Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2025 October 13

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October 13

Ripping old DVDs

Disc rot has set in in my collection of older DVDs. So, I've started backing them up using MakeMKV. In some cases, MakeMKV is able to work around minor problem areas and rip the disc, but in other cases entire tracks are just unreadable. I'm just kind of accepting I started too late; MakeMKV is supposedly great at this, so I don't expect another program to do much better. But where I am hoping for other options is that MakeMKV only rips the files, it doesn't re-encode them, so my projects take up an enormous amount of space. I'm then transcoding with HandBrake, which is powerful, but intimidating to learn. Is there a more hand-holding paid program that does more of the steps by itself and is also good at working around a few rotted sectors? If it can run by itself, it's okay if it works slowly (e.g. over night); my current work flow requires my involvement multiple times with large time gaps between which is annoying. Matt Deres (talk) 13:46, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Is it MakeMKV, or HandBrake, that requires interaction? Is the interaction necessitated by the bad sectors? Is it always the same interaction? You're on Windows, aren't you, and people often use AutoHotkey for quick and cheesy scripting of gui-based tasks like this.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:55, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Both sides require some interaction; (I think) the bad sectors don't directly add to the number of interactions, but they do increase the gaps between them, which is the pain point. MakeMKV requires a couple of interactions. I'm probably messing up the terminology, but it needs to read the disc first, in a detailed way, so that it knows the layout, which tracks to skip, and the whole business of overcoming the bad sectors. Even discs that read in my BD player okay still have a few bad sectors so I don't know what the baseline is, but this step takes several minutes. Then it does the ripping, which takes a long time. I then switch to HandBrake which, even with presets, requires checking and hand-holding before the file can be encoded or put into a queue for encoding later. I appreciate the mention of AutoHotkey and I'll consider it, but my hope is to reduce the number of programs, not increase it. :-) Matt Deres (talk) 14:29, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I was trying to avoid saying that you should use command line MakeMKV, and FFmpeg (which is what's inside HandBrake), and write a script. But I don't know what the script would have to react to, anyway. What I'm imagining is: first MakeMKV quietly turns the bad DVD into a good-ish MKV, without troubling you for guidance. Then a script reacts to it completing this task, and triggers FFmpeg to run on the output, again without asking any questions. But it sounds like MakeMKV in fact presents you with details of the good and bad sectors and requires you to select the good ones and confirm, or something like that. Maybe there's a "do the obvious thing without asking" setting? Then FFmpeg might similarly have "shut up and do it anyway" command line switches for the case of whatever it is you say it has to check. That's why I was asking exactly what causes the demands for your further instructions.

I searched and found many people recommending the use of MakeMKV and Handbrake in combination, but no mention of a unified interface to integrate them, or any alternative that does both tasks together.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

That was my result as well; I was hoping I had just overlooked something. MakeMKV doesn't require me to make sector-by-sector decisions, but it does seem to require some amount of oversight between the reading action and the ripping action. I may be wrong; I've only used it a few times and may be overthinking the steps because they're unfamiliar. I used ChatGPT to help me create a working preset for HandBrake, but it seems like some choices simply aren't part of the preset and always need someone to check/select them. Again, this could just be my unfamiliarity, but it sure seems like the audio tracks and subtitle choices need checking each time. Matt Deres (talk) 18:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

It seems Handbrake has default settings for audio tracks and subtitles, which are separate from the "preset". You might have it set to "Track Selection Behaviour: None".  Card Zero  (talk) 13:19, 17 October 2025 (UTC)