DVD project...
So I have learned a few things to help speed things along. Mainly How to utilize the time that I'm not around to load new DVD's into the drive to be ripped. I guess it's probalby best I describe the process.
On the Mac Mini:
Very Time Consuming.
Now here is what I can do to speed things up. The program that Leo set up on the mac mini will actually do Batch encoding. So what I do is rip one dvd after another. Put a DVD in - go do something else - when it finishes - put another one in to rip - and go do something else. this goes on from the moment I get home till when I get ready to go to bed. I usually have about 7 movies lined up ready to encode before I go to bed. the last thing I do before I go to bed is set off the batch encode service. It churns away while I sleep. I check on everything before I leave in the morning. I usually move over the encoded movies and delete the files that are ready to go... Just to make sure there is always enough room on the hard drive. I let it continue to encode while I'm at work and it's done by the time I get home. I move the files - do the deletions and start the whole process over again.
I've also figured out how to rip & encode quickly on the PC. So yes I have that PC ripping and encoding as well. But it only gets about 3 movies done a night.
So I'm actually converting about 10 movies a night. Which if I keep up this rate... I should be done hopefully by the end of July.
So I guess I need to document this somewhere... And that would be the whole justification for this project.
I have around 600 DVD's. In order to store these DVD's whole walls are taken up. They are put on shelves in alphabetical order... and because there are so many of them, it's hard to choose which one to watch. I went through this with my CD's a couple of years ago. I had a couple hundred CD's on two tower racks that I hadn't listen to in years... I actually didn't remember owning most of them. I spent a summer ripping them all down, cleaning all the information, documenting what was there and then organizing it all in ITunes. I then weeded through the CD;s and sold about half of them. I then Was able to store the remainder CD's in 2 big binders. Big difference. the benefits of that exercise was:
the CD project completed is on the left. The DVD's to do are on the right. And that's not all of them. And the bottom 3 shelves on the left shelving unit ... are all VHS tapes. My Goal here... is to get rid of at least 35% of the DVD's. So Far I've thrown 37 DVD's into the Sell pile. And it's getting easier to put them in the further I go along. I'm hoping to get about $1 a DVD. Hopefully Enough to pay for a storage solution for the remaining DVD's. I plan to put them in storage bins and put them in the back of the Sitting room closet. or maybe I'll keep them in the Library with all the books. Yeah... then I can spend the money on something else.!
On the Mac Mini:
- Insert a DVD into the drive.
- Choose whether it's a TV show or Movie
- Type in the name of the TV show or Movie
- It returns choices of Names with Years (so if it's a remake you choose the right one) or you can type in "Pirates" and it returns a list of all the titles with the word Pirates in them and the year it was made...
- I choose the right one.
- It goes out to the Intarweb and finds all the info about that TV show or Movie - Image, chapter names, plot summary, tags...
- Then I must go into the Services Menu and choose the encode service.
- About 3 hours later... it's done. Compressed down to just a movie about 1.5 gigs in size.
- I then Copy the small movie file to the Itunes Media file folder on the external Hard-Drive
- Delete the huge 7 gig file (or keep it if I want to sell the dvd)
- Delete the little 1.5 gig file from the Mac hard drive.
Very Time Consuming.
Now here is what I can do to speed things up. The program that Leo set up on the mac mini will actually do Batch encoding. So what I do is rip one dvd after another. Put a DVD in - go do something else - when it finishes - put another one in to rip - and go do something else. this goes on from the moment I get home till when I get ready to go to bed. I usually have about 7 movies lined up ready to encode before I go to bed. the last thing I do before I go to bed is set off the batch encode service. It churns away while I sleep. I check on everything before I leave in the morning. I usually move over the encoded movies and delete the files that are ready to go... Just to make sure there is always enough room on the hard drive. I let it continue to encode while I'm at work and it's done by the time I get home. I move the files - do the deletions and start the whole process over again.
I've also figured out how to rip & encode quickly on the PC. So yes I have that PC ripping and encoding as well. But it only gets about 3 movies done a night.
So I'm actually converting about 10 movies a night. Which if I keep up this rate... I should be done hopefully by the end of July.
So I guess I need to document this somewhere... And that would be the whole justification for this project.
I have around 600 DVD's. In order to store these DVD's whole walls are taken up. They are put on shelves in alphabetical order... and because there are so many of them, it's hard to choose which one to watch. I went through this with my CD's a couple of years ago. I had a couple hundred CD's on two tower racks that I hadn't listen to in years... I actually didn't remember owning most of them. I spent a summer ripping them all down, cleaning all the information, documenting what was there and then organizing it all in ITunes. I then weeded through the CD;s and sold about half of them. I then Was able to store the remainder CD's in 2 big binders. Big difference. the benefits of that exercise was:
- I got reaquainted with my music collection
- Got rid of 2 large CD tower Racks
- The amount of space I gained was Faaaaan- Tastick!
- and I got about $150 cash in my pocket.
the CD project completed is on the left. The DVD's to do are on the right. And that's not all of them. And the bottom 3 shelves on the left shelving unit ... are all VHS tapes. My Goal here... is to get rid of at least 35% of the DVD's. So Far I've thrown 37 DVD's into the Sell pile. And it's getting easier to put them in the further I go along. I'm hoping to get about $1 a DVD. Hopefully Enough to pay for a storage solution for the remaining DVD's. I plan to put them in storage bins and put them in the back of the Sitting room closet. or maybe I'll keep them in the Library with all the books. Yeah... then I can spend the money on something else.!