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Is this even possible? (help a soldier out...)

silvrstar

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I am headed to Iraq very soon and got the idea to put movies on an external hard drive as sort of an archive/database that i can watch movies from so i dont have to deal with all the discs. For example, Can i rip a movie to my port hard drive into one file that i can view later without the disc?:confused:
 
I am headed to Iraq very soon and got the idea to put movies on an external hard drive as sort of an archive/database that i can watch movies from so i dont have to deal with all the discs. For example, Can i rip a movie to my port hard drive into one file that i can view later without the disc?:confused:

It depends on what you wish to do. You can make an ISO image of the entire disc and store that on your HDD which can be mounted and accessed later from the computer. You may also convert the movie, itself, into a compressed format such as DivX/Xvid. Both methods will accomplish the task but for the best quality I'd stick with ISOs if you have enough HDD space.
 
It depends on what you wish to do. You can make an ISO image of the entire disc and store that on your HDD which can be mounted and accessed later from the computer. You may also convert the movie, itself, into a compressed format such as DivX/Xvid. Both methods will accomplish the task but for the best quality I'd stick with ISOs if you have enough HDD space.

well i have a 500 GB HDD and will expand if i run out of space. when i try to make an ISO it says partition doesnt support an image over 4 GB. I think it is 4.19 GB.

Also can i use CLONEDVD to compress it or do i need another program? I would like to keep it a reg dvd file so i dont lose the quality...
 
well i have a 500 GB HDD and will expand if i run out of space. when i try to make an ISO it says partition doesnt support an image over 4 GB. I think it is 4.19 GB.

Also can i use CLONEDVD to compress it or do i need another program? I would like to keep it a reg dvd file so i dont lose the quality...

Sorry. I didn't think about you using a HDD with the FAT32 file system. FAT32 doesn't allow files over 4 GB in size. Windows NT, XP and Vista use versions of the NTFS file system which allows files larger than 4 GB in size.

Doing what you wish will work on some DVDs if you remove extras and unnecessary parts but for other movies you won't be able to not lose quality. There is a "custom" setting when selecting DVD-5, DVD-9, etc. With this you could set the filesize below 4 GB and keep your ISOs smaller but you will be losing quality in doing this.

Ideally, if you are using Windows XP I would say to use the NTFS file system and allow yourself the the freedom of dealing with larger files. I'll let someone else give some input on this subject.
 
#1 Thank you sir, for being a soldier and keeping us safe.

#2 My recommendation would be to format your hard drive into the NTFS system instead of Fat32, that's what I do as soon as I receive a new external HD. If you do this, and use the .iso method, you can hold approximately 105 movies on it.
 
#1 Thank you sir, for being a soldier and keeping us safe.

#2 My recommendation would be to format your hard drive into the NTFS system instead of Fat32, that's what I do as soon as I receive a new external HD. If you do this, and use the .iso method, you can hold approximately 105 movies on it.

ok so now a new question. Im on vista, can i stilla use NTFS and how do i go about doing that?
 
Hopefully, someone with Vista will answer your question, but I don't see why it would matter what OS you have. To change to NTFS, you just go to My Computer, right click on the drive, go to Format, then change system to NTFS and format.
 
ok so now a new question. Im on vista, can i stilla use NTFS and how do i go about doing that?

I don't run any Vista systems but my understanding is that Vista supports all older Windows OS file systems (ie FAT, FAT32, NTFS and all their subsequent versions there-in). For NT, 2000, XP, and Vista the default file system is NTFS. Having said that I'm under the impression that you cannot install Vista on a drive/partition that is not formatted using the NTFS file system.

So, my question is the following. When you get this error about the file size being to big where is the target of your rip? Are you saving to an internal HDD or are you saving the output to your external HDD. If you are saving to the external drive then is that drive formatted with FAT32 or NTFS?

If it's the external drive that is formatted to FAT32 then that can be rectified by converting it to NTFS. Both XP and Vista make it easy to convert FAT32 to NTFS from the command-line using the convert command which can handle FAT, FAT32 or older NTFS file systems.
 
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ok so i got it to NTFS and can create ISO files with no problem. But is there a way to just view the movie now without the disc?
 
Yes

If you have Power DVD you can as long as it is not the newest one or with Windows Media Player and Slysofts Virtual CloneDrive. Just mount the ISO to the virtual Drive and open Windows Media Player and you are ready to watch the movie with out the DVD disc.:D
 
ok so i got it to NTFS and can create ISO files with no problem. But is there a way to just view the movie now without the disc?

The choice that would allow you the most options would be to mount the ISO so it's accessible as a virtual drive. This way any media player can access it. You could use Slysoft CloneDrive, Nero ImageDrive or a number of other options for that. This method allows you to use WMP, PowerDVD, Media Player Classic, etc.

The quicker method involves finding a media player than can directly access and play an ISO. The two that I know of that very quickly open ISO files are Videolan (aka VLC) & MPlayer. Make sure you get the Windows port for both of them. Also for Mplayer you should grab the GUI version.

I recommend mounting the ISO, personally. I prefer having the option of picking the media player I want and although both Videolan and MPlayer are decent players they aren't my favorites.
 
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Got it figured out, im just gonna use DIVX. Thanks for the help everyone!:clap::clap:
 
Got it figured out, im just gonna use DIVX. Thanks for the help everyone!:clap::clap:

DivX saves a lot of space but the downside is it takes a lot longer to convert the movies. Of course you can't do this in one simple step with CloneDVD. CloneDVD mobile is more suited for what you want.

Regardless of which decision you make all the methods mentioned should work and although the quality won't be the same as the original if you do it right the DivX/Xvid converted files can come out quite nicely.
 
My preference for this kind of thing is usually Nero Digital AVC, personally. If you've got Recode, you should give it a try.
 
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