What to do with our DVDs

Five Cent Head

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Jul 17, 2007
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Does anyone use DVDs any more? We have a bunch, some of which are obscure enough that they don't seem to be available for streaming, or they're family videos or whatever. Our DVD player may be dying. Should we get a new one or give up on this branch of technology? If I convert them to digital (let's speak only of the family videos, to make sure everything is legal), is there a standard way to access them from a TV and other devices in the house?

Our current TV (42" Panasonic plasma) is pretty old, and maybe we'll upgrade that within the next few years, in case that matters. We currently use an Xbox to play DVDs (and our 16 year old plays lots of games on it), but it's been having issues lately, so we may need to decide whether to get an Xbox S or an Xbox X. If we get an Xbox S, we could then get a separate DVD player or a different solution that could also stream to other devices in the house.
 

edoug

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Jul 15, 2005
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There are many ways. A new DVD player is the easiest and cheapest way.
 

88 MVP

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I ditched all of mine about 5 years ago. PC storage is relatively cheap - if there are any that aren’t readily available on streaming or you just want to back them up, you could rip the films to a hard drive. I did that for a handful of movies with Handbrake. Then you can toss the DVDs
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I ditched all of mine about 5 years ago. PC storage is relatively cheap - if there are any that aren’t readily available on streaming or you just want to back them up, you could rip the films to a hard drive. I did that for a handful of movies with Handbrake. Then you can toss the DVDs
This is the best approach. And if you want to try to off-set the relatively low cost of the hard drive, there are ways to sell CDs and DVDs. Decluttr is one example. You'll probably get less than a buck for each, but it's better than nothing. Only real cost is time.
 

glennhoffmania

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I have a bunch of DVDs, mostly because my wife gets some new releases as a member of the WGA and they think her opinion matters for some stupid reason. I also have a ton of CDs. Can they be worth something someday as collectibles?

I have the whole Seinfeld series on DVD, still wrapped in plastic, never watched. Anyone want to buy it?
 

Five Cent Head

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Jul 17, 2007
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I ditched all of mine about 5 years ago. PC storage is relatively cheap - if there are any that aren’t readily available on streaming or you just want to back them up, you could rip the films to a hard drive. I did that for a handful of movies with Handbrake. Then you can toss the DVDs
Okay, once I've ripped them to the hard drive, what's a good way to stream them to various devices in the house?
 

bosox188

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Jan 11, 2008
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Okay, once I've ripped them to the hard drive, what's a good way to stream them to various devices in the house?
If you have any kind of AndroidTV, Roku, AppleTV, etc I would suggest installing Kodi. If you're storing the films on a PC somewhere, you can put them in a network shared folder, and point to the shared folder in Kodi.
 

strek1

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Jun 13, 2006
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Hartford area
Not only do people use DVD's but they still use VHS tapes as well. I sell them on Ebay. Many titles are not available for streaming but were previosly released on DVD and in some cases haven't been around since the days of videotape. I myself would still rather have physical media.
 

SumnerH

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Jul 18, 2005
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Note that Plex is a free and open-source application, if you want to download it and install it locally.

For some people it's definitely worth paying for a hosted solution, but it's not necessary. (Kodi, as mentioned, is a particular user-friendly way of setting things up at home without relying on an outside service).
 

Five Cent Head

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Jul 17, 2007
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If you have any kind of AndroidTV, Roku, AppleTV, etc I would suggest installing Kodi. If you're storing the films on a PC somewhere, you can put them in a network shared folder, and point to the shared folder in Kodi.
I will take a look, thank you.

I recommend Plex. https://www.plex.tv/

You can stream from your library to anywhere. I got a lifetime subscription for $100 and I can watch my library when I’m on vacation.
This also looks good, I'll look into it.

Not only do people use DVD's but they still use VHS tapes as well. I sell them on Ebay. Many titles are not available for streaming but were previosly released on DVD and in some cases haven't been around since the days of videotape. I myself would still rather have physical media.
I think for me, the ideal solution would be to keep the physical media in boxes somewhere as backups, but use a streaming setup for daily use.
 
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brs3

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May 20, 2008
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I recently discovered a box of DVDs and CDs that I culled from the larger pile I got rid of when I realized I was streaming everything. The box contains my favorite bands and movies, and the box is small enough that I didn't feel like I needed to get rid of them.

My car has a CD player, and I store a small DVD player with my holiday storage, because it's busted out for the burned DVD copy of the 1951 Christmas Carol w/ Alastair Sim because typically around Christmas you cant find it anywhere streaming free. Right now it's streaming on Prime, however.
 

Marceline

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On the subject of ripping DVDs to make backup/streamable copies, I will say that I recently tried getting back into that and it's a huge pain in the ass now, at least if the DVD is copy protected.

Most of the stuff that would bypass that hasn't been updated in 10+ years and can be difficult to both find and get working on modern hardware.
 

SumnerH

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Jul 18, 2005
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I ripped all my CDs around 2000 and all my DVDs around 2010 and got rid of almost all the physical media, and it was totally worth it. Having all your media going through one interface is super nice.

I keep all of mine in my kodi library along with all the things I DVR, and it's much handier than hunting through for DVDs. It's also nice that it tracks where I left off, so if I'm binging some show and then forget about it for a while I still know exactly where I was when I return to it. I also have Kodi plugins for Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc so I get everything through a unified interface, which is nice.

My primary home computer's HDMI out goes directly into the projector. That's nice not only for serving local media, but it means that anything I can view on my computer is available on the big screen (no worries about whether Roku is in a dispute with YouTube or whether stupid embedded device Y supports codec X or not). The rear speakers and sub plug into the computer, and I have wireless speaker leads to the front speakers from the computer so I don't need a separate receiver/amp (all the speakers are powered monitors). The computer's also serving all my local media over upnp so things like chromecasts can hit it from elsewhere in the house.

Kodi automatically scrapes all the information about your movies if you name them something sane (e.g. "Goodfellas.mp4"), so you get a really nice library interface with all your stuff in it.

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EDIT: Also remember to practice good backup hygiene. I keep 2 sets of all my data at home for protection against routine drive failures, fat-fingers, etc, with a 3rd backup at my brother's place in case of flood or fire or the like.
 
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The Talented Allen Ripley

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Oct 2, 2003
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On the subject of ripping DVDs to make backup/streamable copies, I will say that I recently tried getting back into that and it's a huge pain in the ass now, at least if the DVD is copy protected.

Most of the stuff that would bypass that hasn't been updated in 10+ years and can be difficult to both find and get working on modern hardware.
I just digitized my collection of 600 Blu-rays and DVDs and didn't run into one issue with copy protection. I used MakeMKV to rip them.
 

Marceline

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I just digitized my collection of 600 Blu-rays and DVDs and didn't run into one issue with copy protection. I used MakeMKV to rip them.
That's fantastic, thank you!

It looks like it will work much better than the 10 year old stuff I was trying to use. For whatever reason my searches weren't turning up anything new that was legit.
 

ColdSoxPack

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Jul 14, 2005
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Simi Valley, CA
Kodi sounds like a good idea if you want to watch your stuff. Ripping all my DVDS would be a huge project. I can just stick a DVD in my DVD player. But I get it.
 

jtn46

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Oct 10, 2004
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Norwalk, CT
It's not free, but you can check many DVD's on Vudu (Look for Disc to Digital) and they will sell you a discounted digital copy that will play in iTunes and other apps, pricing for a DVD is $2 for a SD version and $5 for a HD version (Blu-Ray is $2). Not every movie is eligible but I have a ton of movies in iTunes now and most I got this way.