Most efficient full-disc rip workflow for ~1000 DVDs?

[Makosuke]

I wasn't finding too many threads on this doing a search, but maybe I'm just using the wrong terms.

What I want to do is very straightforward: Rip about 950 DVDs in their entirety to hard drive(s)--not re-encode using Handbrake or similar, but rip the whole discs including menus, previews, etc. That's a lot of DVDs, so I'm interested in whatever method requires the least manual work.

I'm an anime reviewer preparing to move to Japan for a while, and it's realistically a lot easier to rip my full anime collection to two or three hand-carryable 2TB hard drives than ship the physical DVDs, but I do want the discs exactly as-is, rather than re-encoded, since they're as much for future reference as for actually watching.

I'm seeing Mac DVDRipper Pro recommended here as the easiest tool, and it's certainly cheap enough, but I'm wondering if it's going to have the fastest workflow in terms of the time it takes to stick a disc in, get the rip started, and spit it back out. I notice that MacTheRipper also has a new paid-only version out, but it doesn't seem quite as smooth.

Also, if anybody knows of a good way to automatically add even a little metadata to the collection, that would be nice.

(Aside: Egad, 950 DVDs is a lot. Even at only 1 minute to take the disc off the shelf, take it out of the case, insert it, start the rip, and put it back in the case, that's almost 16 HOURS of manual labor. Not even counting actual rip time, which at least I don't have to sit there through. I'm going to buy a tray-load external drive, too--figure it'll be a little faster and less stress than using the slot-load internal in my iMac.)

 

[ctucci]

Ripit

I kinda like ripit. I stick a disk in, click compress, and it chucks it into a format I can then play on my atv2 via airplay.

 

[Primejimbo]

I kinda like ripit. I stick a disk in, click compress, and it chucks it into a format I can then play on my atv2 via airplay.

I'm going to try that now

 

[Makosuke]

I kinda like ripit. I stick a disk in, click compress, and it chucks it into a format I can then play on my atv2 via airplay.

Well, I only want full-disc rips, but from the looks of it RipIt (that's the right app, isn't it?) does indeed offer that as an option. And certainly the less input from me, the better, so I'll have to add it to the list of things to test. Bit more expensive at $25, but still reasonable.

Any other suggestions?

 

[CWallace]

I own both RipIt and MacThe Ripper 4 and across about 1000 DVDs, RipIt was successful ripping them 95% of the time, but when RipIt failed, MTR 4 was successful.

 

[s15119]

I believe Mac DVD Ripper will do what you want and it seems to get good reviews


http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31118/mac-dvdripper-pro

I use handbreak, but it will not do what you want

 

[kuwisdelu]

That's a lot of anime

I'm kind of jealous.

 

[eRondeau]

Good Lord you're setting yourself up for an awful lot of work! Hundreds and hundreds of hours, I can't even imagine, you can't possibly do them one-at-a-time. I'd be looking at some way to automate the process, whether via renting some industrial DVD machine or even buying a dozen external DVD drives and setting some kind of Automator Action to rip them sequentially so at least you can do a bunch of them unattended overnight.

Or how about just stacking all the DVD's onto ten 100-disc spindles and shipping them to your destination in advance via FedEx? You could probably ship them all there for the price of a few 2TB HD's.

On the other hand aren't these shows available in Japan? At a library or somewhere?

 

[slipper]

I'm sure you will find an app to rip all your DVDs to your liking but i'm curious what your solution will be for the enormous amount of DVDs and the amount of time it will take.

 

[Paulywauly]

I'm sure you will find an app to rip all your DVDs to your liking but i'm curious what your solution will be for the enormous amount of DVDs and the amount of time it will take.

Yeah same here, I hope the OP will let us know how he plans on tackling and How it turns out

 

[Primejimbo]

Sorry for the dumb question..

I have an AT2 and I am trying out Ripit. Under the compress option and under "Video Target" I pick compress options of:

High Quality M4V
High Quality MP4
Apple TV
iPhone/Touch
iPad
Xbox360
PSs

Which should I select for the best picture on my TV? I am guessing Apple TV, but not sure, thanks

 

[Aidoneus]

I believe your best bet is High Quality m4v/mp4' but I am not 100%.

 

[ReggaeFire]

You're in for A LOT of work (I'm doing a similar process with my CDs, ripping all (around 4000) losslessly). My current pace is 10 per day (I do it at work), at that rate I figure I've got another year left (I've got about 2000 left to go). I'd say you're looking at about a month if you do nothing else. (That's doing one every 30 minutes for 16 hours a day).

One thing I'll note is that in all likelihood you will probably kill your DVD drive (they don't seem to be made for this kind of high volume constant ripping), so an external is strongly recommended. (In my project I'm currently on my third drive - fortunately I fix computers for a living so I've literally just got loads of them sitting around that I can swap one out when it stops working).

 

[mstrze]

I am not sure even 6TB will be enough to hold nearly 1000 DVD rips.

Plus double that for backup of that data.

I'd have to agree with others that mailing/shipping them over might be a better bet.

 

[Primejimbo]

I'd have to agree with others that mailing/shipping them over might be a better bet.

I don't have that much, maybe 100-200 DVD's Where do I send them, how much does something like this cost?

 

[Jaunty]

I don't have that much, maybe 100-200 DVD's Where do I send them, how much does something like this cost?

They just mean for him to ship them to his new address, not a ripping service. (Not sure if there is a DVD ripping service in the USA, may not be allowed because of copyright issues).

 

[Busta999]

I am mid mass rip of 1,000+ DVD

The best workflow I have discovered:-

1. Using 2 iMacs and an MBP
2. Added extra external DVD drives mostly using fw
3. Use latest Handbrake using ATV2 setting (changed rf to 18, make sure I capture AC3 pass thru and stereo)
4. By using multiple DVD drives I can keep a queue of rips so the Macs are running 24x7
5. I am also capturing DVD extras,( I only want to rip once)
6. I set the DVD Extras Genre is set to DVD Extras and use the same artwork as the Main Feature
7. I use iFlicks to flatten the Handbrake .m4v into the right final folder , complete meta data and add to iTunes

The best thing I have done was get iFlicks and the extra external DVDs, they allow me to queue up multiple DVD rips in Handbrake, then leave it alone for up to 9 hours, otherwise you have to keep going back to feed the beast!

This is my third big task, the first was to rip my CD collection, some 2,400 CDs and scanning our photo collection some 30GB of photos.

Both along with this one is a complete drag, but very rewarding.

The good news is that movies are easier to rip than TV series, I did a load of those last year....

Ok got to go feed the beasts....

Oh I also use Subler for tweaks etc, Name Mangler for fixing file names.

 

[d21mike]

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I did 180 DVD's. I will not do anymore. With Netflix Streaming has most of my old DVD's are on that service. If I really like a movie I will just buy it via iTunes in HD.

 

[mstrze]

I don't have that much, maybe 100-200 DVD's Where do I send them, how much does something like this cost?

Download the items in this thread, follow the procedure (don't be daunted, it really is VERY simple and straightforward) and you will be done with your entire collection in under a month. Depending on the speed of your machine, you'll be able to rip and encode 8-12 movies a day, possible even more.

Procedure is simply...

load DVD into your Mac, when info box pops up, choose either Movie or TV Show, search for a name of the DVD (for artwork and movie info purposes)...let 'er rip for about 20-30 minutes. Repeat for several more DVDs...encode all those rips overnight and wake up the next morning with a whole bunch of WIN for your iTunes library!

I'm not even kidding...100-200 DVDs... working full-time on this project will take less than a month....even as quick as two weeks.

 

[Makosuke]

All the comments and suggestions are appreciated. I will definitely post back once things get underway, with what I end up doing.

To those commenting on how long it'll take, I know. I have a few months to plug away, but as I said even assuming a mere 60 seconds to unbox and swap a disc into the drive, that's still 16 hours of labor. At least it's spread out, and I just finished scanning 200 covers for reviews, so I have an idea of how workflows go.

The good part, which is different from those doing ATV/etc reencodes, is the actual rips should be pretty quick, since there's no reencode--it's just the time it takes to read the DVD--and of course happen unattended, so I can be doing other, more interesting things, at the same time. Like watching anime, maybe.

One thing I'll note is that in all likelihood you will probably kill your DVD drive (they don't seem to be made for this kind of high volume constant ripping), so an external is strongly recommended. (In my project I'm currently on my third drive - fortunately I fix computers for a living so I've literally just got loads of them sitting around that I can swap one out when it stops working).

As I said, I've got a tray-load external drive that I'm going to use, since I expect the drive won't be too happy by the end of it. At least DVD drives are under $20, so it's cheap to replace if I fry it. It'd probably make sense to have two or three running simultaneously, but I'll start with one and see how it goes.


In terms of data, at an average of about 6-7GB for a DVD (some are 4.9GB, some 8.5GB, most in between), I'm estimating about 6TB of data, which isn't horrific, and I just bought a 2TB F4 for under $80.


As for the cost to ship just the discs, I've already run the numbers, and it's more expensive than you'd think. The combination of the expense and risk of shipping plus actually storing the stuff had my wife essentially vetoing any other option.

Based on my tests, a DVD (just the disc) weighs 13g; that's 15kg for 950 DVDs, which at USPS international rates would cost about $150 to ship (plus another $50 for the cases in which to ship them; SuperMediaStore has some 520 disc wallets for $20, plus whatever those weigh); it might be cheaper with flat-rate priority boxes, but I'm not sure how many it would take. FedEx and UPS aren't really any better. 33 pounds is possible to put in checked luggage, except I'm of course going to be bringing more than just DVDs with me so I expect my baggage to be full. (And ACTUALLY, I'm planning on bringing my much smaller blu-ray collection--about 50 discs--which is still about 6kg and is going to take up a good chunk of a suitcase.)

Including the cover inserts, which I'd want to if I were bringing them physically, bumps it to 23g each, or 22kg for the box--$200 USPS; adding booklets for those that have them would bump the average up by about another 5-10g per disc for a total of about 30kg. Just for reference, were I to try and ship the whole mess in boxes, a DVD in regular case with no inserts is very close to 100g for a total of 95kg, which would cost something like $800 to ship.

More importantly, though, it would involve hauling around $8K (current value according to Delicious Library) worth of DVDs that have at least some chance of getting lost, broken, or confiscated at the border. Which would suck rather horribly. Not to mention actually having to store the stuff at my in-laws' house, which my wife would not be happy with.

And THEN, I'd have to get them back home eventually, which would be the whole mess all over again in reverse at about the same expense (more, if fuel prices go up). Having everything ripped is a bit expensive on up-front hardware, but cheap to move around, a one time thing, and if something gets broken, it's no biggie.

On the other hand aren't these shows available in Japan? At a library or somewhere?

Most, yes, although surprisingly enough there are some older, more obscure OVAs and TV series that have only been released on DVD in the US, never Japan (8 Man After is one I just ran across last week). More importantly, they're reference for reviews of the US DVDs and the English dubs, so a Japanese rental isn't a direct equivalent. Not counting the fact that if I'm actually watching the show most Japanese DVDs don't have English subtitles, and while I can get by without them, particularly for sci-fi it helps a lot to have some translation help.

 

[Makosuke]

I'm still at the stage of testing, so not a whole lot to report, but having done some rips with both Mac DVD Ripper Pro and RipIt, a few comments on the differences between the two apps, plus a couple of questions:

They both have basically identical features, and both can be set up to do exactly what I want--grab the title from a database and rip the disc as soon as it's inserted, then eject it automatically when the rip is finished. Workflow isn't going to get much smoother than that.

In RipIt's favor, it has a slightly nicer, more Mac-like interface (mostly the prefs window--RipIt's is normal, while MDRP uses a funky custom deal with absolutely ridiculous looking chceck boxes).

MDRP, however, has a couple of definite advantages.

For one thing, it will produce an ISO (or a folder), while RipIt apparently will only rip to a folder. While I admit that either would work equally well, and the folder actually removes the mounting step if you're using DVD Player to play it, I kind of prefer ISO images.

Second, when I tested an intentionally funky disc that I'd rented to see how they handled edge cases (it's a sketchy Taiwanese disc that's pretty scratched up on top of it, although my PS3 didn't have trouble playing it), RipIt choked partway in and spit the disc out due to a read error, while MDRP seemed to "try harder" on a couple of bad spots and eventually produced a playable ISO. I expect if I tried to watch the whole thing straight through there might be glitchy spots (although it did scrub smoothly with DVD player), but something is better than nothing, especially since I'm keeping all my originals. Then again, most of my discs are well cared for, and it is kind of nice to know in advance if there was a problem.


So for those of you who've done this sort of thing, do you prefer ISOs or .dvdmedia folders? Any pro/con arguments in favor of one or the other? Also how often do you large-volume rippers run into apparently good discs that have trouble reading?

 

[CitiXen]

I am mid mass rip of 1,000+ DVD

The best workflow I have discovered:-

1. Using 2 iMacs and an MBP
2. Added extra external DVD drives mostly using fw
3. Use latest Handbrake using ATV2 setting (changed rf to 18, make sure I capture AC3 pass thru and stereo)
4. By using multiple DVD drives I can keep a queue of rips so the Macs are running 24x7
5. I am also capturing DVD extras,( I only want to rip once)
6. I set the DVD Extras Genre is set to DVD Extras and use the same artwork as the Main Feature
7. I use iFlicks to flatten the Handbrake .m4v into the right final folder , complete meta data and add to iTunes

The best thing I have done was get iFlicks and the extra external DVDs, they allow me to queue up multiple DVD rips in Handbrake, then leave it alone for up to 9 hours, otherwise you have to keep going back to feed the beast!

This is my third big task, the first was to rip my CD collection, some 2,400 CDs and scanning our photo collection some 30GB of photos.

Both along with this one is a complete drag, but very rewarding.

The good news is that movies are easier to rip than TV series, I did a load of those last year....

Ok got to go feed the beasts....

Oh I also use Subler for tweaks etc, Name Mangler for fixing file names.

Wow, could you post a pic of this setup? Thx

 

[Makosuke]

A quick follow-up, now that I've gotten underway with the actual rip, on what I ended up using:

For hardware, I have:

* A cheap tray-loading DVD-RW drive in an external USB2 case (faster than slot-load, and at $17 for the drive, when it dies it's cheap to replace; I picked Sony for the drive and a Vantec case with fan and built-in power supply).
* A Rosewill 3.5" toaster-style drive dock, connected via USB2 (VERY easy to swap drives, and I already had it, but it was cheap anyway)
* 2TB 3-platter, ~5400RPM "green" hard drives (some of these have dropped to $80 on sale, 3 platters is my personal reliability threshold, and 5K is way faster than the rips, which have been running at about 12MB/s; currently available is the Hitachi 5K3000, Samsung F4, Seagate ST2000DL003, and newer releases of the Western Digital WD20EARS, and I figure I'll try some of each for the heck of it, since none will be getting heavily used--I started with a Hitachi and F4. Liking the Hitachi so far, very quiet)

* Software is MDRP for rips, to full ISO images. MDRP is set to get the title and start the rip as soon as it sees a disc, then eject when it's done.

The computer it's all hooked to shouldn't matter, since the limiting factor seems to be the reading optical drive--there's no CPU load, and rips from clean discs are going at about 10-12MB/s (the drive, at 16x, is theoretically capable of reading at about 20MB/s, so I'm not quite sure whether the discrepancy has to do with copy protection or something else to do with reading data).

This all works VERY smoothly--I have the drive sitting within arm's reach of the couch with a stack of DVDs nearby; I stick one in, it starts the rip, about 10 minutes later the computer dings and it spits the disc out, at which point I swap it for the next one. The labor involved for me is maybe 15 seconds to take the DVDs in and out of the cases, and I never even have to look at the screen. The drive is a little noisy ripping at full speed, but it's not terrible.


After about 100 discs I seem to be able to do about 30 per evening, which should have me finished in a month or so. Not bad.
The current average size of a rip is about 5.5GB, so my 6GB/disc guesstimate was pretty good (unless titles starting with A and B are unusually short compared to the rest of the alphabet).


I'm so far quite happy with MDRP--I've only had two hitches: A couple of times it's thrown up an error when I first inserted a disc that it was unable to create a target file or something similar, but clicking "rip" worked fine, so whatever the cause of the hiccup is, it's minor. The other is that it refused to rip one DVD because it didn't like something about the format, but this was literally the first anime DVD ever pressed in the US (mid-1997), so it may well have actually been funky.

I also gave it a stress test on the one disc I own that I know is bad (DoA due to manufacturing error, not scratched); there's a bad spot about halfway in, and no DVD player has ever been able to play through it. I could hear the drive slow way down when MDRP hit the bad spot, and after finishing the rip it threw up an alert that there had been read errors on 18% of the sectors, and the rip might be bad. And, indeed, the bad spot was bad on the rip as well, but no worse than the original, and the remainder of the ISO was playable. Which is exactly the behavior I want: Go ahead and get what you can off the disc, but warn me that something was wrong.

At $10, MDRP was a great buy. Of course, MacUpdate had it on sale for $6 literally two days after I paid for it, but given how cheap it was anyway, and how well the app works, I'm not even that annoyed.


Other notes: I went with all USB hardware to save money, since I'm not seeing any place that the bus is the bottleneck. I'm probably going to keep a backup of the ISOs as well, although that'll double the hard drive cost; I'm kind of hoping there'll be a blowout sale on 3TB drives some time soon, so I can use two of those for backups, but I'm probably out of luck. I plan on buying some padded, static-proof bare hard drive boxes to store/transport them in, but haven't yet since the shipping is usually twice the cost of the case. the MDRP developer, when I asked, said it was ok to run the app on two of my personal computers simultaneously without paying for a second license, if I wanted to double ripping throughput. They also mentioned that in theory I could run two copes of the app to rip two discs simultaneously on the same computer, but that wasn't supported; I haven't tried this. Read-only 18x DVD drives are the same price as 16x DVD burners, but I stuck with the burner, both because I might actually use it to burn a disc at some point, and it's possible the laser is a little more sensitive, which might improve the error rate on funky discs (or not--my feeling is based on experiences with CD drives over a decade ago).

[Correction: The ST2000DL003 is the new Seagate 2TB with 3 platters, and it's currently quite a bit more expensive--$120 at Newegg--than the others in the class; the ST32000542AS 2TB is dirt cheap--currently on sale for $75 at Newegg--but it is the older model and has four platters. I wish Seagate would use simpler model numbers, but at least they're consistent about platter count within a model, unlike WD.]

 

[haoledoc]

I would read this sticky thread at the top of the forum if you haven't already:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/805573/

It presents a very doable workflow and automates naming, tagging, and many of the tedious parts of this process. I'm several hundred movies in. I just pop in one disc after another whenever I'm sitting around, watching TV, etc. Then I encode in big batches. I'm doing this on 2 MBPs with the faster one doing the HD encodes (HD-DVD, bluray).

 

[Makosuke]

It presents a very doable workflow and automates naming, tagging, and many of the tedious parts of this process.

It's a very nice rundown, but isn't directly applicable to my situation, since I'm intentionally NOT reencoding anything, nor setting things up for on-demand access from online storage while I'm sitting on the couch--I'm doing full-disc, as-pressed ISO images for archival reference while I'm physically away from my DVD collection and need to check something. I don't intend to keep them indexed through iTunes, nor is that how I expect to watch them. So really, the ripping end of that workflow is all that applies to my situation.

I'd probably consider more involved indexing systems if the discs were going to be spread out across dozens of drives, but at most it's going to be three, and I won't be adding much if anything to it in the future, so Delicious Library (which already has everything in it, including covers and data) and knowing what letter of the alphabet that drive starts at is sufficient.