How much space on a HD?

[Achiever]

Given the inexpensive cost of storage - internal and external - I think it is time for me to start ripping my DVD content onto HDs so I can better travel with it. I was preparing to rip some TV series (Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, Arrested Development, The Wire, etc.) and some movies (The Big Lebowski, LOTR, etc.) when it occurred to me: I really have no idea how much HD space some/all of these things will take up until I have actually done it. By then, I may have wasted a lot of time putting them on the wrong sized HD for my needs (eg putting half of a TV series onto a HD only to need to complete it on a second drive).

So, I thought I would start a thread (I didn't see any like it in a search - if anyone finds one, please link to it) where people who have already ripped their content onto a HD can post the size of the file as a sort of "heads up" to others who want to rip their content as well. I am generally thinking about ripping for viewing with the DVD player on my Macs and will post accordingly, so if you have ripped a smaller file for use on a iPod or iPhone, please note that. Feel free to add what app you used to rip, as well. Thanks to the last MU bundle, I think RipIt will be my tool of choice.

Also, I'm not even sure this is the best forum to put this, but I can see it getting kicked out of others. If you have a better idea of where it should be moved to, please advise. Otherwise, I look forward to reading your file sizes and thanks in advance to anyone who can give me an idea of the size of any of the content I listed above.

 

[uberamd]

The better board would have been the Apple TV area, but here goes:

A DVD will run about 700MB, and a 1 hour episode of a show will run about 300-350MB. At least thats what all of mine are right now (6 seasons of the Sopranos, 21 seasons of the Simpsons, a bunch of movies, etc). I have a bunch of content filling up a 750GB drive right now.

 

[Achiever]

The better board would have been the Apple TV area

Great call. Not having an Apple TV I hadn't been in those forums yet, but it makes a lot of sense.

 

[velocityg4]

It really depends on if you leave the DVD in full DVD format or compress it. Personally I leave my DVD's as full disc rips so that I have all audio, extras etc.. available. So each of mine runs 4GB to 8GB.

With compression as posted above it takes a lot less space. But I have gobs of space on my 640GB hard drives. When I do run out I will set up a server with a multi-Terabyte RAID array.

 

[Galapp]

there are a couple of factors that will affect how much space it takes.

a DVDrip full HD is 4-6Gb... but in average you can still get good quality for 700mb-1.2gb. I currently have all Smallville seasons, Prison Break Seasons, House M.D seasons, Friends Seasons, and another bunch of movies... total of
700Gb worth of series and movies.

 

[fireshot91]

An uncompressed .iso of a DVD will be in high 4GB's. That is without the languages (Except for English).

So, if you say you have every season of those shows, and one season runs about 5-6 disks.....You do the math.
5GB*5 (Disks)*(Number of Seasons)= HD capacity.
Of course, I left mine uncompressed and left them in .iso format. You can use whatever format, but compressing reduces quality, and space.

I have about 1.5TB of Hard Drive space dedicated to all of my movies. I used DVD Shrink (In Windows) to do it.

 

[wywern209]

i suggest getting a 1TB or 1.5TB HD for all your movies, TV shows etc.

 

[crazycat]

Well if your traveling then imo you dont need the best video quality, i get by with lower quality just fine. I rip my DVD's and aim for around 900-1200 MB each, with TV shows i go lower. I do all my ripping on my MacPro and store the movies onto an external hard drive, i then use SuperDuper to copy that desktop hard drive onto a portable 500GB hard drive that i carry with my laptop. I delete old seasons on TV shows or movies that i have watched so not to take to much space.