Ripping DVDs the easy way....

[Takmadeus]

Well, here I am to share some of my experiences and help you all if possible..... now I'll teach you how to rip DVDs in the easiest way, as dvdhelp.com is rather slow and has too many annoyin tutorials, which are not easy to follow, I warn you, do not use this guide to make illegal copies of your DVDs, just to make backups (which by the way, will look awesome).... I'll just tell you how to make the AVI file from it, if you are planning to convert it to a SVCD, I suggest you check Razor Blade's Guide to make a SVCD...

For this you will need....

Smartripper
DVDx
Virtualdub
Media Player Classic
AC3 Filter
DivX codec
LAME MP3 encoder
A DVD-rom or DVD-R/RW drive
A DVD

Now let's get it on!

First of all, make sure you already unpacked and/or installed all the software above mentioned, now, open the DVD (just to unlock some files) using Media Player Classic, you do not have to see the entire movie, just a few seconds (if the movie, no the menu); did it work?, now, let's open Smartripper..... first of all, it will do some detections, showing some weird stuff, just ignore them unless there is an error (which is not very common at this point, as you lready played the DVD), and the main window will appear....

[Takmadeus]

As you can see, you must choose "Movie" on the left, and "stream processing" on the right..... in a short explanation, "backup" rips the entire movie but the result will be a harddisk eater, so beter not use it; and "files" will rip only the files you choose.... but you have to guess which one is the correct one....; the "input" tab, will allow you to choose only certain chapters and sounds from the movie, but this is a guide for summones, and this is very, very complicated.... better let's continue...

Check "Enable stream processing"

see that there are some checkboxes?... well, there are some that you MUST choose, that are:

-Video NTSC / 16:9 / 720x480....... this is the video file

-Audio english AC3(6Ch) 48kHz..... choose this in every rip, it will be present on every DVD, and unchecking it will leave you without sound, as this is the master sound track (something like that)

-Subtitle / Audio xxxxxx...... this is optional, will rip the subtitles or other sound languages (I typically choose either spanish subtitles or sound, as I am a Latin American)

-Other..... do not choose this, nomally it contains crap like menus and other things you won't really use....

In every of them, choose Direct stream copy on the right; when you are finished, press the "save selection" button and pick a target for the ripped DVD files (try to choose another directory other than the movie, gotta be organized )

click start


*I'll post the pics, the first one is the main window while making the choices, the second, the ripping window

[Takmadeus]

The ripping process will take like 15 minutes to be done, while at it, there are some things to be taken in account.....

the input and output frames.... this are not very impertant, they are just showing you which .vob files are being ripped, there is no need to pay too much attention to this...

the copy info.... well, this is more important, it'll show you the remaining time, and the speed.... remember that the dvd speed is higher, so a 5x is a normal speed, when it reaches 0x for more than 20 seconds and is not finished yet, there is someting wrong, make sure you played the dvd before doing all this....

the code info frame has 1 important thing.... the broken blocks counter..... you should not ignore this, as a broken block mean it is over.... so try opening the DVD and repeating the process again....


Okay, we fiished ripping, you can take out the DVD, now we will work from the hardisk, and start a process cxalled "encoding" and which will be the annoying part of the ripping - encoding process.....

now you should have something like this ins the directory where you stored the ripped files....

[T.O.F.K.A.Z]

Well you can offcourse do this or you could get a dvd-/+r(w) drive (like the Pioneer 106 for about 178€) download DVDDecrypter , choose which PGC you want to copy (or select all files if you want a full disk copy later on) then buy DVD2One (might cost 49€ or something but it's worth it) and backup your dvd copy to a dvd-r (Princo 4 Speed Unlabeld á 1.46 (which includes a dvdbox)) to have the best quality with all the things you want (subtitles , audio tracks).

Might cost you some but it's worth it ............ /me stares at my backedup dvd collection 252 movies and counting.

[Takmadeus]

now here comes the hard part....

open DVDx (main window at the bottom) and click on the IFO button....

now navigate to where the ripped files are, and choose the file (there must be only one or more if you ripped the whole DVD) it'll pop some errors or warnings.... ignore the warnings, check out the errors, try to open the file again if an error pops up...

now, if everything went right, there should appear a window (could be accesed further if you click on the "in" button) there are some configuration options, I'll guide you through the ones you should manipulate....

- "Program Chain" here's where you choose the movie.... as expected, select the longest file, in this case, the one that is 1 hour, 45 minutes long

- "Audio track" this is important, here's where you will give the movie some sound.... choose your preferred language (for english, the best sound, or the 6Ch one is the main soundtrack, other english sound tracks normally are commentaries and interviews, so ignore them) if you speak another language, just choose the one you feel more comfrotable with as there are no interviews in other languages, it is safe to choose any

- "Audio 48khz to 44.1khz" here you could do some mistake and screw everything, as the sound can get choppy and all.... just use "Normal Quality (no conversion)" and you'll be fine

- "Dolby Surround" Depends on your likes (do you like kickass sound? )

- "Volume" set it high, as normally, the final movie ends up with very low sound... I usually set it to 10

- "Subtitle" not all the movies come with the audio language that you choose, so choose the one you need (if it comes with it) just remember that once put and encoded, you won't be able to remove them... so think it carefully

- "Output frame rate" this one is tricky.... try to choose a lower one than the original move has, as a higher value can end up in a size waste and a cut movie.... just choose the one that is lower.... some movies have custom fps, and the lower frame rate in this option is higher than the one of the movie, so choose the lower one (in this case, 23.976 NTSC), I'll tell you later a workaround this

- "save your DVD drive" just put a reasonable buffer.... if you got 512 Megs of ram, you could choose 128.... for fastest resluts store them in RAM

well, that's all for the decoding part.... easy, wasn't it?... what? did I missed some options?.... just ignore them, messing with them can be very bad.....

[Takmadeus]

now we continue with the hard part (did you think it was over?)

click on the "OUT" button in the main window.... now we will give our movie a shape...

there is a drop down box, there you will choose a format (use AVI, for a SVCD use razor blade's guide...

*AVI specific frame....

-"Use LAME" (already installed, choose its properties with the "Audio LAME" button, the options shown below work like a charm, but you are free to choose some others of you want..

-"codec" (actually it has no name, but it is for you to understand) choose DivX or the one of your choice....

- "pass 1 settings"... just the settings of the encoder, in my case I use 1014 kbps to give it good quality...

- "Enable Video" duh.... obvious

- "Enable 2nd" ignore this one...

* Expert settings frame

ignore this one, after all we want this to be easy, don't we?

*Export settings frame (this is the important one.... so read carefully)

- resolution.... take in account the aspect ratio, rmmember to calculate the size according if it is 16:9 or 4:3... in my case, all my videos are 480*xxx (the xxx is variable, 360 if it is 4:3 or 270 if it is 16:9)

- zoom... leave as it is

- resize... ignore

- "Max Frame" this one is important, very, very important.... if you chose Whole, it will code all the rames, but if the output fps are higher, it will "eat" some extra frames, making the movie cut (remember what I told you before about using a lower framerate?... this is why) If the movie used a low framerate, here you can fix that, typing a number that is higher than the movie lenght (to know that, check the "time to encode" message box) normally make it 10 minutes longer, don't worry.... it will code until the movie finishes, so whatever remaining time will not be coded)

- "Volume don't exceed"... choose infinite, that way the final movie will end up being more than 1 Gb, but we'll fix that later...

Ignore everything else

[Takmadeus]

Now..... choose "FILE" in the main window and browse a directory for it to be stored... but remember, select a directory other than the one where the rips go.....

once finished press start (the red button in the main window) and go to sleep or to class or wherever because normally, this procedure takes the longest time (around 3 or 4 hours).... when you are back you'll have the final movie, but it will be very big to be stored in say... a CD, but at least we got something, make sure to play the movie to check if it coded correctly....

[Takmadeus]

Now we'll split the movie to fit a CD (if you are going to continue with Razor Blade's tutorial, you can do it now)

First of all we'll open virtualdub, then we will move the slider to the middle of the movie (normally the first hour of it), we will take note of the frame number (in this case, the 74000) and then press the button with the black arrow pointing to the left (the one highlighted in the picture).... then we will move the slider to the end of the movie and press the other button with the black arrow (the one pointing to the right)... now you must see that the segment of the right is highlighted.... now press delete..... yep, all gone... fir this to be quick, go to "video > Direct stream Copy" now we are prepared to save the movie....

go to File "save as AVI" and give it a name and a location (do NOT overwrite the original movie, we still need the other segment)... in this case C:\Peliculas\Reign of Fire\CD1

now reopen the movie (the original) and repeat the process.... but in this case go from the beginning to the frame number you just wrote somewhere else (in this case, from the frame 0 to the frame 74000) and press delete again...., save as avi and give it another name..... in this case C:\Peliculas\Reign of Fire\CD2

now we have finished, you can burn the movies onto 2 CDs and store them away as backups.... since we chose 480*270 in this movie, the windowed size is very small, but when in fullscreen, it will have quite good quality....

now, do not forget to erase the ripped files and the original movie to save space...

*pictures... 1st: sliding Virtualdub to the middle of the movie; 2nd: location of the "direct stream copy" option, 3rd: saving as AVI window; 4 and 5: files to be deleted after the whole process....

[Kane]

Alternatively, you can download GordianKnot, which does 90% of this all for you....

Sorry to rain on your parade man, but I just hate people to expend more effor than is entirely nesscary...

[Ipswitch]

www.doom9.org

it really is a better way....

[hushypushy]

Gordian knot does it all at once, Lord Kane is right, you just gotta know what you are doing but that's IT, that program contains it all

[Takmadeus]

yeah.... but i guess mine is a different way to do things, beides, I like to have control on such stuff

[Iran]

or u can just use DVDShrink to rip ur dvd and then burn it or use DVDxCOPY

[hushypushy]

Originally Posted by Iran

or u can just use DVDShrink to rip ur dvd and then burn it or use DVDxCOPY

doesnt DVDxCopy Xpress do that already? IIRC DVDxCopy burns it full quality, possibly taking 2 DVDs, however DVDxCopy uses some "secret" compression to burn it on 1 DVD, every time...

however i dont know if any DVDxCopy product supports CDs

[chp]

I prefer to use XMPEG 5.x.... verry good

[Noxious Ninja]

Originally Posted by Lord Kane

Alternatively, you can download GordianKnot, which does 90% of this all for you....

Sorry to rain on your parade man, but I just hate people to expend more effor than is entirely nesscary...

Yeah, and there's already guides...

http://www.doom9.org/r4r-guide.htm

http://www.ogsth.com/snowbeach/MPEG-...er20030702.pdf

[Takmadeus]

I know there are already guides for that, but I guess i did it for the same reason Razor Blade did the SVCD guide (and there are tons of guides for that as well) besides, one differencen in my method is that all the components are freeware, while the others mentioned are shareware (well, the one's mentioned that I've seen around)

[mads]

hmmm i prefer DVD:rip ( http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/ ) and there is a great guide here ( http://www.bunkus.org/dvdripping4linux/index.html ) and all is done on Linux

[Noxious Ninja]

Originally Posted by takmadeus

I know there are already guides for that, but I guess i did it for the same reason Razor Blade did the SVCD guide (and there are tons of guides for that as well) besides, one differencen in my method is that all the components are freeware, while the others mentioned are shareware (well, the one's mentioned that I've seen around)

Everything in the guides I posted is free. Most of it is even open-source.