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How to digitize Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs?

Digitize Blu-rays and DVDs​

If you want to digitize Blu-rays and DVDs, you should follow those instructions. If you only want to digitize CDs, there is an extra section below.

Preparations​

The Preparations are only needed if not already done:

  1. Buy an internal Blu-ray-burner like those and a Sata to USB adapter like this one
  2. Buy an additional HDD that will only be used for Movies/TV-Shows. Recommended are big, cheap external drives like those (Please make sure yourself that the drive enclosure allows the included HDD to spin down after a few minutes. Otherwise will your power draw rise by a lot since the HDD is always powered on.)
  3. Mount the HDD to your server (instructions)
  4. Install Remotedesktop (instructions)

Execution​

  1. Insert a Blu-ray/DVD into the Blu-ray-burner and connect it with the adapter to your server
  2. Connect to your server via RDP (instructions)
  3. Open MakeMKV
    MakeMKV license key

    If MakeMKV should ask you for a license key, you can simply use the key that is published here: click here (at least while MakeMKV is in beta)

  4. The program should automatically detect the Blu-ray/DVD that you've inserted
  5. Analyze the drive
  6. Select all tracks that you want to digitize
  7. As output directory, make sure that you select a directory on your just mounted additional HDD. It should be somewhere in a subdirectory of /mnt (Please make sure not to select your with Veracrypt encrypted external data SSD/HDD since your free space on this drive will become full very fast and you don't want to backup movies and tv-shows.)
  8. Start the digitizing if everything is correct
  9. Rename the digitized file(s) based on PLEX's naming scheme for movies or tv-shows

Now, your Blu-ray/DVD should be digitized.

caution

If on the DVD/Blu-ray have been family videos or photos or something else that is personally important to you, you should definitiely save this to your with Veracrypt encrypted external data SSD/HDD so that it is stored encrypted and gets backed up.

note

Also don't sell and don't give away the Blu-rays/DVDs after digitizing, because you could need them again in the future, e.g. if the HDD that stores the Movies/TV-Shows fails before you are able to copy all files to a new HDD and you need to redigitize all Blu-rays/DVDs because you don't want to pay for data-recovery. But you could of course store them in a moving box in your basement.

Digitize CDs​

Preparations​

The Preparations are only needed if not already done:

  1. Buy an external DVD-burner like those (If you haven't already bought the Blu-ray-burner following the instructions above)
  2. Install Remotedesktop (instructions)

Execution​

  1. Insert a CD into the DVD-burner/Blu-ray-burner and connect it to your server
  2. Connect to your server via RDP (instructions)
  3. Open Sound Juicer
  4. The program should automatically detect the CD that you've inserted
  5. As output format you should select FLAC which is the best format for digitizing CDs losless
  6. As output directory select any directory on your with Veracrypt encrypted external data SSD/HDD which is most likely mounted here: /mnt/data so that the digitized data gets backed up correctly
  7. Now start the digitizing if everything is correct

Now, your CD should be digitized.