[nickhos38]

What is the BEST BEST way to put my entire DVD library onto my hard disk so that I merely have to double-click a file to watch a DVD-quality movie.

(Is this even possible? I've been told I can do it, but I really don't know where to start. Although I've got all my CDs ripped into iTunes, I'm new to the whole "put your videos on your computer" thing. I'm essentially looking to get rid of my Sony 5-disc DVD player and turn my computer into my new DVD player -- but without having to touch or insert a physical DVD when I want to play it.)

I have about 100+ DVDs, a Macbook Pro 2.4GHz, Toast Titanium, a USB DVD-RW drive, a huge external HD hooked up via eSATA II, and lots of time on my hands...

[mduell]

MacTheRipper... you can then use DVD Player.app or VLC to open any of the VIDEO_TS folders it produces. Or if you have Windows (virtualized is fine), use DVD Decrypter in IFO mode to a single file, then you'll have a single file for each movie that you can just double click to play in VLC.

Studio DVDs average about 5GB each.

[nickhos38]

Thanks for the quick reply!

How do I open the "VIDEO_TS folders" in DVD Player?

[Cold Warrior]

You just navigate to it. Open DVD Player, then choose Open Media from the File menu.

[nickhos38]

Excellent. Thanks.

[smitty825]

While the suggestions above are good, you may want to re-encode your videos into MPEG-4 format. I personally use Handbrake, to encode my videos as H.264 MPEG-4 files. (If you name them with a ".m4v" format, they will import directly into iTunes).

The advantage of doing it this way, is that the movie file size is much smaller (generally between 750MB and 1GB per movie), and the quality is almost as good. (Depending on which settings are used, one could also view these movies on your iPod, PSP, XBox360, Apple TV, etc)

The disadvantage is that converting from MPEG-2 (which is what a DVD uses) to MPEG-4 is that it takes a long time and uses lots of processor power. (A dual-Athlon linux box I have takes about 5 hours to do a two-pass encode of a 2-hour DVD movie). If you have an octo-core MacPro sitting around, it will obviously be much faster than if your primary computer is a single-processor G3.

[cgc]

I rip DVDs on my MacPro (4 core) in an hour or so at 2500kb/s xvid.

[64stang06]

On a MacBook 2.2 GHz with 2GB RAM Handbrake seems to rip in real time, so it's not that bad. Just rip overnight and you won't have to worry.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by smitty825 

While the suggestions above are good, you may want to re-encode your videos into MPEG-4 format. I personally use Handbrake, to encode my videos as H.264 MPEG-4 files. (If you name them with a ".m4v" format, they will import directly into iTunes).

The advantage of doing it this way, is that the movie file size is much smaller (generally between 750MB and 1GB per movie), and the quality is almost as good. (Depending on which settings are used, one could also view these movies on your iPod, PSP, XBox360, Apple TV, etc)

The disadvantage is that converting from MPEG-2 (which is what a DVD uses) to MPEG-4 is that it takes a long time and uses lots of processor power. (A dual-Athlon linux box I have takes about 5 hours to do a two-pass encode of a 2-hour DVD movie). If you have an octo-core MacPro sitting around, it will obviously be much faster than if your primary computer is a single-processor G3.

Another downside is that it decreases the quality.

[Andrew_Campbell]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Another downside is that it decreases the quality.

That's why you weigh the advantages over the disadvantages. I'd rather have minor quality loss, and save 5GB or 10GB of my hard drive than have a little bit better full quality DVD with menus, and have ten or twenty films devour my entire disk.