Distributed DVD Back-up Solution?

SoBeIcedT asks: "I just bought the third season of 24 [fox.com] on DVD and have begun to back it up to DVD+R using DVD-Shrink on Windows XP. Being the gadget loving guy I am, it makes sense that I would have multiple computers. The trouble is I can't make use of all of those CPU cycles and they go to waste. Is there a way (perhaps using clusterKnoppix or something of the sort) that I can easily use all of the processor power in my home to transcode the DVDs?" dvd::rip is one option that has clustering support. Are there any others?

Comments

Just buy Dual Layer Discs

[Nos.]

If you're not trying to actually compress the backup (it didn't sound like you were), might I suggest just buying Dual Layer discs and just doing a straight copy. Requires no CPU, and if you have two drives, hardly requries disk space. They are starting to come down in price, though they are significantly more than a DVD +/- R.

Of course there's also the option of just backing up to a large HD. Again, probably more expensive than blank DVDs, but lets face it, if you're buying box sets and then backing them up, money obviously isn't your biggest concern.

Unsure, but ...

[stinerman]

I do know that in order to transcode MPEG2, you need at least a full GOP (group of pictures) in order. You obviously can't send frame 1 to cpu 1, frame 2 to cpu 2, etc due to P-frame and B-frame limitations. It seems to me that it might work in a distributed fashion if the program breaks the DVD at I-frames. Then you might have to worry about closed vs. open GOPs and all that jazz.

I'd see what the guys at Doom9 think before committing to anything.

I Queue, rather than Distribute

[swillden]

I'm backing up my entire DVD collection onto hard drives. I have a PC attached via DVI to my 50" TV and we generally watch the movies off of the drive, rather than the disk. So this is a question I've put some thought into.

My solution is not to bother with distributed transcoding, because although dvd::rip does it nicely, I just don't find it worth the effort. My media PC runs MythTV and the MythDVD ripper/transcoder does a nice job of queuing up the work. I throw a DVD in, pick the correct title, choose my quality settings (either Perfect, which retains the full DVD stream, not transcoding at all, or Excellent, which transcodes with XVid to files in the range of 1-2GiB, with generally good quality) and hit "go". 10-15 minutes later, the DVD ripping stage is done, and I throw another DVD in and start ripping it. Meanwhile, transcode has started working on the first transcode job. When the second DVD rip is done, the transcoding job is added to the queue, to be started when the first transcode finishes.

Throughout the course of the day, I throw another DVD in the tray whenever I happen to think of it... usually every hour or so. Meanwhile, the transcoding jobs just queue up. The one machine does them all, in sequence. It takes 3-4 hours per transcoding job (on a Sempron 2800+ downclocked to run as a 2400+), so the box just keeps chugging away, all day and all night. I'm lazy enough about starting new jobs that it usually manages to almost catch up during the night. Right now I have about five jobs in the queue and I'm about to put another disk in.

I have other boxes that I could use to distribute the load, but I find that I actually get more transcoding done this way because it takes less of my attention.

Of course, I wouldn't mind at all if someone hacked MythDVD to distribute the work... then I could queue *and* distribute.

Comparison of various DVD reencoders

[RotJ]

DVD.box.sk has an article comparing seven different DVD reencoding applications. DVD Shrink ranked low, while InterVideo DVD Copy came out on top.