I'm looking for a program to convert my DVDs to MPEG-4 format (so I can watch them on my iPod, etc.). I've tried trials of two randomly selected programs but I was not satisfied with either.
The first was the iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum. Beside the fact that the interface looks like a spaceship, the files it produced (even at 320x240 resolution) were mammoth (well over a gig for a two-hour movie). I also noticed compression artifacts during certain scenes where the characters moved very quickly.
The second was the Xilisoft DVD Ripper Platinum. I liked this much better than the iSofter program. For starters, the interface was clean and easy to use. It also produced files of a reasonable size. My only problem with it is that it stuttered when the camera panned or tilted. I noticed it mostly on the two tilts that occur in the first five minutes (the trial version limit) of my sample film. It seemed to "catch" while tilting, and I found it very distracting.
(The sample film, by the way, was Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, also known as Spirited Away in English.)
Anyway, if I'm going to pay for a program, it would be nice if it did what I wanted it to do, and did it reasonably well. Does anyone have any advice on or experience with a decent program for this purpose? I couldn't find much in the way of freeware, but if anyone knows of any freeware programs I'll try those out as well.
Suho:
I've done DVD to PSP (MPEG-4, should be same as iPod) by starting with Dvd Decrypter to create a vob file. http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/
(not sure if that's where i downloaded it)
Hey guys, thanks for the links. Unfortunately, I am a complete vidiot, so tossing me a bunch of links is like tossing a five-year-old a physics textbook and saying, "Here, build me a particle accelerator."
I actually already had DVD Decrypter and SUPER (a mencoder front end) on my hard drive. I think I downloaded them after seeing another thread here where the programs were recommended. Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do with them. Well, I have some idea, but it doesn't really help get me from point A to point B. I've search around on the internet for help for these programs, but I've come up empty. Just a whole bunch of forums with people talking about things I don't understand.
From what I can tell, there is no easy way to rip from a DVD straight to a video file, is there? If I use DVD Encrypter in file mode, it gives me a bunch of vob files (not a vob file--am I doing something wrong?). Then I have to convert these to the proper format, and then I have to join them together. I have never successfully accomplished this.
Basically, I can rip the files from the DVD, and I can convert video files from one format to another. Everything that comes in between? I'm lost.
The Free iPod Video converter says it can do DVD conversion but it makes every VOB file a separate mp4 file, which is no good.
These are the only two things that I've used and it's never failed me yet. They are both free so the only thing you might loose is some time and hard drive space LOL.
DVD Fab Platinum has a straight conversion to decrypt and then convert the dvd to fit on iPod. But I like to go with the free stuff as much as possible even if it's a couple extra steps
No, that wasn't a sneeze - it's a DVD ripping suite. The software is excellent, and I'd say, well worth the asking price. With presets for various mobile devices (PDA, PSP, iPod, mobile phones, etc) and even a straight-to-device function (plug in your mobile device, insert the DVD, and hit the button), it does make life a lot easier.
I managed to get The Fifth Element down to under 512MB for my PSP in testing without massively compromising on quality (reds looked a tad chunky, but acceptable), and once it had finished, I simply unplugged the PSP and went my winding way.
I think they still do small standalone utilities tailored to specific devices. Check out what's there at imtoo.com.
EDIT: Just noticed that they now have a YouTube to iPod converter. How handy is that?
Of course, I have also just noticed that ImTOO and Xillisoft are related in some way. If you have the same jittering problems with the ImTOO software (while I appear not to) even while using the presets for your particular device, then it might be worth fiddling with the available settings...
It's in the mail.
Let me know if it doesn't match your versions of the software...I have older versions which are close if not identical to the ones shown in the swf. You might have to experiment with certain settings, particularly to get the sound synch right. I've used this process 4 or 5 times to pick selected TV episodes off a DVD and onto a PSP. has worked very nicely, quality was excellent - sound and video.
Thanks for all the help, guys. I think I've got a handle on this, I just need to find a combination of programs that works for me. I'm leaning toward DVD Decrypter with SUPER, but I'm having trouble getting the sound and video to sync up. Then again, I tried another conversion program and it choked at the same spot as SUPER, so maybe it's a problem with the original VOB. I could also give VLC a shot, as that uses a different method and might work.
Anyway, I'm sure that I'll get the hang of this with enough tinkering. I'll holler if I need any more help, but I should be good from here. Thanks again.
OK, scratch what I said about getting a handle on things. This is exactly why I was interested in a commercial solution--I just can't be bothered trying to figure out why things keep screwing up.
The sound/video sync problem I mentioned above appears to be a problem with DVD Decrypter that gets magnified down the line. For some reason, there always seems to be a hiccup in the VOB toward the beginning of the file. At first I thought it was a problem with the DVD I was trying to rip, but the same thing happens with other discs as well (I've tried four discs so far, two have exhibited this problem, the other two I didn't even get that far because I couldn't get the captions to display correctly). This "hiccup" is a skip in both the audio and video, usually about ten seconds. When I convert these VOBs (using any program; it doesn't seem to matter which), the dropped video is left out but the sound stays in, causing everything to go out of sync (never mind the fact that I'm missing ten seconds of video).
Seriously, I'm tearing my hair out here trying to figure out these stupid programs. I just can't deal with it. Apparently a bunch of you have been able to get these solutions working, but I am at my wit's end. I'm going to check out IMTOO and see how that works (incidentally, the jitter I reported with Xillisoft seems like such a minor problem now--but I'm still not going to pay for a program that doesn't work at 100%).
Is it possible that the problem is on my end, with my drive? I've never had any problems playing DVDs (although I don't use the drive for that purpose anymore because of the stupid region code thing--I have DVDs from both the States and Korea).
I don't think your hardware could be causing an issue with transcoding, though it may be worth making sure that your optical drive is running in DMA mode for performance reasons.
In my case, I have DVD Region Free installed (on-the-fly decryption, de-regionalisation, Macrovision interception, etc), but I'm not sure if this has a bearing on my experience with IMToo - I simply insert the DVD, select a preset, and hit the button. Occassionally, I play around with the available settings after selecting a preset, but I generally see good results anyway.
I never use DVD Decrypter any more, though I used to go through the whole day-long process of ripping the audio and video tracks individually, then re-laying them after encoding... I had endless problems with various DVDs, usually based on the fact that audio on most actually starts several frames after the video. Even staggering the tracks and playing with a calculator, I never did get Spiderman (for instance) synched perfectly, and the audio would gradually slide out of synch as the movie progressed.
I tried IMToo one day, and haven't looked back since. I'm keen to know what your experience with this package is.
I didn't think until just now about the DVD Region Free thing - I installed it a long time ago (only cost me about $20) and forgot about it. Essentially, I have never had to decrypt a DVD.
EDIT: Upon further investigation, the same company that developed DVD Region Free is now offering DVDFab Platinum - apparently, an all-in-one solution for de-restricting, decrypting and ripping DVDs. It appears to offer at least the functionality I've noted in IMToo. Might be worth a look - they have trial versions for testing, apparently.
From: there...no..there..... Insane since: May 2001
posted 11-09-2007 16:33
Here is what I have used and so far, it hasn't failed to make a backup of a DVD (my wife is very hard on movies and audio cd's).
Run it through DVDFab (free version works fine for me)
Check the file size of the VIDEO_TS folder to see if it's over 4.35gb. Usually it is.
If so, then I have to run that folder through DVD Shrink. This will shrink to down to 4.35gb to fit onto a DVD. It also will take out the region code specification
After all of this, I can then burn the results from DVD Shrink to a DVD and put the original away for safe keeping.
Now, you had mentioned that you wanted to play these DVD's on your iPod video. No problem. Once I have the region free un-encrypted DVD, I can either
1. Play it through VLC (have to play with the settings sometimes for Audio output mostly) and have it save as an mpg or avi (usually avi).
2. Run that avi through the FreeIpodVideoConverter and it will make it small enough for me to play on my iPod.
After all of this being said, have you tried this : Decrypt the DVD, burn the results and see what happens. Does it still go out of sync? If so, then you may have a different problem.
Or...you can just send me the darn thing and I can see if I can get it to work Haven't had one yet I couldn't get
Bummer this is being so difficult. It really shouldn't be that hard to do but then again...
I'd love to find a program that would join 2 or 3 avi files into one without any headaches but have yet to find something that works well.
I don't think your hardware could be causing an issue with transcoding, though it may be worth making sure that your optical drive is running in DMA mode for performance reasons.
Oh, OK.
Um, whats DMA mode? (Remember, I know very little about this stuff.)
quote:
I never use DVD Decrypter any more, though I used to go through the whole day-long process of ripping the audio and video tracks individually, then re-laying them after encoding... I had endless problems with various DVDs, usually based on the fact that audio on most actually starts several frames after the video. Even staggering the tracks and playing with a calculator, I never did get Spiderman (for instance) synched perfectly, and the audio would gradually slide out of synch as the movie progressed.
Whoa.
quote:I tried IMToo one day, and haven't looked back since. I'm keen to know what your experience with this package is.
Actually, I downloaded the trial version yesterday and did some test runs on various videos (The Matrix, The Incredibles, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) and had absolutely no problems, with the exception of the slight jitter on the tilts that I mentioned above. This only happened with Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, though--the other films were pristine. I have some time today, so I'm going to try ripping other parts of the film and see if that same problem occurs. It very well might be something with the disc.
quote:Upon further investigation, the same company that developed DVD Region Free is now offering DVDFab Platinum - apparently, an all-in-one solution for de-restricting, decrypting and ripping DVDs. It appears to offer at least the functionality I've noted in IMToo. Might be worth a look - they have trial versions for testing, apparently.
I will check it out. Thanks.
quote: CPrompt said:
Now, you had mentioned that you wanted to play these DVD's on your iPod video. No problem. Once I have the region free un-encrypted DVD
Quick question: does the DVD need to be region free and un-encrypted for this to work? Because we take very good care of our DVDs and I have no desire to go through and make copies of all of them.
quote:Play it through VLC (have to play with the settings sometimes for Audio output mostly) and have it save as an mpg or avi (usually avi).
I've actually had a lot of problems with the VLC method. For one, it won't allow me to select the right caption stream on certain films. Like Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi: I want the audio to play in Japanese (which it does), but no matter which caption stream I select, I can't get the Korean captions to display. Same thing with The Matrix (kind of): it automatically displays the English captions and I can't turn them off no matter which caption stream I select. On top of this, the file that VLC produces is badly artifacted (or whatever that is--you know when you're watching satellite television and it gets those funky colored squares on the screen? That's what happens. A lot).
quote:After all of this being said, have you tried this : Decrypt the DVD, burn the results and see what happens. Does it still go out of sync? If so, then you may have a different problem.
What I have done is this: I've decrypted the DVDs using DVD Decrypter, and then I've played the resulting VOB file using VLC. It doesn't go out of sync, but it always seems to skip about ten seconds of both audio and video (which leads me to believe that DVD Decrypter is not working properly). So I'm pretty much screwed from the get-go. The reason the converted files go out of sync is because the dropped video gets left out of the file but the audio bit that goes along with it gets converted for some reason.
quote:was just playing around with this and this made some nice results.
Thanks for the links. I've downloaded DVDx and will give it a try.
I honestly don't know what is going wrong. All I know is that the free trials of the commercial programs I have tried have worked more or less flawlessly. So if DVDx doesn't get me where I need to be and I can't find another solution, I think I'm just going to go with the best commercial program I can find. Yeah, it would be nice to be able to do it for free, but if it's going to be this much of a hassle, it will be more than worth it to pay.
I do appreciate all the advice and help. I almost feel badly for everyone who has tried to help me that this isn't working (if that makes any sense).
From: there...no..there..... Insane since: May 2001
posted 11-10-2007 13:22
quote: Suho1004 said:
does the DVD need to be region free and un-encrypted for this to work?
don't know really. I've always done it that way. I would imagine not. You can more than likely set your dvd player on your tv to region free ( I did ). So the iPod may be region free anyway and not have to worry about that.
quote: Suho1004 said:
(which leads me to believe that DVD Decrypter is not working properly).
Try DVDFab (Free version ) I quit using DVD Decrypter after a few failed attempts.
Gave DVDx a shot. After fiddling around with the frame rate I got it to transcode the entire film. Everything went off without a hitch and it produced a lovely little AVI file...
...that crashed Windows Explorer when I clicked on it. Just one click, mind you, not even a double-click. Left-click, right-click, didn't matter. Any attempt to interact with the file crashed Windows Explorer or whatever other program I was trying to access it with. So I immediately trashed the file and DVDx along with it.
DVDFab is a different story entirely. I've ripped two movies so far, and it has been absolutely flawless. Even that jitter in Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi is gone. From what I've seen so far, it's the best program I've tried yet.
From: there...no..there..... Insane since: May 2001
posted 11-10-2007 14:29
quote: Suho1004 said:
...that crashed Windows Explorer when I clicked on it.
oh man! Sorry for posting that link then I did test it before I sent the link and it worked fine for me. LOL One of those typical "It works for me..." routines.
DVDFab is great. I haven't used anything else but the free version and it's always been flawless. Sometimes have to use Shrink to get it to fit onto a DVD but oh well.
There is a great program on for Linux called K9Copy. It will ALWAYS rip the dvd to a 4.35 file size. It also creates a nice *.iso file
Well, now we just need to figure out a way to create an avi from a DVD.
CPrompt: Don't worry. It appears I was too hasty in my judgment. The AVI file crashing everything apparently had nothing to do with DVDx--for some reason, all AVI files now crash Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player when I try to play/select/sneeze at them. I haven't played an AVI file in some time, so I have no idea when or why this problem first started. To make matters even stranger, I can open AVI files with VLC Media Player and play them with no problem. Trying to open them with Windows Media Player, however, crashes the program.
By the way, when you say "free version" of DVDFab, what exactly are you talking about? Is this the shareware version? Because when I went to their site they only have two download links, one for Gold and one for Platinum (why is everything platinum?). I didn't see a free version.
Note: SystemFileAssociations comes at the end of a looooooong list of similarly named keys with stops (".") after the word System - so it appears to be out of alphabetical order.
Thanks for the link, CPrompt. I'll check it out. But I'm probably going to end up buying the full version of this program. It's working splendidly so far. I just have to watch a ripped movie all the way through to make sure.
White Hawk: Unfortunately, that did not work.
[Edit: so I did some scrounging around on the internet, and I found a solution to my avi problem. The problem, apparently, was with ffdshow, which I must have downloaded at some point in the past few weeks. I deleted that and everything is now peachy. Now to get all this other crap off my computer...]
From: there...no..there..... Insane since: May 2001
posted 11-12-2007 14:34
quote: Suho1004 said:
But I'm probably going to end up buying the full version of this program.
If you do that, then all your problems will be solved It has a straight DVD to iPod converter built in. I'm a cheap skate and would rather go through 9 steps to accomplish something with free software than to pay some money to do it in 1. LOL
quote: CPrompt said:
I'm a cheap skate and would rather go through 9 steps to accomplish something with free software than to pay some money to do it in 1.
I hear you. All things considered, I'd rather do it myself for free, too, but with the luck I've been having... let's just say a man has his limits.
I hear you. All things considered, I'd rather do it myself for free, too, but with the luck I've been having... let's just say a man has his limits.
I hear ya. I haven't made it back to the pther thread I started on a similar subject, but I have downloaded several programs suggested there...and have met with just more frustration.
I guess I'll have to wait until I have the time to educate myself properly...
From: there...no..there..... Insane since: May 2001
posted 11-13-2007 16:07
quote: DL-44 said:
I guess I'll have to wait until I have the time to educate myself properly...
I would probably suggest giving the DVDFab a try. The trial download of DVDFab Platinum would probably work for you.
Do you have a way to install Linux on something? There's a nice program called K9Copy that can convert the DVD to avi for you (it says MPG4 which I thought was .mpg4 like iPod video but it's AVI with MPG4 encoding). Very simple, fast and good quality.
posted 11-05-2007 04:13
Haven't had one yet I couldn't get 
Whoa.