THEORETICAL QUESTON - NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT INTENDED
Okay, I have never done this before but I ma building up a media libiray on Kodi. I have heard Linus talk alot about ripping blurays and never actually watching them physically. I was wondeirng how easy is it to do this?
If I had some DVDs and Blurays I wanted ripping to MP4 or similar formats what software would I need? Can I output it to the full resolution? Is it time consuming? and what software is best (free vs paid)
Use handbrake, its free and open source.
Is it time consuming? oh yes, but also depends on the power of your machine.
I suggest MKV container with either h265 or VP9 codec for better quality and lower file size.
For Bluerays, probably it would be significantly better. DVDs do just fine on h.264 though.
The other consideration is support for the codecs. H.264 has WAY better overall support, especially on older and lower end devices, and many more devices have hardware decoders for it. VP9/H.265 are better, but are a worse experience if the device does not have hardware decoding or a powerful enough CPU to do the decode.
This is all moot if you are going to put it in plex (or jellyfin or emby) and transcode it on the fly to the best codec for the device before streaming it.
my 2011 laptop can easily process h265 in 1080p so I’m not too worried about performance.
Now I don’t know much about the inner workings of the codecs but h265 seams to result in way less color banding in low bit rates compared to h264.
Backed up my entire DVD & Bluray collection with this. It creates MKV’s without any transcoding so the files will be quite large. Then use Handbrake to convert them to the desired size.
For desktops and laptops is not really a decoding speed problem, it is more on smart phones and whatnot. It is also a matter of murdering battery life.
I too use MakeMKV to rip all my DVDs and Blu-Rays (it’s legal here). I never bothered to transcode the files, I only run them through MKVtoolnix to set file titles and select which audio tracks and subtitle tracks should be the default.
Perhaps I’ll look into transcoding when I start running out of disk space. I just like to have my media in the highest possible quality.
Makemkv to ‘rip’
handbrake to transcode
mediainfo to get the details of a/v files, you’ll need this for dvd especially; I hate de-interlacing and all the fun artifacts that come with it.
MKVtoolnix to re-mux and label individual tracks you want to keep.
For transcoding and de-interlacing dvds you’ll want to do a lot of reading and lots of trial and error to find the best settings per dvd. The general settings are detelecine default, deinterlace default, and decomb bob. set video to cbr same as source and encode at slow, no matter if you use h264, or h265. You can mess around and change frame rates to film (23.976) depending on the variable rates and what you want to achieve. Even DVDs that are progressive tend to be in variable frame rates, this is total fun. The real fun with DVDs is if/when you want extra features and the aspect ratio keeps changing within the same file; handbrakes automagic masking sometimes goes a little nuts you’ll need to keep an eye out for excessive cropping. BluRays tend to be a lot simpler.
I find it is easier to transcode with no audio or subs and then re-insert them with mkvtoolnix after the fact. YMMV depending on the size of the original audio stream, DVD streams are generally not too large where BluRay ones can be ridiculously large in comparison - especially with object oriented sound codecs DTS etc, and what you’re trying to achieve for a target size etc.
I haven’t spent the majority of my quarantine archiving physical media or anything
It’s not quite automated because you still need the beta key (and refresh it monthly) if you want to use it for free. Otherwise you need to purchase a license key.
Also, getting a drive to be fully region free has moved to proprietary software solutions on Windows like AnyDVD or DVDfab for drives that are impossible to make region free via firmware.
That’s right, true region free for all drives is PROPRIETARY still, and Windows only.
Yea, I like how it is actually completely legal, in my region, and even fully paid of to the copyright owners, for me, to do the copy of CD/DVD/BD and use it instead of original (for own use) - yet completely treated by every corp representative, and absolutely every tech they make, as a worst case of piracy. Basically absolutely every physical medium like BD has 20% tax that goes to the copyright organization that distributes that tax.
