Question about making a copy of my DVD for my external drive

Discussion in 'Other video questions' started by eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011.

  1. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    A few years back I was into buying DVD's before BluRay came out and I got into the habit of making a backup copy of the DVD I bought using DVD SHrink and DVD Decripter. Now I have a bunch of DVD's and I was thinking it would be much easier to have the movies in a format that I could put on a external hard drive and then just watch them on my computer. When I travel I have to carry a ton of DVD's because I never know what mood I will be in and thus what kind of movie I will want to watch.

    Does it make sense to convert my DVD's to a format that will play on my computer or any other video players now a days that play video formats?

    If it does make sense how do I go about doing this.

    Thanks
    Eric
     
    eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011
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  2. attar

    attar Senior member

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    Compare the time in converting to a new format against simply copying the the disks as is onto the new gigantic gigabyte drive.
    VLC will play a DVD image file.
     
    attar, Jan 21, 2011
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  3. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    They are not a image file I used DVD Shrink so there are video and audio folders
     
    eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011
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  4. attar

    attar Senior member

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    VLC will open a VIDEO_TS folder:
    'Media' > 'Open folder' - you can rename it anything you want.
    The AUDIO_TS folder is superfluous on the PC.
     
    attar, Jan 21, 2011
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  5. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    I don't want to have to open each folder to play the movies, can you expand on your advice and give me some details on how I would take the dvd and end up with a file on my hard drive that I can click on and have the whole movie play.

    Thanks in advance
     
    eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011
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  6. attar

    attar Senior member

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    If your source movies are disks, you back them up to the external drive.
    If your source movies are on your HDD, drag/copy them onto the external drive.

    For playback, if you don't want to open the folder, drag it onto the shortcut for the player.
     
    attar, Jan 21, 2011
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  7. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    What I have on my dvd's is not a single file, are you saying copy all the folders from dvd to HDD. if so what file so I click on to start the movie so that it will play in full
     
    eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011
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  8. attar

    attar Senior member

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    If you are using VLC, either 'Media' > 'Open Folder', highlight the desired folder and 'OK' - it does the rest.

    Or 'Media' > 'Open File' and select the 'VIDEO_TS.IFO' file from the particular folder.
     
    attar, Jan 21, 2011
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  9. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    I want these files to be able to be opened by any video player in case in a few years I use a different one. Either I am not understanding you or you are not understanding what I am trying to explain.

    When I put the dvd in my drive it started to play with my default player, I think it was media player. Now that I copied the 2 folders to my HHD I can seem to get it to start, I copied everything from the dvd to HHD so what you see in the 1st pic is what the folder structure is on the DVD and the 2nd pic is what is in the video_ts folder.

    How do I play it now?



     
    eric_0012, Jan 21, 2011
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  10. attar

    attar Senior member

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    Sorry, I don't use Windows Media Player for playback, neither from disk nor folder, so I can't offer anything there - I only use VLC or MPC and my previous post lists the steps I use.
     
    attar, Jan 21, 2011
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  11. xboxdvl2

    xboxdvl2 Regular member

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    copy each movie as an iso file and then each movie will be a single file.may or may not want to turn them into divx/xvid.
     
    xboxdvl2, Jan 23, 2011
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  12. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    I have been playing around to see what works and I am copying what is on the DVD to a folder with the movies name and then making a shortcut of the ifo file in the folder so all I have to do is open the folder and click on the shortcut and the movie plays.


    Can you please expand on your suggestion about copying as a iso file, how do I do that? also can you please tell me the pros and cons of divx/xvid.

    I know almost nothing when it comes to this sttuff so I need details.....please.........lol
     
    eric_0012, Jan 23, 2011
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  13. xboxdvl2

    xboxdvl2 Regular member

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    an iso is a disk image.basically the video and audio files are packed into 1 file (someone on here might be able to give you more specific details).a divx or xvid is an avi file usually around 700mb.not sure what the major difference between xvid and divx are.basically ripping a dvd to avi will shrink a file to around 700mb maybe slightly more or less but you will lose a bit of quality.divx and xvid will run on a computer but some modern dvd players wont support xvid,most play divx just fine.

    @attar can you give him some details on ripping as an iso file as i havnt never done it personally and your the video expert on here.
     
    xboxdvl2, Jan 23, 2011
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  14. attar

    attar Senior member

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    @xboxdv12

    Most ripping programs (including DVD shrink) can output an ISO.

    VLC (and others) can play an ISO by simply dragging it onto the shortcut to the player.
     
    attar, Jan 24, 2011
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  15. eric_0012

    eric_0012 Member

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    When I did my backups I used DVD Shrink to rip them now I have the video and audio folders, is there a advantage ripping them again to iso than to just copy the folders to my external hard drive?
     
    eric_0012, Jan 25, 2011
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  16. kold

    kold Member

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    Since you already processed the dvds with Shrink, there is no need to do it again, the process will take too long. You don't want to re-encode, just image the folders to .iso. Use decrypter in iso write mode (Mode> iso> write).

    If you have playback problems you can always mount your isos with MagicDisc or something similar and use the playback software you're accustomed to.
     
    kold, Apr 11, 2011
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