Best program to rip DVD to Plex Media Server for streaming and watching

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Plex cannot support DVD files? Need to stream DVD contents to Plex Media Server? The article will help you to convert DVD to Plex Media Server compatible format for watching and streaming.

Plex Media Server bridges the gap between your computer and your home theater, doing so with a visually appealing user interface that provides instant access to your media. Plex allows us to store all DVD Movies, Videos, TV shows, Songs and Photos on a central server and play them anywhere you want. You can watch DVD movies via Plex on your smart TV, Roku, HD Media Players, iPhone, iPad, computer, tablets or smartphones, etc.

• Hot Search: MP4 to Plex | DVD to iTunes | DVD to PS4 | DVD to Xbox One | DVD to Dropbox

Searching high and low online, I finally got some tips and ticks for getting all my DVDs into Plex. To get DVD collection to Plex media server, what you need to do is to rip DVD into Plex Media Server friendly format like MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, etc. first. There’s all kinds of different software out there (some free, some not) with a variety of different options. Among them, I found a good DVD Ripper (Review) and can be taken as a powerful DVD to Plex converter software to rip copy-protected DVD to Plex-compatible format with a wink,  and even extract MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, etc. audio from DVD movies.

Note: According to their web page, Plex supports the following audio and video formats:

Here I will an easy guide for copying and streaming DVDs to Plex Media Server with a few mouse clicks. This DVD to Plex conversion will be done in good quality and high speed.

How to rip DVD to Plex media server for streaming and watching?

Step 1: Add the DVD movies

Insert your DVD disc to the drive, then launch the DVD to Plex Ripper(Mac version is here) and click the “Load DVD” button to select and load the DVD movies you want to store on your Plex. VIDEO_TS folder, ISO and IFO files are also supported. After the DVD movie is loaded, you can preview it on the right viewing window and adjust volume or take snapshots freely.

Tips: You can click on the dropdown list of “Subtitles” to select your needed subtitles so that you can view DVD movies with proper subtitles.

Step 2: Decide output format

Click the “Profile” -> “Common Video” or “HD Video” option, and choose MP4, MKV, MOV, AVI, etc. formats recognized by Plex as output format. You can also select H.264 Video (*.mp4) for Plex Media Server.

Note:

1. The output format is preferably in a common format, like MP3 for audio, MP4 for video. The more common format you use, the more devices you can stream to. For example, if you use FLAC instead of MP3 for your music, you can’t stream to your Xbox One/360. Just keep in mind that not all devices support all formats of media.
2. With the right settings you can retain the quality of the original DVD while also saving space. This is particularly helpful when streaming over your network, depending on your network quality. Simply click “Settings” bar and you can tweak the settings to your satisfaction and even save it as preset.

Step 3: Convert DVD to Plex Media Server

Click the “Start” button under the preview window, and the DVD ripper will start the conversion from DVD movies to Plex Media Server. This will take a while, depends on the encoding settings, hardware of your PC/Mac computer and the length of the DVD file.

After the conversion completed successfully, drop the ripped DVD file into Plex Media Server easily. Now, you can watch DVD movies via Plex media server on your smart TV, Apple TV, Xbox 360/One, Roku, computer tablets or smartphones both home and away.

Knowledge Expansion: Plex Installation

1. The Plex installation is straight forward on a Windows PC and there is no special tweaking needed. You must create a Plex account during the installation which is free. You must also tell Plex which folders contain your media.

2. The Plex sign-up screen is where you assign the server name:

3. This screen lets you assign your media folders:

4. You can configure Plex for Internet channels:

5. Plex adds meta information to your media which it gets from the Internet:

Below is a tutorial for setting up PlexConnect on local network to stream videos to Apple TV without jailbreak.

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