ISO versus File Structure?

[crackinhedz]

Interesting, I would have thought that from your earlier comments in this thread that you'd be ripping to ISO. I think you had mentioned it was the "safest" and "most convenient" method. Why don't you go that route? I was actually under the impression that you could create an ISO for just the Main Movie. I seem to think Dvdfab enables that but maybe I'm wrong.

ISO is the safest backup because it stores the entire disc into an image file...when you store as a file, even when your burn the file, it has to create the image on the disc...so keeping it as an image to begin with is safest.

Yes, you can do main movie only ISO...but again, its no benefit to me because the program I use to convert will not see the ISO unless its mounted etc which is just extra steps for me...as a file, it just reads the .m2ts file.

As I mentioned when I started this thread, before I dig in to backing up my Blu Rays to my hard drive I want to make sure I'm doing it in a way that will create the least amount of work now and in the future, i.e., I'd rather not have to extract the .m2ts files from ISO down the road if I can just go ahead and do it now. My main purpose is to get my movies on the hard drive so I can watch them from it, as well as serving as a back-up.

If you are trying to preserve your backup over long period of time, ISO is simple and safe...you can always go back and get everything you want from it.

As for streaming through a media server, then file form might be better...but sometimes the movie structure creates more than one .m2ts file...which could give you problems as far as playback is concerned. I read DVDFab is working on a feature to create a single .m2ts file which would be fine for media playback purpose. And would probably be the easiest way for you without losing any quality or time converting since no conversion is needed. You would also need a media streamer that natively plays .m2ts files...I believe Windows Media Center does? ...or you might need to ?

I'm still leaning towards ISO, but I'm still torn about ripping to file structure, i.e., .m2ts, and now mkv. Although it sounds like mkv compresses, even modestly, and I don't want to do that.

mkv does take a lot of time to convert...depending on your PC capabilities...I average about 12 hours to convert, but quality loss is pretty much unnoticeable.