New user questions -
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:45 pm
New forum member here. Let me apologize in advance; I’m new to this process and feel like I don’t know enough about it to ask the intelligent questions. I’d appreciate pointers to reference or research material if appropriate. We stream most of our content these days but I have about 200 or so old DVD’s I’d like to get on my Plex media server so I can store them somewhere out of the way. My general setup is a MacBook Air with an attached DVD drive to rip the DVD, a Synology NAS for the Plex server and a 60” Samsung Smart TV to view. I haven’t gone far enough to worry about viewing on other devices.
I downloaded and installed MakeMKV, ran it, loaded the DVD and pretty much went with the default settings other than changing the output location to the Plex library on the NAS. On the 5 I tried as a test, it worked in the sense that I got a viewable movie. However, I have a couple of questions and hope you can either answer or provide some sort of pointer for me to get additional information.
1) Most of our DVD’s have some sort of menu system. It might include special features or interviews and so on. None of this appeared when I played it via Plex. Most of that is fine but occasionally we’ll want to see an interview or do a scene selection as an example. Is it possible to copy that? Again, not a big deal but I’d like to know if it’s possible.
2) Here’s the big issue. There is a display difference between some movies played with Plex vs our DVD player. More recent movies (i.e., the 2005 version of Sahara) are formatted for widescreen and appear the same on Plex or the DVD player (other than the missing menus). However, older movies (i.e., the 1954 version of THEM!) use all the real estate of my tv when played on our DVD player and are squeezed to a 4:3 (I think) aspect ratio when played via Plex. There is about a 7” black vertical edge on both sides of the screen. I’ve read posts here and in other locations which imply that’s the way SD video should look. While that may technically be true, I’m having trouble selling it to the rest of the family. It looks fine to us when the DVD player (I’m assuming) stretches it out to cover the screen. Is there anything I can do to get the ripped version of the movie to use the whole screen?
Thanks for your help.
/bob
I downloaded and installed MakeMKV, ran it, loaded the DVD and pretty much went with the default settings other than changing the output location to the Plex library on the NAS. On the 5 I tried as a test, it worked in the sense that I got a viewable movie. However, I have a couple of questions and hope you can either answer or provide some sort of pointer for me to get additional information.
1) Most of our DVD’s have some sort of menu system. It might include special features or interviews and so on. None of this appeared when I played it via Plex. Most of that is fine but occasionally we’ll want to see an interview or do a scene selection as an example. Is it possible to copy that? Again, not a big deal but I’d like to know if it’s possible.
2) Here’s the big issue. There is a display difference between some movies played with Plex vs our DVD player. More recent movies (i.e., the 2005 version of Sahara) are formatted for widescreen and appear the same on Plex or the DVD player (other than the missing menus). However, older movies (i.e., the 1954 version of THEM!) use all the real estate of my tv when played on our DVD player and are squeezed to a 4:3 (I think) aspect ratio when played via Plex. There is about a 7” black vertical edge on both sides of the screen. I’ve read posts here and in other locations which imply that’s the way SD video should look. While that may technically be true, I’m having trouble selling it to the rest of the family. It looks fine to us when the DVD player (I’m assuming) stretches it out to cover the screen. Is there anything I can do to get the ripped version of the movie to use the whole screen?
Thanks for your help.
/bob