Best software to rip DVD to disk.

[Jake the Dog]

I'm thinking about putting my meagre collection of DVD's into disk. I've had a look around and tried some demo's of rippers but I'm not happy with the results. I've seen DivX rips of DVD that were fantastic quality. my efforts have been far from fantastic, even if I configer the DivX encoder to high bit-rate and sound settings.

what software (preferably freeware) would y'all suggest for the job? seemingly DivX is the best codec to use but I'm open to any help and suggestions on that topic too.

tia for any comments, suggestions etc...

 

[Mercutio]

I like smartripper best as a pure ripping tool. DVD Decrypter does other neat stuff, too, though.

To get a good-quality divx on a CD, you probably need a bitrate calculator.
I use an older version of FlaskMPEG called FlaskAMD for my encoding, or the MPEG-2-enabled version of virtualdub. In both cases I've found stability to be very good. Some packages are faster, but crash all the time. Blech.

Remember not to encode the horizontal bars in a 16x9 frame. If you crop those out, you're preserving bitrate for the actual image on the screen.

 

[honold]

second smartripper

and merc, why not nandub?

 

[Mercutio]

Tried it a while ago. I must've rejected it for some reason, although at this point I don't remember why.

I've really moved on. Now I'm in the process of finding "the perfect DVD burning app". Ulead Movie Factory works pretty well for analog caps, but I haven't found a 9 - 5 tool that I can call perfect yet.

 

[blakerwry]

i've found that flask has poor results.. even though it is decently easy and fast




Virtualdub gets my vote for best encoder.

I use clad DVD XP 1.3 to rip.. but smart ripper is probably better...

Then I use DVD2AVI to "force film" and set the video to 24fps so i dont have to deinterlace or inversetelecene later on... and to rip out the audio to a .wav file while performing dynamic range compression on the soundtrack.



once I have the audio as a seperate .wav, and I have the video as .vob's and DVD2AVI has made it's project file (.d2v) I use the VFAPI codec to make a "fake AVI" that is readable by vDub..

I open the fake AVI and the audio in Vdub and use DIVX 2 pass to compress the video and the LAME ACM codec to compress the audio.

The most important thing in video compression with divx is to get the right resolution for your bitrate...

I use Ecuador's ABC bitrate calc to tell me the standard resolutions that are divisible by 16 (compress better with DIVX) and to tell me the bitrate I should use to get the movie on 1 CS... once I know the bitrate I should use, I can calculate what resolution will display best...


the formula for optimal image quality vs file size is this:
(DIVX bitrate) / (width * height * fps) = between .2 and .3

So, for example.. i have a movie that is 112 minutes, to fit this on 1 CD(700MB) I need to use a bitrate of 736kbps

A good standard resolution for 16:9 (that is divisible by 16) is 448 * 256

736000 (the bitrate) / (448 * 256 * 24fps) = .26

So this would be right in the middle of the optimal range that I want for DIVX encodes... so i would stick with this.



so in Vdub, I'd set my video bitrate for 736kbps (2 pass - pass1) and set a resize filter of 448 * 256 (presise bilinear) and encode the 1st pass.... once that's done I can setup my audio to encode LAME at 128kbps CBR and set my video to "2 pass- 2nd pass"... let it encode again and you're done...

*if you're doing 2 pass encoding you cannot change anything that has to do with video (including filters or codec options) between passes (except for the bitrate).

 

[honold]

you guys should really look at nandub again

 

[blakerwry]

why?

 

[honold]

because sbc is better!

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/gknot-main2.htm

try that and compare to a flask or vdub rip

 

[Jake the Dog]

thanks for all the tips guys. I've had a go at most of the tools suggested but so far I've not been able to rip any audio along with the video. most of the tools have something like a "don't decode audio" radio button which is selected and all other audio setting selections are greyed-out. what am I doing wrong?

 

[blakerwry]

your VOB files contain all the source... video (maybe from different angles), audio in different formats/languages, and subtitles... ripping these correctly is very important.. if you used the defults from smart ripper then you should have all streams intact after ripping..

so, you can try what I do with DVD2AVI... or flask can do it pretty much automatically (usually with some trial and error)...

dvd2avi:
1) have all your VOBs in one folder... and open the first vob with dvd2avi... it will automatically open the following vobs
2) goto Audio-> Dolby Digital-> Dynamic Range Control and select Heavy
3) Now goto File-> save project... save the d2v file with the vobs... anme doesnt matter

it will process the audio and save it as a .wav


in vdub, you have to open your sources and then encode/manipulate them...

From the file menu you can open your video file... to open an audio file, goto the Audio menu and select "Wav Audio"...

Vdub also has seperate modes for how you want to process audio/video... if you want to make any changes (such as encoding) you will want to select "full processing mode" at the bottom of the audio menu...

if you just wanted to directly copy the audio, without even decoding it, the 'direct stream copy' mode is for you.

The same type of modes exist for video as well... This allows you to manipulate audio and video streams independantly of each other... and to be able to cut/splice video and audio without quality loss or wastng time recompressing.

 

[Jake the Dog]

thanks for the lesson blakerwry, I've done exactly as you've said but still no audio I save the d2v, some processing occurs but no wav file is generated.

 

[double bit CRC error]

hmm.. perhaps you have to select a stream/format from the audio menu in DVD2AVI...

I always select audio track 1(it seems i never have to select the audio format)... but that may just be because I only play region 1 or region free disks... not sure what kind of audio you have on your specific DVD you're trying...

Are you sure you have not proccessed the audio streams out of the .VOBs in smart ripper? An easy check yould be to play the .VOBs in winDVD or powerDVD XP and see if you get audio as well as video...