I’ve rented or borrowed enough scratchy DVDs and Blu-rays to understand the need to keep one’s collection of DVDs and Blu-rays in good condition.
Other than being extremely careful not to scratch a disc, “ripping” a DVD on to your hard drive will keep your movies safe. You can even use a media server such as Plex or Jellyfin to stream your movies to screens in your home.
I use the following to back up my collection of DVDs and Blu-rays.
- Ripping software for DVDs and Blu-Rays: https://www.makemkv.com/ or Handbrake HandBrake.fr download center
- Blu-ray player for PC – https://amzn.to/3VD7Hia
- USB cord to use the above player via USB – USB 3.0 to 7+6 13-pin Slimline SATA Adapter Cable for Laptop CD/DVD ROM Optical Drive https://amzn.to/3VBeqJC
- Asustor AS5402T – 2 Bay NAS – https://amzn.to/4guHhal
- NAS hard drives – https://amzn.to/4gw9huu
Storage could be a large thumb drive, portable hard drive or your existing hard drives. I use a network assessable storage (NAS) system with 10 gigabyte hard drives.
But keep in mind that an DVD movie can be up to 4.7 gigabytes and a Blu-ray movie is about 30-35 gigabytes without all of the extras. You can use Makemkv to select just the movie and not all of the extras to save space on your drives.
Keep in mind that DVDs are most likely to look like crap on your large TV as the resolution is lower than streaming.
- DVDs = 480p
- Blu-Ray = 1080p
- 4K = 2160p
