Hard drive solution for all my DVDs?

[TorqueDirty]

Folks, I have been looking in to getting rid of my CDs and finding a high quality streaming / storage solution so that I don't lose any sound quality.

I started a thread on that a while ago and got excellent advice. As a result I'm now planning to get a music streamer and will sign up to one of the high end streaming services. I'll also get a NAS drive for music that I want to rip and store. Good thread, very useful, I might even get round to actually doing it!

So, with the CD issue solved I now have a few hundred DVDs that are also taking up lots of space and I'm wondering if there is an equivalent solution for these. I suspect it is more complicated with DVDs and that the menu architecture will be tough to replicate - but I know the square root of bugger all about this so thought I'd ask the clever people on here.

Ideally I'd like a hard drive solution that I can simply plug in to the home cinema amp and some way of selecting films and controlling playback. So, the ability to scroll through films, select them and then play as if they were DVDs.

Does such a solution exist? Or more precisely, does a simple easy to use solution exist that does not require me to have a degree in computing etc. Video and sound quality are paramount so I'm not interested in compressed files that sacrifice quality for file size.

Thanks in advance. Genuinely interested to learn what solutions there might be out there.

TD

[Jakarta]

You need Plex as your software and then some kind of hardware to control it and host the server. Can be as simple as a Raspberry Pi, old laptop or a fandango Home Theatre PC.

[Zetec-S]

In this for the updates as I'd definitely be keen on a similar solution. Need something to stop Mrs ZS paying to stream films because she "forgot" we had them on DVD

[TorqueDirty]

Zetec-S said:

In this for the updates as I'd definitely be keen on a similar solution. Need something to stop Mrs ZS paying to stream films because she "forgot" we had them on DVD

This...and even worse, paying to stream a film that you know you have on DVD because you just can't find it amongst all the other DVDs (which are no longer in alphabetical order because .... wife!

TD

[hornmeister]

For me you can't beat a silver disk.
I bought a folder/wallet type thing put all the disks in in alphabetical order and store the boxes in the attic.

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Binder-Capac...

Storing full movies on HD is a little tricky and you start to run out of space quick at top quality.

[sprouting]

hornmeister said:

For me you can't beat a silver disk.
I bought a folder/wallet type thing put all the disks in in alphabetical order and store the boxes in the attic.

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Binder-Capac...

Storing full movies on HD is a little tricky and you start to run out of space quick at top quality.

Currently in the middle of both options here. But it takes a long time sorting it all out. So only gets done periodically, then stalls for a bit. Bought win X dvd ripper off their site, forget how much for a lifetime subscription. I think it was about £30/40 .

Edited by sprouting on Tuesday 10th December 13:50

[sprouting]

hornmeister said:

For me you can't beat a silver disk.
I bought a folder/wallet type thing put all the disks in in alphabetical order and store the boxes in the attic.

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Binder-Capac...

Storing full movies on HD is a little tricky and you start to run out of space quick at top quality.

Currently in the middle of both options here. But it takes a long time sorting it all out. So only gets done periodically, then stalls for a bit. Bought win X dvd ripper off their site, forget how much for a lifetime subscription. I think it was about £30/40 .

Edited by sprouting on Tuesday 10th December 14:06

[PhilboSE]

There are many advantages to doing what you want. Personally I love being able to dial up a film using its cover art, on any device in the house, and go straight in to the main feature without slow loading times, menu screens or annoying trailers / forced features e.g. anti-piracy warnings.

Your main decision will be what format to rip too: lossy or lossless. You'll need about 5Gb for most DVD main features and about 30Gb for Blu-Ray if going lossless. You'll need about 25% of that if you go lossy and compress the video and audio.

For lossless, I recommend the .MKV format as it results in a single file with all video, audio and metadata (subtitles) embedded. It's also an open standard which is widely supported. I use MakeMKV to rip DVDs, Blu-Ray and 4K for a 1-off price around £30 with lifetime access to updates.

For lossy, I recommend the .MP4/M4V formats using Handbrake to compress the source data. It's now pretty straightforward to use.

There's loads of options for NAS and playback devices and playback software. Personally I like Kodi for playback with XigmaNAS on the fileserver, but Plex is also popular.

Amazon firesticks make surprisingly good playback devices using Kodi if you have those.

[C&C]

hornmeister said:

For me you can't beat a silver disk.
I bought a folder/wallet type thing put all the disks in in alphabetical order and store the boxes in the attic.

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Binder-Capac...

Storing full movies on HD is a little tricky and you start to run out of space quick at top quality.

I'm in this boat, and went for folders that hold 128 disks each. So far I think I have 3 folders full of DVDs and another 3 full of Blurays, the latter continuing to grow, as I like to buy a physical disk. I went for the 128 capacity folders as when full they are quite heavy so easier to pull out and put back.

Unlike Hornmeister, I don't store them in alphabetical order, as this becomes a pain as you get more disks and maintaining it is problematic. Instead, I label each disk with a sequential number and then put them all in a spreadsheet. For each movie, I'll fill in the title (and make it a hyperlink to the IMDB entry for the film), but also enter the length, rating, genre, year, main actors and actresses, director, and obviously the serial reference number. I then save the spreadsheet and export a copy as a .pdf. The pdf goes on my laptop, PC, ipad, phone, Mrs C&C's phone and ipad.

This takes a little effort every few months, but it means that when we want to watch a film, it's easy to either search the spreadsheet, or scan through the pdf (usually sorted via genre then alphabetical). Look up the reference number and take out the disk. If you're not sure what the film is about, a simple click or tap on the title takes you to the IMDB description. I've found it very helpful having the length of a film, as sometimes we may only have a window of under 2 hours so can quickly find a film that fits the time available.

It's also quite a good compromise in terms of saving space (can put all the DVD boxes in the loft), but not using up masses of hard disk storage (as like the OP, I wouldn't want them compressed in any way).


I did think about ripping them all, but the amount of storage really put me off, along with a simple way to play them.


Just as a point of reference, I did go through the process of ripping all my audio CD collection (well over 1000 CDs) to lossless FLAC format and have these stored on a NAS, accessed by Sonos players feeding external DACs through decent hifi amps and speakers. This works really well, but to do it for films is another league in terms of hard disk storage.

[toon tvr]

Grt something like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Popcorn-Hour-A-110-Digi...

then copy your media to mkv or avi.
The above will take a 2TB drive

[PhilboSE]

A 4Tb disk is £80 and you could fit 150 Blu-Ray or 500 DVDs on that.
In terms of playback, you can install Kodi for free on an Amazon firestick or a bunch of other media devices.

You can get carried away though - I have 2 HP microservers with 5x4Tb disks each and I have a third one ready to go...

[Murph7355]

PhilboSE said:

A 4Tb disk is £80 and you could fit 150 Blu-Ray or 500 DVDs on that.
In terms of playback, you can install Kodi for free on an Amazon firestick or a bunch of other media devices.

You can get carried away though - I have 2 HP microservers with 5x4Tb disks each and I have a third one ready to go...

Similar here.

When ripping the raw media for use on the main TV, I also do MP4 versions for use on the go/on smaller TVs.

Kodi's my preferred interface. Also use Plex a little, but not as much of a fan of that.

[scjgreen]

Get an Old Mac Pro (2008 Onwards)

Add Plex to Serve the Media
Handbrake to Rip and Encode the DVD's
Enjoy