I’ve already put all of our CDs on a hard drive so they are now stored in the loft, we’d like to do similar with our DVDs, but I’m not sure how best to do it. Would it be worth getting a Mac mini, attaching it to the TV and saving them all to that? Thanks.

You could store them on a NAS and then you could access them from any mobile device in the house, or wider internet if you wanted to.
You could view the video on the TV with a Playstation or other Media Streamer connected to your network.

I rip ’em with handbrake.

If you have the space to make an .iso you can include all the extras, subtitles, extra scenes bonus material etc.

If you’re very clever you can rip/compress the entire thing, like an .iso but with compression.

I don’t bother with that, I just rip the movie only.

Thanks gofasterstripes (I think), but unfortunately I only understood about half of that 😕

Depending on your broadband connection it might be quicker easier to just download them from the internet

PB has hit the nail on the head. ^^

Handbrake is an application/program to rip the dvd content and compress it into a smaller file format to save on your hard disc.

You could save all these on a Hard drive and attach it to an existing MacMini which is attached to your TV to view. If you don’t have a Mac Mini my suggestion might be preferable as it is possibly cheaper and more flexible in that the content can be streamed to various devices in the house.

Yes, sorry JE, the ‘Goat has it right.

An .iso is a diskimage – pretty much a copy of all the files on the disk, with the directory structure intact so that a media playing app [VLC, for example] will load the entire contents as-if you’d put the disk in the drive. This enables all the functions of the disc, like navigable menus, bonus content etc.

The main downside here is the .iso size – as big as the DVD [4-6GB/film]

If you do as I do, you’d simply chose the main title [usually the longest chapter/file] from the list of available video tracks that disc contains and simply rip that to a compressed file containing a single video track with no chapters etc and audio .

Usually the files end up about .75-2GB for a 90-180 minute film at “standard” quality using x264 as the video compression/codec.

Try a few short rips of complicated or fast-moving scenes to see what quality/size settings you want to settle on.

There are ways to compress the video, like x264 compressed files that Handbrake supports AND also save all the functions of the DVD. I never bother and can’t help you with this.

Some software supports GPU encoding, or if you have an Intel CPU that supports “Quick Sync” [a dedicated section of the CPU for transcoding video]: You can use these systems/hardware to dramatically speed up encodes. This could be a godsend if you have many DVDs to rip, but again – check the quality, these methods have in the past been known for producing crappy quality rips.

https://handbrake.fr/

NB – AFAIK this is not strictly speaking legal in the UK, but unlike downloading or [especially] uploading, there is effectively no chance that you’ll get caught or prosecuted.

PS – you may need to find/install/pay for software to use with Handbrake that can bypass copy protection on the discs. I used “AnyDVD” from SlySoft

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

PPS – USE THE FASTEST MACHINE YOU OWN. My old 2004 Mac took about 9 hours to do a rip. My i7 at 3.8GHz takes about 20 minutes or something. Quick Sync/GPUs can do it in next to no time.

If you can find a copy of DVDDecrypter that will rip the files to a .vob format. Again, choose the longest file as it will be the film. Shorter files will be extras, very short files may be menus or similar.

Make sure you select Stream Processing and deselect all the options except the video and the audio of your choice. Other options will be foreign languages and subtitled versions etc.

Not sure if Handbrake will do this as well as I’ve not used it for quite a while – and quite possibly for something else anyway. Can’t recall.

.vob files mostly cannot be paused, fast forwarded or rewound, but .vob appears to be a wrapper for .mpg, and it’s perfectly safe to change the file extension. The .mpg file will be able to be paused, rewound or fast forwarded if you’re lucky.

Smart TV should be able to read the files straight off a NAS drive, but failing that use a tablet app to read the file and stream it via HDMI / Composite or Component AV / SCART (descending order of quality here) to the TV. Skifta, I think, will do this for you, at least on iOS. VLC is a fantastic app as well, and FileBrowser is great on iOS, as well.

I know this stuff is technically illegal, but a) you are ripping a film that you already own (unless you have borrowed the DVD) and b) some DVDs come with a free downloadable copy of the film anyway, so how does that work then? Simply a case of the law not keeping up with technology, I think.

PPS – USE THE FASTEST MACHINE YOU OWN. My old 2004 Mac took about 9 hours to do a rip. My i7 at 3.8GHz takes about 20 minutes or something. Quick Sync/GPUs can do it in next to no time.

Then do the same with Blu-Rays, and you’re back to needing hours again 😉