Securing My DVD's at College... (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Pryor]

Is going to college worth losing your DVDs? Then forget college. All that tuition money could be better spent buying more DVDs.

I think your best bet is to go with that gun cabinet Ron-P suggested. It's relatively cheap and looks effective.

 

[Joe D]

Some of you are pretty anal... lighten up a bit. While I wouldn't let just anyone borrow my DVD's when I was in college, I had no problem with friends who took care of their own equipment borrow my DVD's, and vice versa.

Some people take care of things, others don't. Let the former borrow your stuff, and don't let the latter.

Plus, if you don't let anyone borrow your stuff, nobody will let you borrow theirs, and I'm sure their are movies out there that you haven't watched but don't feel like renting / buying.

 

[Joe Szott]

Sounds like maybe you should send the DVDs to college and stay home, they'll get more out of it.

j/k!

Seriously though, the only way you are going to keep them 100% safe is if you don't take them. Next to that, locking them up is your best bet. But really you need a solid strategy about borrowing/loaning them out, and "I'm not going to" is a lot harder than you think. The first time a cute girl in a short skirt asks to borrow one, watch your will crumble into dust. And once the gate is open on borrowing, it's open.

Burning (or decrypting) software is both legal and free online, here you go:

www.doom9.net

Grab DVD Decrypter to backup your collection and you're set. This program cannot burn a DVD-R, so it is backup only (in other words legal.) The files play as well as if the disc itself was used.

Fair warning though, if you do take your DVD collection to campus, no matter how vigilant you are or what steps you take, you will lose some discs. Just accept it before you go and it won't be such a shock and the end of freshman year you can only find 132 discs out of 144.

 

[Ricardo C]

Small price to pay to keep the moochers off my back

 

[Christ Reynolds]

why would it be worse? if he brings the dvds, he will have to say "i dont want you to borrow them", looking like a prick. if he copies them to the hard drive, he can say "sorry, they are on the hard drive, not very easy to take the hd out and let you copy them (even though it is easy, just a pain). it turns his argument from "i dont want you to" to "i can't".

CJ

 

[Scott_lb]

Here's a question: How far away is your university from where you currently live (I assume you're living with your parents). If it's not that far, you could always bring a handful or two and swap them for others from your collection every time you return home. Call me a worrier, but I wouldn't feel comfortable bringing half of my current DVD collection (I'm at about 300 myself) to a dorm room. Even though your roomate seems cool, you don't know what kind of people will be finding their way into your room. When I was in college, we had 8 "suites" on each floor, each consisting of three rooms and a shared bathroom. Although I always had my own single, one of my roomates shared his room and his roomate had plenty of people over who were in awe of his then top-of-the-line Denon receiver. Not only did it get abused while he wasn't there, plenty of people talked about stealing it. Let me ask you this: assuming that you aren't bringing a whole home theater system to a dorm room, why not just bring some of the "staples" (i.e., Indiana Jones, Star Wars, LOTR for me) and spend the rest of your time studying, going to parties, meeting people (especially the female kind), and kicking back watching tv?

I would also considering making copies of those staple DVD's for your own purposes as well (if you or a friend has that ability).

Out of curiousity are you a gamer, and if so, do you have a similar concern in that area as well?

 

[Andrew_Sch]

Well that decryption software seemd like a great idea, until I tried ripping my first disc (The Elephant Man) and saw that it takes up 7 gigs!!! My hard-drive only holds 60.:frowning:

 

[Max Knight]

Hard drives are not that expensive. Figure $200 and you'll have enough space for tons of movies. And remember, since you are ripping you don't have to take all the audio tracks. Just take the one you'll use.

 

[Chris Moe]

Or use DVDshrink http://www.dvdshrink.org/

 

[Christ Reynolds]

use dvdshrink, or encode at a much lower bitrate (divx, xvid). a 2 hour movie is watchable when the file size is ~700mb. not exactly reference quality, but looks decent enough until you get back home.

CJ

 

[Andrew_Sch]

About how big will the file be for a typical movie using DVDShrink?

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Gee, you could just record 'em all onto Beta tapes too!

 

[Christ Reynolds]

actually i dont think dvdshrink is the optimal use for you, it just takes the dual layer (~8GB) disc, and shrinks the quality down for burning onto a single layer disc. you dont get a single playable file, you get vob files like the ones that are already on the dvd, but smaller in size. you need an encoder, try tmpegenc or virtualdub.

CJ

 

[DaveF]

I should have said that it will be more annoying. This is a computer at college in a dorm room. It will be networked. It will be trivial to copy. Everyone will want to copy all 144 DVDs he has stored on his harddrive.

With physical media, people understand a person worries about it being lost, broken, stolen -- why you might not lend it out. With digital media, it's much harder to make people understand why you won't let them copy your files.

If I were paranoid, I'd suggest it could make the computer a specific target for hackers -- those who want to copy the movies and won't take "no" for an answer.

 

[Chris Moe]

Many DVD software players will play VOB files with no problem so this is really a non issue.

 

[Phil_L]

GO TERPS! Good luck at school Andrew. I went to grad school there and there is indeed a crime problem. My (off-campus) apartment was burglarized while I lived there. (though remarkably, they didn't take DVD's just CD's, though they got my DVD player). Have fun in College Park and take advantage of its proximity to DC. Oh, and eat lots of wings at Sante Fe for me, I miss them.

 

[Seth--L]

What is far more likely to be stolen is a laptop.

As long as you lock your door, you'll be fine.

If you're really paranoid, you could spend $100-$200 and buy a safe.

 

[ChrisMatson]

For wings, you gotta go to Cluck-U!

 

[Christ Reynolds]

sure, probably all software dvd players will play vob files, and it is only a non issue if you dont mind that a movie is split up into 4 or 5 vob files.

CJ

 

[Mike Graham]

I would suggest just bring half a dozen discs in a case logic case and discretely tuck it deep into your desk or cabinet. Bringing your entire collection would be a bit dangerous. You say your room mate and you won't be drinking or partying in your room, but you should beware of making any of those assumptions, as people can change very, very quickly in university, especially room mates.

Besides, if its your first year of university, you'll be too busy with school work and meeting new people to worry about your discs.

Ripping the discs to your hard drive is a fine idea -- a 2 hour movie can look great when using the xVID codec, giving a file size of around 700MB on average.

Also, concerning moving into the dorm, you'll probably want to bring a lot of things, but I think when you get there you'll find all you really need is a week and a half's worth of clothing, food and school supplies. Good luck and have fun!