Ripping to DviX

[phenixdragon]

not really a Sage question but does anyone know a good program to rip DVDs to DivX to play through Sage? I can't seem to find any real good programs for this.

[rich_l]

Dvd decrypter to rip the dvd...Autogordian knot to encode it. When you use dvd decrypter, set it to IFO mode. Click decrypt. Go to auto gk, select the directory from the dvd input selection, select quality; I like 1gb since it is a multipass option Do not use the % setting. Each time i have done that it only does 1 pass and looks like crap. Select the sound options and then click start.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by phenixdragon

not really a Sage question but does anyone know a good program to rip DVDs to DivX to play through Sage? I can't seem to find any real good programs for this.

Dr. Divx. Easy to use, only $30, supports batching...worked for over hundreds of encodes.

[m0ng00se30]

http://www.doom9.net

[phenixdragon]

Well I have tried Dr. Divx and it works great but I do not understand the VOB files and which ones I needed to rip.

But I tried ripping one of the Futurama DVDs by what rich l suggested but it only ripped one of the shows. HOw would I go about ripping each one? A long time ago I use to rip DVDs from TV shows with Super DVD ripper and it was pretty easy to do it but now with a later version of Divx it has issues using it so it doesn't work.

But what rich l suggested seems like it would work much easier with movies which I have had problems with before.

And is there a way to change the Divx quality with Autogordian knot?

Thanks!

[phenixdragon]

Frogot to add, I will check out doom9.net when I go to work tonight. Generally have nothing better to do then surf the net.

[silkshadow]

Nero recode. Its the easiest and fastest program to recode DVDs and everything else, actually, to MPEG4. Its not really divx but its similar and, IMO, better. However, this works for DVDs without DCSS. If they are encrypted disks you need something like DVDidle, DVDgenie or anydvd.

[rich_l]

I had forgotten about nero recode. It works really good too. Just do the dvd decrypt program to copy and get rid of the encryption and open the file into Nero Recode.

In dvd decrypt, IFO mode gets rid of the dvd menu structure and only gives you the movie files. File mode should be used if you want to keep the dvd menu structure for making backups and burning those to dvd. On the Futurama discs, it may be a little trickier to run the IFO mode, but i think you may have to run it selecting each stream. I have not tried that but the dvd decrypter forums may have some info on that. I would mess around with it, but i have a few papers to write tonight (trust me, my grammar is better in those papers than what i type here....lol).

To change quality in auto gk, just change the size of the output file by selecting from the drop down list, manually adjusting it, or changing the % quality.

[phenixdragon]

I will play around with it at work here. Right now I am testing out Star Wars IV and see how it works.

I heard nothing but good things with Nero, but is Nero as compatible as Dvix? Such as DVD players and such? I was thinkign of picking up one of the Dvix DVD players that can network and read files from my server but would the Nero codec work?

[silkshadow]

Can't help you there but maybe someone else here knows. If not, take a look at doom9's forums. I am sure someone there had a similar question. Also, you can always email Nero support. I've never used DVDdecrypt but I've heard good things about it so definately give that a try.

[dvd_maniac]

Nero Recode is not very compatible for set top players at the moment. Very few options available there.
Pro's for using Recode:
1. If you look at Doom9's codec comparison, Nero is the hands down winner for mp4 compression.
2. ASP version playable in SageTV with a little work (add .mp4 in properties file).
3. Easier to encode (rip whole dvd in file mode and then import each episode into Recode) AutoGK: need to rip each episode seperately in ifo mode into seperate folders.

I myself use AutoGK (Xvid) for most movies at 475-600MB looks decent on my 57" Hitachi HDTV.
Nero Recode ASP mode for all episode discs at 200MB per 45Minute ep.
Nero Recode AVC mode for Great Sci-Fi movies, high motion action flicks and my favorite movies. (Takes about 8x longer to encode so I use sparingly) I have Troy, all Star Wars & Trek movies, and many more at 500MB and can't tell difference between them and original DVDs.

[phenixdragon]

Wow, I am reading up on Nero and it looks like they are by far the best and seems pretty simple to use.

Now doesn't a DVD player just need to support Mpeg-4 for it to work? I noticed some players say they play Mpeg-4 while others do not but the ones I loko at all say Divx.

Any ideas?

[Surtr]

FYI - if you do go with a set top box that does MPEG-4, avoid those that do it via transcoding (process on the server transcodes from MP4 to MP2); I have a govideo that does it that way and I'm not real happy with it. Takes a lot of CPU on the server side and quality on the client suffers. Because of that I'm replacing my replay and govideo DVD with an HTPC running sage client.

[dvd_maniac]

Now doesn't a DVD player just need to support Mpeg-4 for it to work?

NO... It has to support Nero Digital mp4 specifically. Nero uses a different audio format than standard mpeg-4 videos and most mpeg-4 streams uses the AVI container where ND uses the MP4 container which screws some STB dvd players up.

From Nero's website

Also look here for more players that support the MP4 container

[jominor]

Originally Posted by phenixdragon

Well I have tried Dr. Divx and it works great but I do not understand the VOB files and which ones I needed to rip.

But I tried ripping one of the Futurama DVDs by what rich l suggested but it only ripped one of the shows. HOw would I go about ripping each one? A long time ago I use to rip DVDs from TV shows with Super DVD ripper and it was pretty easy to do it but now with a later version of Divx it has issues using it so it doesn't work.

But what rich l suggested seems like it would work much easier with movies which I have had problems with before.

And is there a way to change the Divx quality with Autogordian knot?

Thanks!

Well, that's not a Dr. Divx problem. I've ripped literally over 460 DVDs. I use DVD Decrypter to rip the VOBs and Dr. Divx to compress themn. An easier solution I've never heard of.

If you are having issues, you are clearly doing something wrong. What? <shrug> But the problem is not with Dr. Divx.

[silkshadow]

Yeah, phenixdragon posted that he knows he did something wrong and was asking for help . That why I suggested Nero. You don't need to know anything about DVD file structure to use it. You just give it the disc and it figures everything out for you. BTW, I tried both Nero and Dr. Divx after AutoGK was giving me bad audio sync. I found that Nero's recode's PQ was better, it was faster, it was easier to use, it was more flexible (AVC codecs), and it has not given me an audio sync issue once. Dr. divx gave me audio sync problems twice in the 2 weeks I was evauating it and Nero. Mind, neither of those audio sync probs were from DVDs but from compressing Sage recordings. Of course, YMMV.

@dvd_maniac, nice info, thanks! That might be something to pickup for the bedroom TV.

[phenixdragon]

Hmm...after reading some things Nero seems pretty cool and all but not very supported yet. Apex was suppose to have 3 DVD players that are Nero certified but they are not out yet. 2 which can be networked and one of them even comes with a HDD.

At least for now I think I will stick with Divx since it has support on DVD players and other devices. Even some of the biggest movies of the past few years and video games are using Divx.

Hopfully Ahead will get more support for Nero.

[BerrantRyke]

I use this for my DVD to Divx/Xvid conversions. Easy as clicking next:

Fairuse Wizard

[phenixdragon]

I gave it a try and liked some things about it and also didnt like some things about it. I think Auto Gordian Knot just needs to have better options like to change the bit rate would make is top dog. But both hold their own, least my first impressions.