Backing up DVD / blu ray & CD collection?

[Technique]

When I’m ‘done’ (or at least caught up with everything I currently have) I fully intend to back up the collection somewhere, somehow. 

 

Not just for the fact that so many movies would be lost but the amount of time it took to pool it all together. 

 

Right now im just acquiring Blu ray copies of movies I want in better than DVD quality. Once that’s done I’ll just rip the other DVDs. 

[+BudMan MVC]

I think we discussed the backup of your work in creating your library.. That comes down to the individual and their willingness to spend the money and extra time required to do such a thing..

 

For me personally I have more fun actually creating the library and working with the library vs desire to spend the money needed to back it up.  The only reason I currently have multiple copies of my media library is I just had an explosion of available space when I spun up the new NAS.. And my old nas is still there, and got a disk for free that allowed me to easy migrate data from a SHR array to a Raid 0, so there are "backups" of the media currently.  Be it I continue to leverage it as that, or expand it to current storage time will only tell

 

The only thing I spend time and effort and money on backing up is critical data.. Ie my home movies and pictures..  This is only current something less than 200GB total.  Multiple copies of this online is only pennies per month.. Glacier is CHEAP   Mdisc (suppose to be able to last 1000 years) are CHEAP for the amount needed to archive the home video that is less than 200GB..  Also currently fits on left over 2.5 disks (old laptop drives) that can be used for another backup.  I will be bringing a current copy of all movies and pictures to my son who moved to SD when we go visit here in a couple of months as another backup.. Along with the new mdisc to complete his set of those.  Was just showing my wife some of the video I took of our granddaughters dance show when she was 4.. she is now 8 those are just something that are priceless and could never be replaced - so any and all effort making sure those are not lost is time and money well spent!  And look forward to the days when I can show such video to my great grandkids

 

What sucks is video that I took of my own kids back on actual tape has been lost, don't even know where the tapes are to get them converted to digital, etc.  And we had at one time had my own childhood movies converted from old 8mm to vhs, etc.. All lost - now that we are in the digital age, that should never happen again for any family

 

But my copies of Bogart Movies I am fond of and love having at my fingertips to watch, and have spent multiple hours collecting my grateful dead music (150 some albums and counting).. All of it can be replaced - and to be honest while it would suck if had to start over... It might also be fun in the big picture recollecting it all again and organizing it again

[Technique]

As a hoarder anyway i don't want to allow a situation where i lose the library. Yeah it wont be the end of the world, i'd still be breathing, life would go on but i'd rather put measures in place to prevent that from happening. Like i say, i don't drink, i don't smoke, i have no kids...

 

On the topic of converting from VHS to digital, that's something i'm thinking about doing as a gift to my mother this Xmas. My dad died a few years ago and there's footage he took (some of which he's in) but it's all on VHS. Her house suffers damp and i can remember all too well when i lived there how the VHS tapes would end up with mould on them depending where they were stored. I'd like to get those VHS recordings on to something a bit better for her.

I had a look in town but they charge an extortionate amount to do this. Really pull-yer-pants-down kind of money. So it's something i need to look in to.

 

 

Ran in to my first 'problem' with Plex last night. I put in this movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Jungle

While it's listed as Kung Fu Jungle, it's also known as Kung Fu Killer. Starring Donnie Yen of Ip Man fame. Anyone who's in to martial arts movies should know who he is anyway.

 

Plex listed it up as this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Killer

starring David Carradine.

 

I guess that's the problem when you start loading movies that aren't so big. I was able to change the artwork for it but not too sure how to change things like the cast etc. I see options for director and things like that but not cast.

 

 

Also something i've noticed (and i'm guessing it's maybe my PC?) is the past couple movies i've watched, they hang so far in. When i mentioned it with the first movie it was coming from a portable hard drive, connected via USB. This time it's from an actual HDD connected via SATA to my motherboard. It's a PITA. I have to stop the movie & then go back in to it. I don't know whether it's more my PC, the Plex app on the TV, the internet connection or what.

[Gerowen]

I haven't read all 17 pages of responses yet, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

 

I make ISOs of all my discs with AnyDVD on Windows, or if I'm on a Linux box, either Brasero or just dd-ing the disc to a .img file (in case Brasero fails to fetch CSS keys, which happens occasionally).  I then use that ISO in Handbrake to make a playable MP4 or MKV file and then drop that in my Plex library, also on the same server.

 

That being said, I've got a home server with 24TB of storage and it's getting close to full, mostly from Bluray ISOs.

 

VLC can also play ISOs directly as if they're an MP4 file, letting you use the menus and everything.

 

I keep both files for each movie.  The ISOs are my 1:1 archival copy in case I ever want to re-encode a movie in a different quality, add subtitles and audio tracks, or hell, just look at the special features.  The MP4/MKV files are the  smaller, portable files that get fed to Plex so that my other PCs and devices don't have to download so much in order to watch a movie, especially when we're outside the house.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Gerowen

[Batfink]

I have everything stored on a Synology 418 Play with PLEX Server doing the distribution work.

 

I don't personally mind if there is a slight loss of quality in both video and audio so don't keep everything stored on a lossless basis.  I use MakeMKV to rip the disc then Handbreak to encode it in H.264.

 

BluRay discs average at 7GB and DVD's about 1.4GB the video and sound quality is perfectly acceptable to me.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

22 hours ago, Technique said:

As a hoarder anyway i don't want to allow a situation where i lose the library. Yeah it wont be the end of the world, i'd still be breathing, life would go on but i'd rather put measures in place to prevent that from happening. Like i say, i don't drink, i don't smoke, i have no kids...

 

On the topic of converting from VHS to digital, that's something i'm thinking about doing as a gift to my mother this Xmas. My dad died a few years ago and there's footage he took (some of which he's in) but it's all on VHS. Her house suffers damp and i can remember all too well when i lived there how the VHS tapes would end up with mould on them depending where they were stored. I'd like to get those VHS recordings on to something a bit better for her.

I had a look in town but they charge an extortionate amount to do this. Really pull-yer-pants-down kind of money. So it's something i need to look in to.

 

 

Ran in to my first 'problem' with Plex last night. I put in this movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Jungle

While it's listed as Kung Fu Jungle, it's also known as Kung Fu Killer. Starring Donnie Yen of Ip Man fame. Anyone who's in to martial arts movies should know who he is anyway.

 

Plex listed it up as this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Killer

starring David Carradine.

 

I guess that's the problem when you start loading movies that aren't so big. I was able to change the artwork for it but not too sure how to change things like the cast etc. I see options for director and things like that but not cast.

 

 

Also something i've noticed (and i'm guessing it's maybe my PC?) is the past couple movies i've watched, they hang so far in. When i mentioned it with the first movie it was coming from a portable hard drive, connected via USB. This time it's from an actual HDD connected via SATA to my motherboard. It's a PITA. I have to stop the movie & then go back in to it. I don't know whether it's more my PC, the Plex app on the TV, the internet connection or what.

Plex FAQs are your friend  

 

Whilst Plex is good, I have 3000 TV shows and around 400 movies, it's not perfect. They have a Fix Match tool that should be able to fix it for you. Have a look at this

 

Can you give a few more details when you say it hangs? 

• Specify your setup (I think it's a PC) but how's that connected to the network WiFi vs ethernet
• Does the app or movie hang i.e. can you back out of the movie and play something else? Or does the app need a restart?
• Does it happen with a specific movie or is it random? Can you go back into the same movie and see if it happens again?
• Can you tell if the movie is Direct Playing on the app or is it being transcoded (coverted?

 

[+BudMan MVC]

Fixing a wrong match is normally simple as clicking the fix match on the item, you can quite often use the imdb tt number get the exact match.. With the current agents there is no way to manually do cast, but there is a plugin that allows for that via xml.. I have been meaning to use to add cast pictures for home movies

 

Check out https://github.com/joshuaavalon/AvalonXmlAgent.bundle

 

As to hang ups on movies.. Yeah that could be a lot of things.. Welcome to troubleshooting IT systems

 

If you want to help keep an eye on what was played, did it transcode or direct check out https://tautulli.com/

Prob the best info on what gets played and how out there..  You also might want to make sure you can monitor your boxes CPU usage, Memory and IO to see what could possible be causing you hangups..

 

Like I said running your own library can become quite expensive, just in time spent on it

 

I just fired up a request system for my friends an family using https://ombi.io/

So of course this required purchase of new domain name - just because I like to do stuff with its own name that makes sense.. Setup dnssec on the domain dns of course. Setup a CAA record in the domain, using ACME to secure it. And since already use port 443 for vpn access from work (damn work proxies)  Had to setup port sharing with openvpn and haproxy setup to offload the ssl..  It becomes a whole thing dude!

 

Then spending time tweaking the settings for the SSL so it gets a A+ on ssl testing.. No real reason to do that since access is locked down to my friends IPs, but why do something if you just going to half a__ it! I always say..

[Technique]

10 hours ago, BudMan said:

I just fired up a request system for my friends an family using https://ombi.io/

So of course this required purchase of new domain name - just because I like to do stuff with its own name that makes sense.. Setup dnssec on the domain dns of course. Setup a CAA record in the domain, using ACME to secure it. And since already use port 443 for vpn access from work (damn work proxies)  Had to setup port sharing with openvpn and haproxy setup to offload the ssl..  It becomes a whole thing dude!

 

Then spending time tweaking the settings for the SSL so it gets a A+ on ssl testing.. No real reason to do that since access is locked down to my friends IPs, but why do something if you just going to half a__ it! I always say..

I'm not sure what page is on but remember when i said i could stick with this or really quickly lose interest? Yeah, guess which part that quote applies to

I read that and i think i'd be able to understand a Japanese newspaper better ... while wearing a sleep mask.

 

Yeah my PC is connected to the network via ethernet cable. I'm pretty sure i ran Cat 6 throughout - so the TV is connected to the router via ethernet also.

Second question - now you're asking. I think with the portable HDD i couldn't do a damn thing but i think when it was with the fixed HDD i could back out of the app.

Right now it's happened with the last few movies. 2-3. Certainly last 2. It's not a certain part of the movie either as i've checked back and the movie plays fine in that part when trying again.

Regards direct playing or transcoding i'm not sure to be honest.

 

 

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

15 hours ago, Technique said:

I'm not sure what page is on but remember when i said i could stick with this or really quickly lose interest? Yeah, guess which part that quote applies to

I read that and i think i'd be able to understand a Japanese newspaper better ... while wearing a sleep mask.

 

Yeah my PC is connected to the network via ethernet cable. I'm pretty sure i ran Cat 6 throughout - so the TV is connected to the router via ethernet also.

Second question - now you're asking. I think with the portable HDD i couldn't do a damn thing but i think when it was with the fixed HDD i could back out of the app.

Right now it's happened with the last few movies. 2-3. Certainly last 2. It's not a certain part of the movie either as i've checked back and the movie plays fine in that part when trying again.

Regards direct playing or transcoding i'm not sure to be honest.

 

 

If you have things cabled and the errors don't seem consistent, that'll rule out bandwidth or issues with the files. 

 

If you haven't tweaked any of your settings, I think that it should direct play by default. I don't have access to my Plex server atm, otherwise I know there's an easy way to tell if the media is being transcoded or not. 

 

I know another way to tell, is to watch the Task Manager on the machine that hosts your Plex server. If you see a spike or your processor being maxed when you're watching the film, it may be that your machine isn't powerful enough to transcode on the fly. 

[+BudMan MVC]

If your box can not transcode on the fly fast enough to watch them, then you can always optimize the media before hand.. Or transcode it to something in handbrake so that it can just direct play/stream it..

 

https://support.plex.tv/articles/214079318-media-optimizer-overview/

 

 

[nekrosoft13]

On 2/10/2019 at 5:12 AM, Technique said:

As a hoarder anyway i don't want to allow a situation where i lose the library. Yeah it wont be the end of the world, i'd still be breathing, life would go on but i'd rather put measures in place to prevent that from happening. Like i say, i don't drink, i don't smoke, i have no kids...

 

On the topic of converting from VHS to digital, that's something i'm thinking about doing as a gift to my mother this Xmas. My dad died a few years ago and there's footage he took (some of which he's in) but it's all on VHS. Her house suffers damp and i can remember all too well when i lived there how the VHS tapes would end up with mould on them depending where they were stored. I'd like to get those VHS recordings on to something a bit better for her.

I had a look in town but they charge an extortionate amount to do this. Really pull-yer-pants-down kind of money. So it's something i need to look in to.

 

 

Ran in to my first 'problem' with Plex last night. I put in this movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Jungle

While it's listed as Kung Fu Jungle, it's also known as Kung Fu Killer. Starring Donnie Yen of Ip Man fame. Anyone who's in to martial arts movies should know who he is anyway.

 

Plex listed it up as this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Killer

starring David Carradine.

 

I guess that's the problem when you start loading movies that aren't so big. I was able to change the artwork for it but not too sure how to change things like the cast etc. I see options for director and things like that but not cast.

 

 

Also something i've noticed (and i'm guessing it's maybe my PC?) is the past couple movies i've watched, they hang so far in. When i mentioned it with the first movie it was coming from a portable hard drive, connected via USB. This time it's from an actual HDD connected via SATA to my motherboard. It's a PITA. I have to stop the movie & then go back in to it. I don't know whether it's more my PC, the Plex app on the TV, the internet connection or what.

go into plex and "re-match" it, its fairly simple.

 

Another way to do it is add year.

 

If there are multiple movies with same name

 

Movie bla bla (2005)

Movie bla bla (2015)

[+BudMan MVC]

Saw this and thought of this thread   Thought I would share.. I can see this in your future hehehehhehe

 

[Gerowen]

6 hours ago, BudMan said:

Saw this and thought of this thread   Thought I would share.. I can see this in your future hehehehhehe

 

I need one,   I'm up to 24TB between two 12TB drives, and it's getting to the point that I need more, so I've considered some kind of drive enclosure with some redundancy so I can just add drives as I can afford it.  One problem is that I need 24TB of space somewhere to store what's on these drives before I can re-format them as part of a RAID array.  The single biggest thing that eats up space on my server is backup ISO images of all my movies.  I keep an ISO image of every disc so I don't have to go digging for the disc if I want to re-encode with different settings, watch the Special Features, etc.  I've got one entire 12TB drive that is nothing but ISO images, and I've got more of them on the other drive where all my other stuff is stored.

[+BudMan MVC]

17 hours ago, Gerowen said:

One problem is that I need 24TB of space somewhere

Yeah that is a problem   Which is why I have been stating since back on first page that this "hobby" can get expensive!

 

Oh its just a disk or 2.. Next thing you know its 18 of them   And you need more Bays, and etc. etc. etc. It become a never ending cycle.. Im at the point now that I have to make a choice either recode some stuff to save space.. A lot of stuff!  Purge some stuff, or get more space..  This will more than likely become a never ending cycle for anyone that gets into this hobby.  Which is why you see posts like that all the time..

 

I have a 4 bay... And caught myself drooling over the 12 bay DS2419+, just got my bonus hehehe  Wife would F'ing KILL ME hehehehe

 

I would be up for just recode and some purge.. But problem is takes freaking ever to recode to x265 on my current rig..

[Technique]

What is the likely cause of Plex buffering?

 

Buffering may be the wrong term as it just sort of stops playing. I get the 3 yellow dots in the screen and it just pretty much freezes. I try FFWD or Rewind and that does nothing. In fact the only thing that does anything is exiting it.

Yesterday i had to exit a few times and go back to the movie a few times (same position as where i left it) before it finally started to play the thing again.

 

Is the issue with my PC (i would be surprised since i'm sure it's powerful enough and i had nothing else running) or with the Plex app on my TV & therefore the TV not being powerful enough?

 

Some movies are quite bad. I watched (or tried to) a couple of Jackie Chan movies over the weekend (the old ones before his films became all Americanised) and they ended up being unwatchable. Sandwiched between this was a different movie and aside from 1 blip it played fine.

[sc302 Veteran]

That is an artifact of the storage/host it is connected to.  

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah you could have problems reading the file for sure..

 

What does the log say?  Put plex into debug logging if need be.

[Technique]

Hmm so it’s my PC that’s the cause. I’ve had a look at some of these enclosures and my PC seems more powerful? So I guess then that they wouldn’t improve things. 

 

As as for this log thing I’ll have to google how to do it and then next time it acts up I can have a see what it says. 

[+BudMan MVC]

Or just look at the interface... Its pretty intuitive for setting debug

 

Hmmm Wonder, I Wonder where might I make a setting change???  Hmmmm??

 

Well what do you F'ing know - right there in the "settings" section - who would of freaking thunk it!

 

 

That just nuts

 

And then hmmmm - where might I find these logs??  That is a question for google for sure.. must be buried deep in the bowels only way to view them is with grep or awk or something.. Hacker level ######

 

Oh wait - right there under freaking "troubleshooting"  WTF!! Just dumb founded!! They would hide it like that

[Technique]

Ah yes because I had Plex open while reading the replies as I ate my breakfast this morning didn’t I. 

 

Or not. 

 

I dunno, you don’t use Google and people start getting all emotional that you’re not searching yourself. Say you’re going to use Google and people still get emotional that you dare to try find something yourself. 

 

Bottom line ... some males have high levels of oestrogen. 

[sc302 Veteran]

Easy guys.  

 

There could be lots of reasons for this to happen.   It could be antivirus/anti malware software causing issues, it could be that the drive is going bad, it could be an under performing drive, it could be that the system is taxed, it could be that the network is taxed, it could be that you are using 90’s tech.  I can’t say for certain what the issue is without knowing/seeing the system.  I don’t have a crystal ball to look in and my magic 8 ball is in the shop for repairs....I am not trying to be a wise ass but it isn’t something simple that I can tell you to try...maybe disable your antivirus. 

[Technique]

3 hours ago, sc302 said:

Easy guys. 

 

Don't worry, it's just banter. You take so you give

3 hours ago, sc302 said:

 

 

There could be lots of reasons for this to happen.   It could be antivirus/anti malware software causing issues, it could be that the drive is going bad, it could be an under performing drive, it could be that the system is taxed, it could be that the network is taxed, it could be that you are using 90’s tech.  I can’t say for certain what the issue is without knowing/seeing the system.  I don’t have a crystal ball to look in and my magic 8 ball is in the shop for repairs....I am not trying to be a wise ass but it isn’t something simple that I can tell you to try...maybe disable your antivirus. 

Well when we're watching a movie all other things (iphone, ipad etc) aren't really doing anything on the internet.

With that said, when we were watching Tomb Raider there wasn't much buffering, just a bit. We were both watching it. However when the Jackie Chan movie was on now you mention it it was only me watching it so my wife would've been using the iPad on the internet i guess. I wouldn't have thought it'd tax it that much but perhaps. If it matters then the C drive has 42GB free of 256GB on a SSD drive but that's not where the movies are stored.

[+BudMan MVC]

4 hours ago, sc302 said:

I don’t have a crystal ball to look in and my magic 8 ball

Agreed!!! Which is why you turn of freaking logging and up the level or atleast take a look at the current logs

 

You need to look at the logs if you want any hope to figuring out where the problem is.. I could be almost anything.. If wifi maybe that was the problem.. If disk maybe that was the problem - sure antivirus software could be a issue.. Look to the log and see if tells you there was X problem... If the normal logs don't tell you something then bump the logs to debug level and hopefully that might tell you something.

 

I have no issues running 4k streams off my ###### nas... But your running on what?  You might think its a rocketship - but then again your 10+ years behind in all you concepts about basic tech.. So maybe it was a rocketship 10 years ago?  And now my watch has more cpu?

 

As stated we don't have crystal balls - what does the LOG SAY??? If plex was having an issue accessing or transcoding or streaming it should say so - and should give you atleast a clue to the reason why.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

The internet should only come into consideration if you're steaming outside of your home network. 

 

The issue is more than likely the machine that's hosting your Plex server or the files themselves. 

 

Did you get a chance to look at the logs? 

[+BudMan MVC]

^ exactly... For all we know your running indirect and your tv is pulling the stream from your local server form the internet and your limited to 1 or 2mbps the relay service allows.  Does your plex player show the server is local or indirect?

 

 

Here is from work...

 

Or does it say indirect?  Which means your using the relay service which is limited to 1mbps if not plex pass, or 2mbps if plex pass..