What's the best way to put movies on a computer?

[Mar]

I want to take all my CD and movies and rip them onto my computer to make it much easier for entertainment. If I want to play a movie, I click on it instead of going to get it and put it in the DVD player and stuff. I know, sounds lazy, but it's more convenient. Plus it allows me to put the originals away so they don't get lost/broken/stolen. So what's the best way to get a DVD onto my computer while keeping the digital sound as well as the menus? They're not HD movies but may soon be. Or better yet, does anyone know of another forum better suited to home entertainment?

[Xtrema]

avsforum

If you want lossless DVDRip, expect 6-9GB/movie so you'll need a lot of disks.

[st184]

http://www.dvdshrink.org/
That is what i use its called dvd shrink, works great and ripps the whole dvd plus menu to hard drive. Once there if you want the disc image or ISO (this is the format you need if you want to burn it directly on to another disc to "back up" your library. To get it in .iso format I use roxio easy media creator's disc copy function then i copy disc image to disc image, this will leave you with the whole movie in .iso format. From here you can mount the image on a virtual drive like alcohol 120% and play from there or just burn them to a blank dvd. If you have copyright issues try using dvd 43 in conjunction but this program can cause some issues with ripping to your harddrive. Good luck and I hope you have a big harddrive :)

dvd 43 (aka-dvd for free) http://www.dvd43.com/
alcohol 120% http://www.alcohol-soft.com/
roxio - Im sure you can find a copy somwhere on the net.. ;)

Hope this helps bro

[tictactoe2004]

What you want is a media center... with a good dvd ripping program and your set.

[cityhunter2501]

DVD Decrypter is the standard tool for ripping VOB files from DVDs and store them on HDD

if you want whole dvd stored, shrink it but keep it DVD9 format

[Euro838]

I think everyone here is missing the original OP's question/inquiry here. I think what you want to do is to rip to a file format that can just be used by something like Windows media or a media PC. Your best bet is probably to rip it to Xvid or Divx or some other type of high compression algorithm. There are some high res .mkv formats that produce excellent quality. I have my original modded xbox that I use as a media center which works awesome. I put in a 250 gb hd which can hold about 3-400 movies on there (each movie is 700-800mb). I am not exactly sure of the process to get the movies into this format but I think this is what you are looking for.

[cityhunter2501]

Originally posted by Euro838
I think everyone here is missing the original OP's question/inquiry here. I think what you want to do is to rip to a file format that can just be used by something like Windows media or a media PC. Your best bet is probably to rip it to Xvid or Divx or some other type of high compression algorithm. There are some high res .mkv formats that produce excellent quality. I have my original modded xbox that I use as a media center which works awesome. I put in a 250 gb hd which can hold about 3-400 movies on there (each movie is 700-800mb). I am not exactly sure of the process to get the movies into this format but I think this is what you are looking for.


Originally posted by Mar
So what's the best way to get a DVD onto my computer while keeping the digital sound as well as the menus?

he seems to be wanting an image file of his dvds.

[Mar]

Just to clear up the confusion, I wanted the movie copied to my computer so I could play it from the computer which is hooked to the TV. Not an image file. And I wanted it to be lossless so a 800 megabyte file would not suffice. But you guys helped me get the answer though, it looks like I'd need a 500 gig drive just for 10 movies so it won't work. Thanks.

[Alterac]

Uh, each movie is 8.4gb, so for 10 movies you need an 84gb drive.

Use ANYDVD to rip them to your drive.

will be from 4.3gb to 8.4gb per movie depoending on movie, lossless.

[Mar]

Ya sorry, I meant 50 movies. PEBKAC error.

[cityhunter2501]

hey mar, actually even 1.5GB divx/xvid movie is still pretty good for a 1hr 30min movies, it still equal to or even slightly greater than 480p dvds

720p rips I download are usually 4.5-6GB big

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by cityhunter2501
hey mar, actually even 1.5GB divx/xvid movie is still pretty good for a 1hr 30min movies, it still equal to or even slightly greater than 480p dvds

720p rips I download are usually 4.5-6GB big

Pretty is good is not enough if you want lossless. The bigger screen you have, the worse compression will look.

Plus, he may want to keep all the extras on DVDs as well.

Here's your solution:

http://www.mymovies.name/home.aspx

+

Windows MCE

+

500GB HD will be a good starting point.

If you got extra dough and want to saveguard your collection, get a RAID controller and do RAID5 over 4 500GB disk to give you 1.5TB. Which should be good for 150 DVDs and all your music.

[st184]

lol PEBKAC. Havnt heard that one for a while.