Putting DVDs onto a hard drive?

cambsno

cambsno

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Bear with me, not that technical!

**which is why I like Apple, I just like to turn on and use and don't like faffing around with stuff. I like it to be easy!**

Got loads of DVDs which take up space and I rarely watch, quite a few box sets and stuff with multiple episodes on the same disc. Quite fancy getting rid of them and keeping digital copies. I would like to play a few on iPads (and have used handbrake with some success). Is there an easy way to do that - i.e. buy something like a 3tb hard drive and copy onto there. Can I plug that directly into my TV and watch easily?
 
download dvd ripping software from the apple store. Follow the instructions that come the software. Job done.
 
When I used to do it I used a piece of software called Handbrake, it can be quite a lengthy process but its pretty straight forward. I stopped doing it years ago so I'm not sure if its still available. There's quite a lot on the macrumors site about this.

Just as an aside and its not a judgmental thing, but you do know that you have to keep the DVD's if you rip them yeah.
 
But if I rip onto a portable hard drive can this be plugged into a tv and easily viewed. If so how do u select film/episode?
 
Not sure it is smart. It's almost 10 years old Sony hd lcd.
 
neil_g said:
for reference, you're only legally allowed to "backup" films if you keep the original hard copy. you cant dispose or resale the film.
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Currently you're not legally allowed to make backups or "format shift" DVDs or CDs . The law was changed to allow personal copying, then the High Court ruled against it.
 
cambsno said:
But if I rip onto a portable hard drive can this be plugged into a tv and easily viewed. If so how do u select film/episode?
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I've always played my files through Apple TV but my son used to have a portable HD with films on, he'd plug it into his dvd payer and via menu system he could browse the HD and choose from a list of files.
 
On the technical side, if you plug a disk into a TV you'll find that few, if any, TVs will recognise one that's been formatted by another computer. My TV (Panasonic) won't talk to any disk it hasn't formatted itself and the format is such that it isn't recognised by other operating systems (I've tried all the common ones and can't mount the disk).
 
jakeblu said:
I've always played my files through Apple TV but my son used to have a portable HD with films on, he'd plug it into his dvd payer and via menu system he could browse the HD and choose from a list of files.
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Interesting as thinking about Apple TV and being able to do that would be perfect.
 
Andy Taylor said:
Currently you're not legally allowed to make backups or "format shift" DVDs or CDs . The law was changed to allow personal copying, then the High Court ruled against it.
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So surely that means anyone who puts a cd into iTunes to play on phone is breaking the law??
 
cambsno said:
Interesting as thinking about Apple TV and being able to do that would be perfect.
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The apple tv is pretty convenient if you have apple products such as MacBooks or iPads, it can be a bit restrictive on file types though, but if your ripping yourself the thats not really a problem and I was fine with mp4 or m4v. There are other more flexible systems you can buy though I'm not really up on those
 
cambsno said:
So surely that means anyone who puts a cd into iTunes to play on phone is breaking the law??
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Correct. You are unlikely to be prosecuted for this. When Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, he said in an interview that he enjoyed listening to The Beatles on his iPod. At the time, the Beatles were not available from iTunes...
 
Format shifting or making a back up copy for your own personal use is "unlawful" rather than "illegal", that is a civil law matter rather than a criminal matter, so as Andy T says, you are unable to be prosecuted for it. The chances of a civil action against you are also miniscule. Even if a rights holder was to discover that you had ripped your legitimately purchased CD onto your phone, the adverse publicity they would attract if they attempted to enforce their IP rights against you would be a significant deterrent.
 
I would look at some ripping software and rip to MP4 which is the native format for DVDs anyway I think?
Rip without compression in the native format and they will come out pretty big though.

Then all you need is some playback device that can attach to storage like a Western Digital LIVE box.

It can be a bit of a lengthy process though.
 
Mr Bump said:
I would look at some ripping software and rip to MP4 which is the native format for DVDs anyway I think?
Rip without compression in the native format and they will come out pretty big though.

Then all you need is some playback device that can attach to storage like a Western Digital LIVE box.

It can be a bit of a lengthy process though.
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I've used MakeMKV to rip to mkv files in the past. To play back on the TV something like the WD Live or an android box running kodi would do fine.
 
Spudgun said:
I've used MakeMKV to rip to mkv files in the past. To play back on the TV something like the WD Live or an android box running kodi would do fine.
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You see that's where I start to lose it. No interest in using different systems I know nothing about and will spend hours trying to get working. I am the type of person who like plug and go, so always prefer Apple to Microsoft/android or sky to streaming.
 
cambsno said:
You see that's where I start to lose it. No interest in using different systems I know nothing about and will spend hours trying to get working. I am the type of person who like plug and go, so always prefer Apple to Microsoft/android or sky to streaming.
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'xactly. Pay 4VideoSoft to do all of that thinking for you :D
 
cambsno said:
You see that's where I start to lose it. No interest in using different systems I know nothing about and will spend hours trying to get working. I am the type of person who like plug and go, so always prefer Apple to Microsoft/android or sky to streaming.
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if you like easy no complicated then take DVD out of box place in player and hit play :-)
 
neil_g said:
dont really see why apple would be the easier option either. you still have to rip into an apple friendly format to get it to play on appletv.
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Your right of course but if your an apple user then ripping to an appletv and the functionality that allows can be useful. The restrictions that appletv imposes are annoying and no Im not talking about the formats, but I find it pretty much seamless in use.
 
jakeblu said:
Your right of course but if your an apple user then ripping to an appletv and the functionality that allows can be useful. The restrictions that appletv imposes are annoying and no Im not talking about the formats, but I find it pretty much seamless in use.
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Yeah - spot on. I have an oldish AppleTV and it's annoying the hoops I have to jump through to get stuff to play on it (really, it needs a built in HD). Once I have it all sorted it works like a dream but it involves far too many moving parts for my liking.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah - spot on. I have an oldish AppleTV and it's annoying the hoops I have to jump through to get stuff to play on it (really, it needs a built in HD). Once I have it all sorted it works like a dream but it involves far too many moving parts for my liking.
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Of course the original one did have a built in HD but they did away with it in subsequent versions. I have mine streaming from a WD networked drive and most of the time it works well but its annoying you have to have iTunes on a mac running too.
 
Mr Bump said:
if you like easy no complicated then take DVD out of box place in player and hit play :)
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If you like simple then this is the way to go.

You could plug in an Apple TV and pay someone to stream films you are ready have to your tv, but who wants to pay again for something they've already paid for.

If you want to copy your DVDs to a hard drive, then you'll have to get your hands dirty. Or sweet talk a friend or relation to do it for you :D.
 
Spudgun said:
If you want to copy your DVDs to a hard drive, then you'll have to get your hands dirty. Or sweet talk a friend or relation to do it for you :D.
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It's a sad fact of life that it is easier to download a torrent of a film or TV show than it is to extract from a DVD. Not to mention that there's no adverts/trailers etc.
 
While it was legal, I found a piece of software that was remarkably easy to use. Didn't do protected DVDs but managed most of the ones I tried it on. The only faff was discovering which track/title was the correct one - managed a couple of commentaries rather than soundtracks! A search back through my threads will probably throw up the name of the software that was recommended to me back then but of course, now it's no longer legal, no one would install it or use it...
 
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