Ultimate Noob Question...

[N00B_person]

Yes, I barely know a thing about HTPCs, but my family and i both think that one would be useful. Especially over winter.

What i need to know is this.

In the LifeHacker guide, the person who I have forgotten the name of said that he can watch movies that he had ripped himself. The two key words being 'RIPPED HIMSELF'.

I have tried Handbrake before, but I felt like I was barking up the wrong tree. Does anyone have any *legal* suggestions?

 

All feedback is appreciated

[Qpm5]

IT is legal to make a digital copy of a movie you own. You could buy some from amazon or something if you just want to buy the movies digitaly.

[Norwegiantweaker]

Yes, I barely know a thing about HTPCs, but my family and i both think that one would be useful. Especially over winter.

What i need to know is this.

In the LifeHacker guide, the person who I have forgotten the name of said that he can watch movies that he had ripped himself. The two key words being 'RIPPED HIMSELF'.

I have tried Handbrake before, but I felt like I was barking up the wrong tree. Does anyone have any *legal* suggestions?

 

All feedback is appreciated

basicly you want a pc filled with movies so you dont have to use dvd or "ILLEGAL" streams *evilgrin* ?

[Ex0Thermic]

i personally have ripped a copy off every dvd i own to my main pc for back. i have used a combination or 3 programs to do this (DVD43, DVD Ripper and my new fav Freemake Video Converter).

if your not up for ripping them yourself. you can alway buy them again as a download or use something like netflix to watch them over the internet
 

[thedigitalmilk]

In the UK at least you are allowed to own a digital copy for backup purposes. So as long as you own or can prove you have bought a copy of DVD the ripped files are completely legal so that's one way of doing it, I have ripped all my DVDs so I can use then on my phone or tablet.

[N00B_person]

In the UK at least you are allowed to own a digital copy for backup purposes. So as long as you own or can prove you have bought a copy of DVD the ripped files are completely legal so that's one way of doing it, I have ripped all my DVDs so I can use then on my phone or tablet.

And how would I go about doing that?

[thedigitalmilk]

And how would I go about doing that?

This is virtually the same as how I do it http://m.wikihow.com/Rip-a-DVD

Try that guide out.

[thedigitalmilk]

And how would I go about doing that?

This is virtually the same as how I do it http://m.wikihow.com/Rip-a-DVD

Try that guide out.

[thedigitalmilk]

Damn that's what I get for posting on my phone... Sorry about the double post:(

[dalekphalm]

Yes, I barely know a thing about HTPCs, but my family and i both think that one would be useful. Especially over winter.

What i need to know is this.

In the LifeHacker guide, the person who I have forgotten the name of said that he can watch movies that he had ripped himself. The two key words being 'RIPPED HIMSELF'.

I have tried Handbrake before, but I felt like I was barking up the wrong tree. Does anyone have any *legal* suggestions?

 

All feedback is appreciated

I seriously recommend MakeMKV: http://makemkv.com/

 

It allows you to rip the movie track without any of the extras into an uncompressed MKV file. You can also specify which sound tracks and subtitles are ripped with it.

 

From that point, you can choose to either have an uncompressed copy for your digital records, or you can then run it through something like Handbrake to reduce the file size. If you are ripping a DVD, then you should be able to reduce the size of the file by a large degree without any noticeable quality loss.

 

Even with blu-ray rips, you can squeeze the size down a bit before quality loss becomes very noticeable.

[mealto]

Nice to see MakeMKV. Never used but it looks good. 

 

Just in case anyoen needs to re-encode movies to work on tablets and smartphones, I have used Xmedia Recode with great success. Great to turn all those HD family vacations into a usable format the the family to watch on their smart devices.