Best format to convert DVDS

[scott2020]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

As Gerry said, some DVD's have a DTS track in addition to their AC3 track. They are generally higher quality since they use a higher bitrate. Every DTS track I've seen on DVD is at 768Kbps except for Twister whose DTS track is 1.5Mbps.

Here are the settings I use in Handbrake.

Cool. I suppose if a DVD does have DTS it will be shown as an option in the Audio & Subtitles tab in the first dropdown? Under the Video tab, do you ever use the Decomb and Detelecine filters? I have done both ways but don't see a huge difference in quality.

Scott

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by scott2020

Cool. I suppose if a DVD does have DTS it will be shown as an option in the Audio & Subtitles tab in the first dropdown? Under the Video tab, do you ever use the Decomb and Detelecine filters? I have done both ways but don't see a huge difference in quality.

Scott

As long as the film is tagged properly you should be able to get away without using the detelecine option. The problem crops up when a film isn't tagged but is telecined. I've run into this with movies such as The Secret of My Success and Hackers.

[jasongrimme]

Is handbrake any better with interlaced content? I've read the decomb filter is pretty good, but I just can't seem to get over anything I deinterlaced looks like youtube when I am done. However, I haven't tried any DVD or captured SD content, been trying to find a good way to encode my DV-AVI camcorder videos into something watchable in Sage.

Maybe if I replace my larger LCD TVs w/ 13" models I wouldn't notice

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by jasongrimme

Is handbrake any better with interlaced content? I've read the decomb filter is pretty good, but I just can't seem to get over anything I deinterlaced looks like youtube when I am done. However, I haven't tried any DVD or captured SD content, been trying to find a good way to encode my DV-AVI camcorder videos into something watchable in Sage.

Maybe if I replace my larger LCD TVs w/ 13" models I wouldn't notice

I think it does pretty well. Better than AutoMKV. Although I don't use the decomb filter. I use the "Slowest" deinterlace mode.

[tedhartman]

I looked throughout this thread and did not see any mention of magicdvdripper being used. imo it has to be the best ripper I have ever used. the program will rip to video_ts of course but will also rip the main movie only and to top it all off will transcode to almost any file format there is.

time to rip a protected dvd is about 28 minutes average to nas storage. then i rip form the video_ts directory to appletv and from there I move it all to my mac and transcode the .mov file to m4v for my iphone/ipod using quicktime.

I could rip the video_ts to ipod or iphone with majicdvdripper but want to keep the .mov file because i have a mac mini on the home theater. Just another way to watch movies.

[Taddeusz]

Sorry, not for me. Magic DVD Ripper isn't a very powerful program. No cropping, no anamorphic video, very limited profiles, no MKV, and it's not free. I suppose it would work well if all you needed was something to make movies for portable devices but, IMHO, doesn't appear to be up to the task of media archiving.

I use DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink for strictly DVD duties and then Handbrake for DVD trancoding and MeGUI for HD transcoding. True, the first two are no longer being developed but they still serve their purposes well. Until something notably better comes along they are it for me. No need for anything else. Particularly something more limited than what I'm using.

The fact that it costs $35 is really a downside considering all the other free stuff out there that does exactly the same thing and more.

[scott2020]

Earlier in this thread I did mention Magic DVD ripper. I purchased a copy and use it. It is nice to be able to put in a DVD and let it do it's thing. But I do like the advanced features of the other products, plus they don't cost anything.

I tried converting "Night at the museum" (or in, whatever) as it was the only DVD I could find with a DTS track right now! Anyway, I selected the DTS audio track and output to AC3 and ran the conversion, but I got no audio on the HD-200 extender when I played. It is OK to do DTS to AC3 and it should play on the extender correct?

Scott

[RocKKer]

I leave mine as native, I notice some of you transcode (ala DVD Shrink, etc.) for a little more work you could encode. For me this is to get it to a single layer DVD size.

I rip with DVD Fab HD Decrypter, free version, movie only and if it is over a single layer DVD size I recode with DVD-Rebuilder, fairly easy, it's not a one button answer, but it does promise to give a higher PQ than transcoding.

I can't say I notice much on my 50". I would be curious if you with the bigger screens notice any PQ difference with an DVD_Rebuilder vs DVD-Shrink media?

[pgrillo]

After reading through most of this thread it appears that there are several approaches to getting a DVD onto Hard Disk. Shrinking, using folder methods, and i guess (though i didn't see it) presumably you could image a DVD onto a disk drive, though i don't know about playback. So, i'm interested in getting the highest quality (no difference between playing it in my DVD or from my hard drive).

One question i had, and forgive me if it is naive. Talking standard DVD (not blueray)

My DVD player provides upconverting (or whatever you wish to call it) using a faroudja chip in it to take advantage of 1080i on my large screen.

In all of these cases in this thread, when playing back - is there anything comparable? Feel free to comment on whether this DVD upconverting is worthwhile in your response - i just want to know if i'm going to get the same results playing back from a hard drive. If there is anything inherent in the playback that does comparable upconversion. Maybe that is a given now in playback software, but i'd just like some confirmation.

Disk space is not an issue to me - it's cheap.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by pgrillo

After reading through most of this thread it appears that there are several approaches to getting a DVD onto Hard Disk. Shrinking, using folder methods, and i guess (though i didn't see it) presumably you could image a DVD onto a disk drive, though i don't know about playback. So, i'm interested in getting the highest quality (no difference between playing it in my DVD or from my hard drive).

One question i had, and forgive me if it is naive. Talking standard DVD (not blueray)

My DVD player provides upconverting (or whatever you wish to call it) using a faroudja chip in it to take advantage of 1080i on my large screen.

In all of these cases in this thread, when playing back - is there anything comparable? Feel free to comment on whether this DVD upconverting is worthwhile in your response - i just want to know if i'm going to get the same results playing back from a hard drive. If there is anything inherent in the playback that does comparable upconversion. Maybe that is a given now in playback software, but i'd just like some confirmation.

Disk space is not an issue to me - it's cheap.

IMHO, upconverting is just a buzzword. Anyone with any kind of decent tech knowledge should know this. Maybe the scaling and smoothing algorithms used by the Faroudja chip are somehow better. But there's not really that much you can do to squeeze more quality from a 720x480 DVD by "upconverting" it to 1080i.

The answer to your question is really which one produces the best scaling, your extender/htpc or TV? You'll have to experiment with each method and decide that one for yourself. Personally, I go for smaller size at the expensive of a little quality. Maybe one day when I have enough storage I won't worry about it.

Right now DVD's are a pretty poor source of video. 720x480, while watchable, doesn't produce that great of a picture when you're watching it on an HDTV. As I said, no "upscaling" in the world can make a 720x480 image look as good as 1080i. It's just not possible.

[heffneil]

I just wanted to make a note that I was trying to rip a DVD on my windows machine and it couldn't do it. I put it in my mac and it ripped it just fine. So Handbrake seems to work much better on the mac than the pc. Sad since my server is windows based and I would prefer to use it for ripping because of its horsepower!

Neil

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I just wanted to make a note that I was trying to rip a DVD on my windows machine and it couldn't do it. I put it in my mac and it ripped it just fine. So Handbrake seems to work much better on the mac than the pc. Sad since my server is windows based and I would prefer to use it for ripping because of its horsepower!

Neil

Maybe it's actually a difference in the error correction on the drives in each machine? How scratched is that DVD?

[heffneil]

Brand new out of the pack - not a scratch on it! i don't think its the drive types. Maybe the version of Java?

Neil

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Brand new out of the pack - not a scratch on it! i don't think its the drive types. Maybe the version of Java?

Neil

huh? Handbrake doesn't use Java. Still, could be the drive. Maybe your burner is flakey and producing weak burns. I had that happen on one of my drives.

[heffneil]

Oh well I thought it uses Java but it isn't my burner this was a brand new movie I bought. I think it just runs better on the mac. My 2 cents and I am not even asking for change!

[paulbeers]

Or you could use a program like DVDFAB HD which is free and works without any problems on Windows.....

[pgrillo]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

IMHO, upconverting is just a buzzword. Anyone with any kind of decent tech knowledge should know this. Maybe the scaling and smoothing algorithms used by the Faroudja chip are somehow better. But there's not really that much you can do to squeeze more quality from a 720x480 DVD by "upconverting" it to 1080i.

The answer to your question is really which one produces the best scaling, your extender/htpc or TV? You'll have to experiment with each method and decide that one for yourself. Personally, I go for smaller size at the expensive of a little quality. Maybe one day when I have enough storage I won't worry about it.

Right now DVD's are a pretty poor source of video. 720x480, while watchable, doesn't produce that great of a picture when you're watching it on an HDTV. As I said, no "upscaling" in the world can make a 720x480 image look as good as 1080i. It's just not possible.

Thank you for the input. Forgive my misuse of the word upconverting for what i guess i meant which was scaling. In the end, would you not agree that something has to figure out how to fill a 920 X 1080 screen from a 720 X 480. So i guess i'm looking for the software that does the least lousy job, not one that will make a 720X480 look like a native 920 X 1080. As you said yourself, the question is which will do the best "scaling". And that was my question.

I'm guessing that all software/firmware is not written the same and one might do a lousier job of filling in those extra pixels, and others a better job. That's all i'm interested in. I don't think that the firmware designed to figure out how to do that is a myth or a buzzword - unless you believe they are all equal.

So i have a Zenith DVD player with the Faroudja (useless?) chip, and a Pioneer 63" HD rear projector supporting 1080i component input only. I can identify that either the DVD "or" the TV will upscale.

I will say that i ripped a DVD and played it back through SageTV and Home Theatre Media Extender and it looked much much worse than it did playing it from my DVD player. So something made it worse. Perhaps it was the software that ripped it? The player? Until i found out, it makes no sense for me to rip my DVDs to disk, since my eyes tell me the quality isn't even close.

Does the Media Extender just pass the signal along to the TV for descaling? What is best.

That's all i'm trying to figure out. I'll keep trying to figure it out.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by pgrillo

I will say that i ripped a DVD and played it back through SageTV and Home Theatre Media Extender and it looked much much worse than it did playing it from my DVD player. So something made it worse. Perhaps it was the software that ripped it? The player? Until i found out, it makes no sense for me to rip my DVDs to disk, since my eyes tell me the quality isn't even close.

What was it you used to rip the DVD? Did you use something like Handbrake to transcode the video, thereby reducing the quality? Or did you use something to rip the files straight off the DVD and play the original MPEG2 video?

If space is really not a concern I would just rip the video straight from the DVD unmodified. Any kind of transcoding no matter how little will reduce the quality even if by a small amount.

[pgrillo]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

What was it you used to rip the DVD? Did you use something like Handbrake to transcode the video, thereby reducing the quality? Or did you use something to rip the files straight off the DVD and play the original MPEG2 video?

If space is really not a concern I would just rip the video straight from the DVD unmodified. Any kind of transcoding no matter how little will reduce the quality even if by a small amount.

i don't remember what i used, it wasn't handbrake. This thread has many posts singing the praises of Handbrake and DVDShrink. So you're saying there are other products or solutions that do a better job? I'll certainly try other approaches - that is what i'm trying to decide. Software that Shrinks, generally has some loss. So, what products rip video straight from the DVD unmodified? It's difficult to discern.

thanks for any input

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by pgrillo

i don't remember what i used, it wasn't handbrake. This thread has many posts singing the praises of Handbrake and DVDShrink. So you're saying there are other products or solutions that do a better job? I'll certainly try other approaches - that is what i'm trying to decide. Software that Shrinks, generally has some loss. So, what products rip video straight from the DVD unmodified? It's difficult to discern.

thanks for any input

DVD Decrypter is the program I use for that. Or if you have AnyDVD you can just copy the files straight off with Windows Explorer.