Questions about ripping DVDs

[SnyperBob]

Hi everyone,

I have been searching for hours and got some hints, but I just want to ask some questions to double check.

Basically, I want to rip all my DVDs to my server's hard drive so I can stream them to my HD100 and HD200. My goal is to just get rid of needing binders and binders of discs everywhere.

Unfortunately I don't have a surround sound stereo set up yet. But I want to make sure that I'm ripping them correctly, so when I eventually get a surround setup, I won't have to re-rip all my movies again because I messed up.

I don't want to rip full VOBs of each movie, I'm only interested in the actual movie, no menus or extra features.

I have started ripping my movies with DVDFAB HD. I am ripping them to MKV files. I uncheck sub titles before ripping, and I just use the default audio encoder they have in DVDFab. It's listed as generic.mkv.h264aac. From what I understand, this creates an MKV file that is h264+aac
The audio listed for AAC is "Dolby ProLogic II", is this good, or do I need to change it to "Dolby Surround/Prologic"

My concern is that when I use the program MEDIAINFO, it says my MKV files are only 2 channel stereo for the audio (front left and right). Shouldn't this show up as 6 channel (5.1)? Or is the MediaInfo program just incorrect and not reading the MKV files correctly?

Because I have no way to test out that my MKV files are actually being made with surround sound in them (I don't have a surround sound receiver), can someone just tell me the DVDFAB HD settings they use.....that allow them to watch the movie and hear it in 5.1?

I'm getting confused and reading threads that say I need to run my MKV files through another program to convert over to VOB and pull out the audio stream or something. If this is the case, please let me know.

Thanks

[razrsharpe]

DVD ProLogic is only 2 channel audio so MediaInfo is reporting it correctly.... You want to include Dolby Digital, AC3, 5.1, 6 channel audio something like that (not sure what it is because I've never gone looking for dvdfab's compressing/transcoding features....)

I use dvdfab and rip the main movie to folder structure... ripping to folder structure allows sage to recognize the video as a dvd/bd (and not some random video).... I also do not have dvdfab do any compressing... just copy the main movie, the english and original language audio track, and the english subtitles. You should rip the english soundtrack (or even all of them) so that movies with forced subtitles (Taken, Angels and Demons, District 9.. just a couple of more recent ones) show up correctly.

[SnyperBob]

Hmmm, ok thanks for the info.

I'm not sure if that answers my question exactly, but I'm still not sure about DVDFab software.

During the ripping process it says:
Audio (English AC-3/6 normal)

So I'm not sure if that means it's ripping and encoding 6 channel surround or not. I'm guessing that it's not if MediaInfo is only showing it as 2 channel. I may try out mkv2vob and see if that works right, or I'll try changing DVDFab to the other surround sound setting (Dolby Surround/Prologic)

From what you're saying, it sounds like both settings are wrong, because they're both Dolby Prologic. I know it sounds stupid, but I just want to save space with all these rips, while still keeping the surround sound audio.

[SnyperBob]

Another question.

In DVDFab, if I have a choice between AC-3/5.1 and DTS/5.1, which should I go with? Is DTS better for Sage playback than AC-3 5.1?

Again, I don't have a surround setup to test with, right now I'm just ripping my discs to hard drive and want to do it right.

Thanks

[razrsharpe]

Most/all (with very few exceptions) TVs will not decode DTS... The HD200 will only pass through DTS, it can not decode it. So if given the choice you'll want to choose AC3 5.1 as most modern (lcd, plasma) will decode this as its part of the ATSC spec and the HD200 can downmix it to 2.0 if you want to connect to it via analog RCA... Check to make sure the ac3 soundtrack is not the commentary soundtrack though (if you highlight the soundtrack it will begin playing the dvdfab preview window with). I always include both the DTS and AC3 soundtracks (when there is both) because the DTS one is generally better (for the main tv) and the AC3 one for secondary viewing where i don't have a surround processor.

[autoboy]

DTS isn't better. It is different. That's like saying mpeg2 is better than h.264. DTS uses less compression than Dolby Digital which is why you get higher bitrates. Dolby Digital is a more efficient compression algorithm which is why you get those lower bitrates. DD at 640k gives you equivalent sound quality as DTS at 1500k, which are both shown to be indistinguishable from the source material. At typical bitrates on DVD, 448k DD is actually better than the 768k DTS material. Which is why DVDs and HDTV uses DD over DTS.

The mastering quality matters much more than the codec matters. There are bad DTS tracks, bad DD tracks, bad h.264 tracks, and bad mpeg2 tracks. But done right, all the codecs are capable of good audio and video quality. It's just that mpeg2 and DTS require more bitrate to get good results.

[VikingCrown]

I'd give MakeMKV a shot. that way you can just select the main movie title and any audio tracks and it will make the MKV file for you in 1 step.
http://www.makemkv.com/

[SnyperBob]

Thanks Viking, I will try that out. DVDFab (I think) only lets you pick one audio stream to put into the MKV.

I'll check out makemkv and see what that's about. I didn't realize you could have more than one audio stream in an MKV, and that would be beneficial in the future.

[SnyperBob]

Guh, Viking you're right (and others too).

I ripped a DVD using MAKEmkv and when I was done, I analyzed it with MediaInfo and it shows the mkv files as being 6 channel audio.

I'm not happy with DVDFab. I'm not sure how people are ripping with that program and keeping their surround sound. The only way to do it with DVDFab that I can think, is to NOT rip to mkv and rip to VOB or something.

Well, I'm hoping that MAKEmkv will solve my problems. Only way to tell is in the future whenever I get a surround sound receiver

Thanks guys.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by SnyperBob

I'm not happy with DVDFab. I'm not sure how people are ripping with that program and keeping their surround sound. The only way to do it with DVDFab that I can think, is to NOT rip to mkv and rip to VOB or something.

That's exactly what we are doing (ripping the main movie to the HDD in its original form sans extras, miscellaneous tracks, menus, etc...). It works great for that purpose. Some of us don't think its worth it to go through the extra encoding steps to make it a mkv.

[SnyperBob]

I guess I should have worded my response better..

The problem with DVD Fab is that you can only rip the VOB with one audio track. If your DVD has more than one surround sound option, you can't keep all of them. DVD Fab forces you to choose only one. That's why I asked which one I should choose given the option (AC3 or DTS).

Jaws has AC-3 5.1 and DTS 5.1, but DVD Fab only allows me to choose one. MakeMKV allows multiple selections. I'm going to try to use DVDFab to rip this disc to VOB now and then check after to see if it is ripping multiple audio streams or not. I searched this on their site and they said this is not supported in the current version of DVDFab HD, but will be added in the upcoming months.

I wish MakeMKV would work all the time. I have a lot of discs that it just fails on without creating the MKV. Not sure what is up with that, must have something to do with the program being beta

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by SnyperBob

I'm going to try to use DVDFab to rip this disc to VOB now and then check after to see if it is ripping multiple audio streams or not. I searched this on their site and they said this is not supported in the current version of DVDFab HD, but will be added in the upcoming months.

I have no problem ripping more then one audio stream. Like I said, I apply 0 compression and output the original dvd/bdmv folder structure so perhaps that's the difference...

I wish MakeMKV would work all the time. I have a lot of discs that it just fails on without creating the MKV. Not sure what is up with that, must have something to do with the program being beta

it could also be the disc is bad. Try ripping the disc to hdd in its original form (Folder mode, Full Disc mode with dvdfab) and then use makemkv to encode the mkv using the ripped disc as the source.

[paulbeers]

Maybe you are trying to do too much with DVDFAB HD. Why don't you rip the DVD to straight Vobs and then convert it with something else. As razorsharpe stated, DVDFAB HD to Vob's will allow you to choose as many audio tracks as you want. So Use DVDFab to remove encryption and then any other program you want to convert to MKV. Or in my case I just leave the VOB's, but that's just me.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by SnyperBob

I guess I should have worded my response better..

The problem with DVD Fab is that you can only rip the VOB with one audio track. If your DVD has more than one surround sound option, you can't keep all of them. DVD Fab forces you to choose only one. That's why I asked which one I should choose given the option (AC3 or DTS).

Jaws has AC-3 5.1 and DTS 5.1, but DVD Fab only allows me to choose one. MakeMKV allows multiple selections. I'm going to try to use DVDFab to rip this disc to VOB now and then check after to see if it is ripping multiple audio streams or not. I searched this on their site and they said this is not supported in the current version of DVDFab HD, but will be added in the upcoming months.

I wish MakeMKV would work all the time. I have a lot of discs that it just fails on without creating the MKV. Not sure what is up with that, must have something to do with the program being beta

Not exactly sure how you are using DVDFab. If you have chosen English as the default language in settings then by default, DVDFab will choose all the english language tracks. Mine chooses AC3 5.1, AC3 2.0, and DTS. In addition I can choose any other track including foreign language track also in different formats. This is when ripping to the standard DVD format of .ifo and .vob. This includes either the full disk or just the movie.
If you're converting then in settings you can choose to use the default audio channel or specify what format you're converting it to. Please see the documentation of the product or the forums to understand the options and how to use it.

Gerry

[MrD]

My feeling is the effort going to into re-encoding the DVD selectively far exceeds the effort required to rip the dvd using AnyDVD -- just pop and go. Disc space is super cheap.

The bigger issue is using a single level UI to navigate over 500 dvds, that includes movies and TV series.