Backing Up DVDs. Encoding Questions.
#1
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NOTE: Wasn't sure where to post this thread. Sorry if this is the incorrect subforum. The XBMC forums were the most fitting, in my opinion, for this question.

I am moving out-of-province, and won't be able to take my large collection of standard-definition DVDs with me. They're going to be placed in storage locally, with my relatives. I am going to create backups of the titles I wish to keep, and carry a portable HD during the move.

I don't exactly care about (most) special features or access menus, so keeping the structure of the disc or preserving it's contents entirely is not needed. Also, size isn't a HUGE issues in some ways. I won't be sharing or streaming any of this content, so they won't have to be 700MB or less. At the same time, the point of this is to maximize storage capacity without much quality loss. So I wouldn't want to turn a 6GB feature film .vob into a 5.5GB encode. Not much point.

I used HANDBRAKE in the past, with the AppleTV preset (H.264 and AAC) and some customization. I limited the file size to 1.4GB. The results were okay. I didn't notice a huge loss in quality or resolution. But I'm wondering... can I do better?

Willing to use either the WINDOWS or MAC OS X platform, as I have access to both. Any programs, as long as the learning curve isn't too harsh... price is not an issue (within reason...)

I will be playing these on a HTPC equipped with XBMC, so PS3-compatibility or the like is not needed, either.
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#2
Cool hey sure there are a lot of programs u can use and they all are free. Check out filehippo.com and look for these programs and download them (imgburn, dvd shrink).
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#3
I use DVDFab to copy only the main movie. It stores the movie in the standard DVD file structure. If the movie size is still very large, I use DVDShrink to compress the movie to fit on a standard 4.7GB DVD.

Then I use Handbrake or Vidcoder (different UI to Handbrake engine) to encode the movie to .m4v format (which I then manually rename to .mp4). Movie sizes are generally in the 1.3GB - 1.6GB range. I store all my movies on a 2TB NAS. I don't notice much picture quality loss, but you can experiment with the compression settings to find something you like.
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#4
MakeMKV is free for DVD encoding. It makes lossless files and can strip out titles from DVDS. Also for now it is free (still in beta) for ripping Blu Rays.

http://www.makemkv.com.
Keith

XBMC on Acer Revo, Windows 7.
ATV2.
Intel NUC, Windows 7
Gateway Laptop when traveling...
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#5
I use MakeMKV to rip the DVD (actually makemkvcon, the console version). I have a script that scans my library each night and transcodes any mkvs out there not already in H264 using HandBrake SVN (commandline again).

In Handbrake, I use a quality of 19.0 with the options from the High Profile preset. The only other thing I change is to grab only the primary AC3 and DTS audio tracks along with all subtitles. Most of my movies result in 1.2-1.7 GB files. There is little to no visible degradation in quality.

At the end of the process, _H264 is appended to the filename before the mkv extension (the only container I use). The next night, my scan will avoid picking the transcoded movie by that tag.

It works amazingly well, if slowly, on my Revo 3610 without impacting my viewing programs during the transcode. To queue the trancode jobs, I use a wonderful tool called task spooler, ts.
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