>I still don’t actually use our DVDs and Blu-rays all that often. But every time I see them lining the shelves, I feel a bit of comfort. Because when I do need them, they’ll be there. The importance of that type of redundancy depends on the viewing habits of a particular person. In the case of my friend, the "don’t actually use our DVDs all that often" really was "never re-watched the DVDs she owned" . She had a DVD…
And there's even a third option: Rip the DVDs, keep the digital copies somewhere safe, and discard the physical discs. If you want to ensure that this remains safe, you'll need to both back up and periodically transfer the digital copies to new physical storage devices (in my case, I just upgraded from the ~4-yr-old 4TB HDD that was holding all my media to a new 16TB HDD). This is, however, kind of a necessity in any…
My husband was right about DVDs
381–390 of 428 posts
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
so don't watch it. with censorship nobody can watch it.
Right, why is it I can stream Hitler's speeches as much as I want, but this one episode is apparently too dangerous?
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#383Story time: I was watching Star Trek Voyager. That show is obviously a lot of episodes. So sometime around season 5 it was removed from Netflix. Got pissed, downloaded it, kept watching.
Was recently watching benjamin buttons first time on amazon. Didn't get to finish it that day. Turns out the next day it goes for cash only.
Piracy is honestly the simplest and most consistent way to do this. And if a friend wants it? Bring a USB and it is yours. Sure teeeeechnically we can both watch it, but how often do I re-watch a movie that my friend is currently also watching at home.
Point is that I really hate the current distribution models.
Down side of DVDs is that they degrade.
And to be completely truthful, if everything older than say... 15 years was available in the public domain, we can stop all this wasteful redundant storage everywhere. But due to copyright laws, things so so so old, that they shouldn't be making money anymore continue to be behind "pay walls" of sorts and only because they are protecting a distribution model that hasn't been necessary in over a decade.
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#384If only there were some way to download anything you wanted even if it was never released on DVD or Blu-ray and isn't on streaming anymore....
So if it was never released on DVD or Blu-ray, then where did the source for the torrents come from? If I saw a file with the name of something I knew wasn't available on a shiny round disc, I would be very skeptical and hesitant to download it from fear of it not being what it said it was. I damn sure don't want to go to the hassle of downloading a VHS transfer
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone else rip their DVDs, import them into Plex, then share your Plex library with others?
On that note, what kind of hardware/connection does that require? I run Plex on a rather old Synology NAS at home, and it's great for streaming at home at original quality even up to 4K but can get a bit sluggish when it tries to scale the video one way or another. Then I go out of my home and it's unwatchable when streaming even original quality, which is odd because I have 20Mbit up with fiber to the premise at hom…
Not all devices support all codecs. Any disagreement means that Plex is now going to try transcoding, even if the hardware capability isn't there (and most NASs don't have the grunt to do it).
You have options.
Spend more disk space: You can tell Plex to transcode copies into lower bitrate versions it makes them available via the UI (although this isn't always obvious how, and varies on platform). Note that on a NAS this might take a day to transcode a movie. During which your ability to use the NAS for anything else is greatly reduced.
Spend more effort: Re-rip or re-encode everything into a known supported format. You will need to maintain this. Tools like Tdarr may help here.
More compute power (and some effort):
If your content is in 1080p and you want to view it in 1080p or lower then reasonably-modern Intel CPUs with support for QuickSync are pretty good at handling transcoding for 1080p. Plex Media server has an option to enable hardware-accellerated transcoding if you pay for Plex.
An older Intel NUC or Small-form-factor PC can usually do this job fine. They can also be fairly power efficient.
If you want to start throwing in 4k content, then you are going to need a GPU and the cost and complexity goes up.
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#386>I still don’t actually use our DVDs and Blu-rays all that often. But every time I see them lining the shelves, I feel a bit of comfort. Because when I do need them, they’ll be there. The importance of that type of redundancy depends on the viewing habits of a particular person. In the case of my friend, the "don’t actually use our DVDs all that often" really was "never re-watched the DVDs she owned" . She had a DVD…
And there's even a third option: Rip the DVDs, keep the digital copies somewhere safe, and discard the physical discs. If you want to ensure that this remains safe, you'll need to both back up and periodically transfer the digital copies to new physical storage devices (in my case, I just upgraded from the ~4-yr-old 4TB HDD that was holding all my media to a new 16TB HDD). This is, however, kind of a necessity in any…
Donate to the library at least.
> burned DVDs can have a lifetime of less than 5 years in some cases.
My CD-Rs from '97 are in fine shape, thanks.
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have better references on how to rip bluray?
For the BluRay drive itself I have a "Pioneer BDR-XD07TB"[1]. For great compatibility and can do HD/UHD (and DVD obviously). For a purely Linux way (as you linked to an Ubuntu Page) this[2] is a reasonable guide (giving it a quick skim) using MakeMKV. This should also work on Windows. (Ignore the Haandbrake steps here). If you're on Windows (or know how to setup a VM with USB passthru for the Bluray drive) and don't…
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be curious in a few years. I don't watch old things anymore and keep consuming youtube stuff, but honestly I don't like it anymore. It's not the same somehow. ps: I just bought a dvd from CL
Like others, I don't rely on the streamed content being available in the future, so I hoard content. I wrote a Python app that runs on a Raspberry Pi that continually plays the content that I have accrued. Some of the content I schedule, other content is random. It just runs on a downstairs TV. I enjoy accidentally catching some old film, or a musical or something I pulled down from YouTube of a guy making furniture.…
Re: My husband was right about DVDs
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are already incidences of this: The TV show Community is missing an episode on Netflix for some reason (edit: reason was Ken Jeong in what could be interpreted as blackface). The IT Crowd is missing one in some geos because it was considered anti-Trans by some - that episode also has the unrelated and hilarious plot where Roy and Moss convince Jen that they're loaning her a "black box that holds the entire inte…
The IT Crowd is missing one in some geos because it was considered anti-Trans by some I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one; though I don't think the ep should be removed, it is in poor taste and arguably defeats its own comic intentions. I suspect the deeper objection is not to the content per se but how it reads in the context of Graham Linehan subsequently aligning himself as a massive transphobe and makin…
Curiously, in doing so, Linehan chanced upon an actual civil rights movement, of women losing single-sex spaces to males who choose to identify as women, and started championing this instead.
Though, many gender critical feminists find Graham's unasked-for presence in their activism rather embarrassing and irritating due to his generally quite aggressive behavior and his occasional bouts of sexism.