Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Storage capacity for movies

Oct 17, 2015 9:27AM PDT

I am wanting to move my DVD collection to an NAS device to watch them over my network. I have approximately 600 standard DVD movies, approximately 300 bluray movies, and approximately 300 standard DVD TV series disks. I have ripped a few of each to my hard drive to estimate storage capacity needed. The bluray movies and standard TV series disks are approximately 8GB each and the standard DVD movies are about 2GB each. So the expected capacity needed would be simple arithmetic; 600 blurays/TV series x 8GB = 4.8TB plus 600 standard DVD movies x 2GB = 1.2TB so approximately 6TB of storage would be needed. Is this an accurate estimation or required HD space?
Also, does anyone know of a software package that will rip and convert the Toshiba HD-DVD movie format?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
That's about 1/2 to a 1/3 of the space needed.
Oct 17, 2015 10:04AM PDT

Besides the first copy of the collection you need a backup copy and to keep it all in backup a third copy.

DVDFAB gets mentioned a lot but no one discusses ripping here. See what company hosts this forum and you may understand why.

So you would need 2 or 3 six to 8 TB systems. It won't do to have a single NAS since it can get hit by a virus or lightning so you need another copy, safely stored.

- Collapse -
Answer
I don't know what method or format...
Oct 17, 2015 12:07PM PDT

you are using but those numbers seem awfully low...or you got low quality videos.

- Collapse -
I'll write these are fine.
Oct 17, 2015 12:13PM PDT

They are using the size of the original source so these rips are the same quality as the source.

2GB for a Movie on DVD sounds right. Many series went double side so two times 4.7 for Video DVD and some don't fill so 8GB sounds spot on again.

- Collapse -
Is that right?
Oct 17, 2015 4:11PM PDT

It seems most dvd I see is around 3.2-4GB. Of course I have never work with BD. but I know their capacity is 15-25GB. That seem like such a waste then.

- Collapse -
Having ripped a few over the years.
Oct 17, 2015 4:16PM PDT

If we are just ripping the movie and the language the size rarely peeks over 3GB. I tend to let DVDFAB make me an ISO and that works for me.

The big surprise to folk that do this is the need for double to triple the space since without backups, one wrong move or spark and it's all gone.

- Collapse -
I got a question for you.
Oct 17, 2015 6:13PM PDT

Have you ever put DVD.iso on BR Disc and would the BD player play it? That certainly would save storage space.

- Collapse -
Not yet.
Oct 18, 2015 7:34AM PDT

For .ISO files I use a few things.

1. WDTV media player (small box.)
2. VLC Player. (runs on Linux, Windows, Android, Apple and other OSes.)