Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Jonr515

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 11, 2017
345
145
Midwest!
My wife and I are cleaning up and making space. We have 100ish DVD’s, is there a way to copy them onto a hard drive so I can toss the disks? I know handbrake used to work, but is there something else?
 

Juicy Box

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2014
7,545
8,878
There are a few apps out there, MakeMKV is one of them.

It is free in Beta for Blurays, and I think free all the time for DVDs.

Handbrake is a good tool to use with MakeMKV to encode the movies to make them take up less space while keeping good quality.

You can set Handbrake up to both rip and encode, but AFAIK, the current versions won't do that anymore without doing some simple mods.

I used to use Handbrake only when I only had DVDs, but have since moved on to using both MakeMKV to rip and Handbrake to encode for DVDs as well as Blurays.

I know handbrake used to work, but is there something else?
You can still get it to work, on rare occasions, I use it for ripping and encoding on one of my Macs. I honestly forget how to set it up to get it working again, as it has been a while since I did it, and whatever I did still continues to work after updates of the app.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AleRod

Jonr515

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 11, 2017
345
145
Midwest!
Don't even think about trashing those disks once ripped. If you ever get get raided for possibly sharing ripped movies, and don't have proof you actually own them, you will not like the fine!
I should have been clear, it was more put them in storage :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marc_S

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,982
3,088
We have 100ish DVD’s, is there a way to copy them onto a hard drive so I can toss the disks?

I wouldn't use Handbrake as the encoding can reduce quality. I would go with MakeMKV, or MTR, the grandfather of ripping apps, maintain the original quality. MTR will rip to an ISO file (if you don't want to play it). Just make sure you have a 3-2-1 backup strategy in place.

 

Jonr515

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 11, 2017
345
145
Midwest!
I'm trying MKV, this is what the dialog box is reading, is this normal?
Screen Shot 2021-05-24 at 10.02.53 AM.png
 

Juicy Box

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2014
7,545
8,878
Here is something from the forums:

I don't know your exact problem, but here is some advice about using MKV (and other ripping SW):

Clean/fix your discs-

I wipe my discs with a dry cloth, if there is visual dirt on them that won't wipe with a dry cloth, I wash my discs in a sink with dish soap and even a sponge if needed.

I get a lot of movies from stuff like craigslist, so the condition of them are not great, so sometimes I need to not only clean them, but also repair the scratches. I use car wax for that.

I also ran into issues where a literal perfect looking disc wouldn't play. The only think I can think of is that maybe the disc was exposed to heat or light, or both. I still haven't found a solution for this one.


The drive-

With some discs, sometimes one drive might work better than another. Sometimes just taking the disc out of a drive and sticking it back in helps with errors.

If you are using a portable drive, use a USB cable with a separate USB power plug.

Clean the drive as well, especially if it has never been done before. Drive cleaner discs are really cheap.


The SW-

If one fails, use another, especially for DVDs. If you cleaned the discs, clean the drives, used different drives, and still not working. Try using different SW. I have done this a few times, MTR is my second go-to.

AFAIK, MTR isn't updated anymore, but it still works great (not sure about newer OS versions). I have been using MTR for what seems like 20 years.
 

sracer

macrumors G4
Apr 9, 2010
10,354
13,166
where hip is spoken
My wife and I are cleaning up and making space. We have 100ish DVD’s, is there a way to copy them onto a hard drive so I can toss the disks? I know handbrake used to work, but is there something else?
Over the years I've used a bunch of different tools, but when it was time to completely digitize my DVD collection (over 1000 movies and 4000 TV episodes), I went with Handbrake. The results were outstanding, including selectable closed-caption. The files are all on a harddrive attached to an old iMac that serves as a dedicated Plex Server.

I put all of the discs in binders (tossed the cases except for collectible titles) and stored the binders.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 0128672

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,982
3,088
Vaguely remember that this happened before a few months back. Eventually came back. Fingers crossed.
 

Smearbrick

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2013
415
800
Central PA
Back in the day, the best DVD ripping/transcoding option was DVDShrink. It probably won’t work on modern systems, and was only for Windows, but was a game changer in the world of DVD backups on DVD+/-R. You could resize different parts of the DVD (movie, features, menus, trailers) or omit them completely to allow the backup copy to fit on your selected DVD media. I believe the developer sold the program to the folks who made Nero Burning Rom, and began developing for them.

Wow… that was a long time ago!!!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.