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Rbellie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 26, 2012
2
0
Malaysia
All,
First I have to apologize for taking so long to see the light and move from PC to Mac, what can I say, I have separation anxiety. I am treating myself to a new iMac loaded next month when they come out as I am tired of debugging, reformatting, looking for drivers and DLL's.

My situation is: I have a collection of 2000+ DVD's and am tired of carrying the two duffle bags with me every time I move, not to mention the time it takes to find the DVD's I want from the many pouches.

My questions are:

1. What is my best option (software, cataloging, labeling, etc..) for ripping my DVD's into good quality files on my iMac?

2. Is MP4 the best/most efficient format I should rip them in to see on my iMac or TV? I just bought an Apple TV little box last month.

3. How will the quality of my burned DVD's be as compared to torrents? Should I even bother to rip them? Will downloading torrents be faster and bring me a better quality movie in the end?

4. Given that the new iMac does not have a DVD drive, I was planning on using my external DVD drive, is there a more efficient way of doing this?, can I use 3or4 DVD drives in parallel??

5. What is the best software to organize, classify, reference, search and retrieve my movies? Is there an application that I can get for the apple store that is better??

6, if you were in my shoes, how would you set it up? I don't want to start doing it to find out I should have done it some other way after having gone through the first 1000 rips.

Thanks in advance
A very excited new iMac user
 

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,539
941
Handbrake is great for ripping DVDs. I use Plex to manage and play movies, TV shows and music videos.
 

Mike Valmike

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2012
551
0
Chandler, Arizona
If you want to use the AppleTV native movie playback, as most folks here prefer to do rather than delving into the jailbreaking scene, here is your workflow. It may not be perfect but it has worked for me for ~6TB worth of blu-ray and DVD rips:

- Rip with MakeMKV. Freeware with time-limited (full-function) keys, but worth the donation to own. Use all default settings.
- Encode with Handbrake. Freeware. Use the Apple TV 3 preset and save to .MP4 container format. Most DVDs will encode to 1.2-1.7GB; BRs will vary from 5GB to 12GB with the main differentiator being whether the movie is "grainy" more than anything else. For example I ripped Wall Street and Toy Story 3. Even though TS3 had far more action and special effects, WS is almost double the file size. Just one of those things.
- Tag with iDentify from the Mac App Store. Not as solid a solution as TuneUp is for songs, but it's the best thing going for video right now. You may have to spend some time with IMDB open in another window to get tag numbers to make your stuff register correctly but once it's done, it's done.
- Import into iTunes and enjoy.

Hope that helps!
 

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
Handbrake is excellent for encoding, and free (if you have VLC installed it can also rip, but I am not sure about the current status of this feature).

For ripping, try either RipIt or Mac DVD Ripper Pro...these two are very cheap and easy to use.

P.s.: I would rather use the Universal preset on Handbrake, especially if you envisage watching movies on other iDevices than the ATV and your Mac...
 

mapleleafer

macrumors regular
Nov 2, 2009
192
43
I'd rather just watch DVDs, but then I don't have to lug 2000+ of them around. I hope you have a lot of free time.
 

Rbellie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 26, 2012
2
0
Malaysia
Thank you

Gents,
Thanks for your answers, I will apply.
Unfortunately Mapleleafer, I don't have enough time to watch much TV so I want to be able to access them easily and efficiently. I would love to find someone willing to rip them all for me, they would end up with a nice DVD colle tion in the end.

Cheers
 
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