I need to copy 2000+ DVDs in 3 days. What are my options?
Judging from the date on the reddit post, it&#x27;s a bit late for my comment (two days after the post), but the real issue is not how to duplicate so many DVDs, the issue is how to RIP those DVDs onto some cheap storage for later burning onto DVDs. So high data bandwidth between stacks of DVD players with lots of memory for caching (or however you cache DVD data streams). Fry&#x27;s had a 4TB external hard drive for $89 this weekend. Maybe have a bunch of SSDs as the intake point for the DVDs, and then offload the ripped copies from the SSDs onto physical drives while you&#x27;re changing out the DVDs. Would want to use the fastest interfaces available. I&#x27;ve no idea these days what the cool kids are using. (My first hard drive was a 5-1&#x2F;4&quot; full-height 10 MB MFM. Thought I would never need more storage than that. I think my second HD was 20 MB and used RLL.)<p>Organizing the DVDs by length would allow optimizing the loading&#x2F;ripping process to assure minimum time lost waiting for the operator&#x27;s hands to be free. This kind of planning makes for an interesting project.<p>It might make an interesting crowd-funded project, if it&#x27;s reasonably easy to get a research permit. Plan it out, go in with the hardware, come out with the images. Use all the error correction opportunities you&#x27;ve got available.<p>Do a web search for &quot;bulk dvd ripping&quot; (without quotes) and you&#x27;ll find lots and lots of discussion and advice, including some about building a dedicated DVD ripping rig. MakeMKV gets good press, in my very quick read of a few posts.<p>And there&#x27;s always the option of crowd-funding to raise the exact amount needed to pay off the break-even for Amazon&#x27;s investment. I can&#x27;t imagine they&#x27;d fight back too hard when looking at a large check vs. a non-performing asset, unless Bezos personally never intended to let the footage go free.