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GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
honey the codewitch17hrs 30mins ago
mvahoney the codewitch17hrs 30mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Roger Wright17hrs 1 min ago
professionalRoger Wright17hrs 1 min ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Jacquers14hrs 37mins ago
Jacquers14hrs 37mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Nelek4hrs 34mins ago
protectorNelek4hrs 34mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Mircea Neacsu17hrs 18mins ago
Mircea Neacsu17hrs 18mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Roger Wright16hrs 59mins ago
professionalRoger Wright16hrs 59mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Nelek4hrs 36mins ago
protectorNelek4hrs 36mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
dandy723hrs 54mins ago
dandy723hrs 54mins ago 
Ripping to ISOs is obviously going to be the fastest, but in terms of total storage requirements, I'd be looking at then converting to MP4 or some other format, as others have suggested.

Personally, I'm paranoid and wouldn't feel comfortable getting rid of either the original discs or the ISO files until I've watched at least a few. I've seen problems in the past where, after encoding, the audio would slowly drift from the video over time, so after (say) 90 minutes, people's mouths would be moving out of sync with the voices you heard. I don't know of any way to verify this without sitting through the entire thing.

Also I wouldn't simply copy to DVD-Rs (unless I misunderstood some people's suggestions). The idea is to move away from the hundreds of discs and onto something more convenient. A big pile of files sitting on a single hard disk is a lot easier to deal with than a big pile of discs. Even uncompressed, you can put nearly 1000 dual-layer (8.5GB) DVDs on an 8TB hard drive, which are pretty cheap nowadays.

Keep at least two copies of everything (one on a hard drive, another on SSDs?)...don't assume one's more reliable than the other. Then as larger capacity drives come out over the years, copy (don't move) the files onto the larger ones. Don't get rid of the other (older) drives unless you can make a few bucks from them, I suppose. Depends on how valuable this all is to you.

And if you're going to re-encode video, I suggest you look at the H.265 codec. It's intended for high resolution video, but still works very well for DVD - the resulting files are much smaller, and as long as the bitrate remains high enough, you won't be able to tell, visually, the difference with the originals. I would also imagine this sort of material is recorded (at best) with 2-channel stereo, and not wasting bits on 6-channels. H.265 takes longer to encode, and you need a somewhat faster processor to play it back in real time than older formats, but unless you're dealing with something like a 10-year old CPU, that should generally not be a problem nowadays.

I'm late to this thread, but I hope there was something valuable in there.
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Roger Wright2hrs 24mins ago
professionalRoger Wright2hrs 24mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
dandy721 hr 55mins ago
dandy721 hr 55mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
Nelek2hrs 10mins ago
protectorNelek2hrs 10mins ago 
GeneralRe: I Need to Copy Hundreds of DVDs to a Portable HDD Pin
dandy721 hr 50mins ago
dandy721 hr 50mins ago 
GeneralWordle 1,202 Pin
StarNamer@work19hrs 40mins ago
professionalStarNamer@work19hrs 40mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 Pin
Shane010315hrs 18mins ago
Shane010315hrs 18mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 Pin
GKP199214hrs 56mins ago
professionalGKP199214hrs 56mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 Pin
OriginalGriff13hrs 38mins ago
mveOriginalGriff13hrs 38mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 - 5 4 me Pin
pkfox12hrs 47mins ago
professionalpkfox12hrs 47mins ago 
GeneralWordle 1,202 - 4/6 Pin
ChandraRam10hrs 50mins ago
ChandraRam10hrs 50mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 Pin
Rich Leyshon10hrs 38mins ago
Rich Leyshon10hrs 38mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 Pin
Cp-Coder7hrs 44mins ago
Cp-Coder7hrs 44mins ago 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,202 5/6 Pin
den2k887hrs 5mins ago
professionalden2k887hrs 5mins ago 
General...it is your fault ... (vent / rant ) Pin
jana_hus23hrs 21mins ago
jana_hus23hrs 21mins ago 
QuestionRe: ...it is your fault ... (vent / rant ) Pin
jeron123hrs 11mins ago
jeron123hrs 11mins ago 
AnswerRe: ...it is your fault ... (vent / rant ) Pin
Richard MacCutchan10hrs 56mins ago
mveRichard MacCutchan10hrs 56mins ago 
GeneralRe: ...it is your fault ... (vent / rant ) Pin
GKP19928hrs 35mins ago
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