@Melissa BearTrix

It is funny you bring this up. As today I have been transcoding some of my DVD collection for my Media Server. I use MakeMKV with HandBrake.

I know what you are thinking ... "Why not just uses HandBrake?". Well, glad you asked . If I was transcoding from older formats to MKV, MP4 or WebM then that is exactly what I would do. Though dealing with optical media is a bit more delicate. When simultaneously keeping the optical drive reading while doing heavy computations for transcoding we will likely overheat the drive and cause flaws in our transcoded copy not to mention massive slow downs. To work around this issue I use MakeMKV to rip the DVD to a raw (uncompressed) MKV container. This takes around 15 minutes a DVD on my ancient system (or 18 minutes for ripping two DVDs at once) . Because it is not transcoding I do not run into the heat issues. I then transcode the raw MKV container to a highly compressed version. Both of these tools have a GUI version, though you know me, I do not use them . Why? Because that workflow is slow compared to my scripted CLI approach. I have a dual_rip script I wrote to first invoke two concurrent MakeMKV sessions (providing there are DVDs in both of my drives, if not it falls back to just ripping the drive that does have a DVD in it). I can safely rip two DVDs at a time with no significant loss of time than just ripping one at a time. Then, on success, the script will invoke HandBrake to transcode the raw containers.

I typically transcode two DVDs in less than an hour using this approach. Personally, for me, it is a great workflow. And if you are a GUI type of gal (pun intended ) The GUI version of these programs are available. They work just as fast but you cannot rip two DVDs at once with this approach. If you only have one DVD drive then that is not an issue .

Unus Nemo