There were many things I wanted to do with my spare time during the month or so I spent sitting on the sidelines. As with most of my best laid plans in this day and age, they were hijacked by the TV screen. The glorious, high definition TV screen. But while I relished collecting those shiny new components in my entertainment center, they were severely under-used — those solemn red power indicators burning holes into my sub-conscious.
My relatively new Samsung HDTV and Playstation 3 has received some use, though certainly not to their full potential. While I didn’t go crazy and spend way outside my budget for either piece, I sure wasn’t getting my money’s worth out of them. Add to that the stacks of DVDs that I still haven’t watched years after getting them — taking up valuable real estate in my cluttered little apartment — and I started to get downright depressed with the situation.
You already know the solution to this problem
While watching a DVD has historically been a once in a blue moon kind of activity, you’ll find my TiVo constantly cleaned out of shows. When everything is just a few clicks away on the remote, it’s quite easy to get sucked into watching more and more. For a long time I’ve toyed with the idea of ripping all my DVDs onto my computer, which would not only give me easier access to the videos themselves, but would allow me to pack up the discs and shove them in the closet, right next to my CDs.
In fact, those CDs are the best example of what’s in store for this project. Back at the beginning of the decade I was dealing with over 500 CDs. No place to put them and I would only listen to a handful at a time. When I started ripping my CDs onto my computer, how I dealt with music completely changed. It honestly improved my quality of life.
With the TV, the PS3, and my iMac awash with ample storage space, I finally have the parts to try the same thing with my video collection.
Notes from the lab
While I have the hardware to try, it wasn’t until very recently that all the software needed to pull this off decided to straighten up and fly right.
Just like when I made the move from CDs to MP3s, I had to do a lot of experimenting to see what worked and what didn’t. I tried a multitude of ripping programs, tweaking settings all the while. In the end, I chose to go with two programs: Roxio Toast and Handbrake.
Why two? While Roxio is the easier one to work with, it’s set to recognize the CSS encryption the studios put on some of their discs, and won’t rip them. Considering I paid about $20 a pop for each of those discs, that really pisses me off. Thanks, Hollywood! I feel so loved right now.
That’s where Handbrake comes in. Couple it with VLC on your Mac and those CSS encrypted discs become an open book. Its almost enough to make me choose Handbrake outright. But while the program gives you many more options — almost too many — its user interface leaves a lot to be desired.
Considering how many discs I’m going to have to go through and how long each of them is going to take to rip, a simplified interface is key — if for no other reason than my personal sanity.
A shaky bridge gets solidified
Once you have the videos, you still need to get them from one place to another. On the Mac to PS3 front, this is handled by Nullriver’s MediaLink: a preference panel software that bridges the gap and exposes your computer’s file system to the PS3.
But while things worked fine with videos and podcasts I downloaded, it seemed like nothing that I ripped myself would play. At most the video would play for a minute or two before an error screen would rear its ugly head. I kept tweaking settings and re-ripping movies, but nothing I did seemed to make things any better
Then the MediaLink’s 1.7 update showed up. Suddenly everything that the PS3 could play, did. No network issues. Everything was solid as granite. That was my green light.
The saving graces and looking ahead
While this is no small task, it’s certainly not as large as my CD project — 500 discs versus 160, at most. I’ll also be aided by the fact that a recently purchased MacBook has given me a second machine with enough horsepower to rip discs, and I can it with me to work so I can take care of some there. This will speed things up considerably.
And once I’m done with all of that, I have a stack of old VHS tapes I’d like to try and import. Lets just say the research has already begun on that front.
Viva la digital!
