detected and used if named and stored as follows: * `Movies/MovieName (Release Date)/Descriptive_Name-Extra_Type.ext` Where `-Extra_Type` is one of: * -behindthescenes * -deleted * -featurette * -interview * -scene * -short * -trailer * -other
  https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/
  Jellyfin might do the same
I think the best bet to preserve them as is, would be dd or ddrescue (if there are read errors). You might be able to write a small shell script to automate stuff. For example open the tray, read a filename from the user, then close the tray, rip it and then repeat. That way you'll notice the open tray, change disks, enter the tiltle and hit enter and come back 10mins later. Obviously takes something like 20 days if you do 10 each day. And you're looking for roughly 1TB of storage, if it's single layer DVDs.
- read a filename from the user
  Honestly for something repetitive like this I'd suggest trying to avoid user interaction completely. It's probably better to get that info from the DVD drive itself (blkid -o value -s LABEL /dev/dvd), or if that fails assign a number.
  
  Sure. Are the labels human-readable? Otherwise I'd rather type it in while I'm in front of the computer anyways, with the new DVD in my hand. Rather than end up with a directory with 200 cryptic filenames... I meaan the interaction with changing the disks can't be skipped anyway...
This should work for -most- DVDs, unless they're using some unique copy protection.
The following packages are needed: dvdbackup, libdvdcss, cdrtools
To get info on an inserted DVD (and check it can be read): dvdbackup -i /dev/sr0 -I
To rip the DVD to a directory (-M will mirror the disc): dvdbackup -i /dev/sr0 -o /path/to/store/dvd/ -M
And then to write the directory contents to an iso image: mkisofs -dvd-video -udf -o /path/to/save/movie.iso /path/of/ripped/dvd
From there you can archive the iso, mount it for playback, etc. My next step was a combination of MakeMKV and Handbrake to encode the main movie (H.265 MKV 480p30) for storage on a media server.
- Replying to say dd is probably the better method for archival, but this works for me in most cases.
MakeMKV to backup the contents and if you need it in a different format Handbrake so it can be converted to MP4.
- I’ve found my happiness with MakeMKV for the DVD’s at least.
  I’ll see how I’ll proceed with the Blurays in the future, but I don’t have any other Bluray player except my Playstation 3-4-5 for now.
  
  It works with a usb bluray drive. Though I got an internal bluray drive for my PC
Something to keep in mind is that Riplock is a thing. It will make DVD reads slower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riplock
- Interesting. I didn’t know about it.
  It’s clever, but they should have used this money to make discs more durable instead😇
  
  You can get around it a few ways. Some are drive agnostic, some aren't. Also your drive might not be super affected by it. My dad's Sony AIO PC didn't have an issue ripping while a USB DVD drive I borrowed did.
  Edit: the Sony AIO PC was also from 2012. It was running windows 7 when I did this.
"Handbrake" is quite good at making high quality mkv files, you should be able to Automate a lot of it
Use handbrake and set it to used the Apple videotoolbox for hardware encoding. Looks good, smaller files, fast and easy. Almost everything encodes properly with this method but there are a small number of titles with interesting encryption that breaks with this method. Almost everything works this way though.
I know you are mostly asking about ripping the media. But I would recommend looking at tiny media manager to pull metadata and organize.
I guess I'll use Make MKV Beta as it seems to work well and VLC can open the MKV files. Thanks for your help!
I'd recommend using Make MKV if possible, and then you might use Handbrake to transcode it.
Look at doom9.net for decryption and ripping DVD’s.
Mini hijack but what software would yall recommend for vhs backups, preferably linux native? I figure need to do this before they start degrading. I have a capture card already, just was wondering the best software. I tried potplayer but didnt love it..id really need software with an auto shutoff so I can play a tape when I go to work or bed and not have 6 hours of blank recorded...
- From what I can tell, OBS has an “Output Timer” setting that might be able to do the trick for you - just set the tape length and you should be good to go.
I'm way too lazy for such an endeavor... so what I would do instead is
buy a DVD player on a standard interface (right now seems to be USB-C) that seems to cost (wow... seriously that cheap?!) about the price of a lunch, so 30 EUR.
download RIPs from a Torrent tracker
once that's done then I would only do the additional content of a per-need basis which I would then upload back to a Website that cares about this kind of content, potentially the Internet Archive.
accept reality. just like vhs...all those formats die. and no one will ever look at the shit again. your future tv will be bazillion K resolution, have another aspect ratio and so on... and if you really ever want to watch that one movie again there''ll be better ways and better copies of the movie somewhere. you are wasting energy, polluting the environment and overestimating the value of your past memories.
- It might be your reality but it’s clearly not mine.
  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewatched Alien or Terminator.
  So yes it’s true that I’m using Netflix more than my DVD’s, but I’ll watch a lot of these movies again for sure.
  Also, despite the low resolution, DVD’s now have some kind of charm in their picture quality and it’s perfectly good enough for me.
  But, of course, someone who doesn’t enjoy cinema the way I do shouldn’t be going through such a hassle.
You really might want to consider using this:
https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping-machine

46 comments