The Digital Packrat Manifesto | DRM and big tech's war on ownership has led me to make my own media libraries, and you should too
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Safe storage is still expensive just in relative terms.
I bought 4x 16tb drives at 240€ each.
While yes, I could save every album under the sun on there, I still curate what I download/rip because I don't wanna trash the collection with spam.
Also if you want other stuff like video files it will get tight very fast with space. Especially if you collect stuff that was hard to come by.Yeah, high-res video will eat those TB quick. I started to clean up my collection - if something really was not good, I stopped watching or lost interest, it goes into the bin. Collecting is great, but there is no reason to keep some mediocre Netflix shovelware around that was canceled after one season.
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Yup, I buy and rip Blu-rays, but I'll probably buy and torrent them instead at some point because ripping them is a pain.
If there's a reasonable legal avenue to get something in a format I can use, I'll do that. If not, I'll either pirate or go without.
You can use programs like Ripper or Automated Ripping Machine to watch for inserted disks and rip them automatically. You can even add remixing or transcoding into the workflow so that all you do is insert the disk into the drive and after some time out pops the file in the exact format and size you want, even directly into your media library if you want.
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You can use programs like Ripper or Automated Ripping Machine to watch for inserted disks and rip them automatically. You can even add remixing or transcoding into the workflow so that all you do is insert the disk into the drive and after some time out pops the file in the exact format and size you want, even directly into your media library if you want.
I got all my media ripped, so I'm good for now, and incremental updates are pretty easy.
But I can forsee a time when my bluray drive dies or something and torrenting is easier.
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Safe storage is still expensive just in relative terms.
I bought 4x 16tb drives at 240€ each.
While yes, I could save every album under the sun on there, I still curate what I download/rip because I don't wanna trash the collection with spam.
Also if you want other stuff like video files it will get tight very fast with space. Especially if you collect stuff that was hard to come by.My collection just isn't in very good quality. For example, all the music is mp3, and the movies are 1080p max (my laptop's creen is only 1080p anyway). I would not fill even one 16 tb disk in a lifetime.
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Yup, I buy and rip Blu-rays, but I'll probably buy and torrent them instead at some point because ripping them is a pain.
If there's a reasonable legal avenue to get something in a format I can use, I'll do that. If not, I'll either pirate or go without.
If I were buying a disk just to rip, I would rather buy a digital copy just to correspond to the downloaded file. I do that with Steam games. I would throw the disk out immediately after anyway.
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My collection just isn't in very good quality. For example, all the music is mp3, and the movies are 1080p max (my laptop's creen is only 1080p anyway). I would not fill even one 16 tb disk in a lifetime.
Already achieved almost 7 tb in movie files (mid/high 1080p and some rare 4k releases)
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If I were buying a disk just to rip, I would rather buy a digital copy just to correspond to the downloaded file. I do that with Steam games. I would throw the disk out immediately after anyway.
A physical copy means:
- I have proof that I own it
- I can rerip if my NAS dies
- I can loan it to friends
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A physical copy means:
- I have proof that I own it
- I can rerip if my NAS dies
- I can loan it to friends
Instead of reripping, I can just recopy from a backup drive, which is easier. And I can loan it to people too if I load it onto a USB drive or, y'know, just send the file online.
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I'm uninterested in piracy, but if you have a bunch of physical media, I'm happy to share my rips. And I'll take your word on what you own.
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How big of a library do you have? I have a goal of buying an HD tower plus 6 more HDD to host everything.
Yes, my physical library is pretty decent but my current digital one can fit on just a few external HDs.
Something in the 100-200 range, so reasonably sizeable, but not huge. Most are DVDs, but we have a bunch of Bluray as well, and I've ripped them all.
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