Best DVD to AVI program?

[Vodo4321]

So I'd like to start the process of converting my many DVDs into AVI files that I can toss on my media server.

Whats the best program out there thats going to give me decent quality on the finished files and doesnt take hours of experimenting to find the best settings?

[Wash]

Auto Gordian Knot is pretty popular, if freeware is what you're looking for. It's actually a bundle of about 7 different open-source utilities. What AGK does is automate the process of using all of them. You basically pick your options (although it's set by default to the most popular options), click start and wait xxx hours depending on how powerful your computer is.

I've used it a few times. I'm not in the ripping community, but I think it's agreed to be one of the best or the best freeware option out there.

Guides:

Part 1: Ripping
Part 2: Transcoding

[Vodo4321]

Thanks man thats almost exactly what I was looking for. Now time to order a 500gb harddrive

Although some kind of progress bar would be good, no idea how long this is going to take.

[Vorph]

If you're only ever going to be playing those files on a PC of some sort, or an Xbox360/PS3* if you encode specifically for it, I would highly recommend using the Matroska container instead of AVI. The video quality difference between h.264 and standard MPEG-4 (xvid) is massive at any bitrate, and if space is a concern you can easily get video quality comparable to xvid while still keeping AC3 5.1 audio instead of shitty 128kbps 2ch MP3.

MeGUI is what I use. It's a bit more complicated than AutoGK, but there are some good guides on that page to get you started.


* - It's possible to encode a file that will play on both, but the afaik the 360 still doesn't support 5.1 audio so you'll need to encode 2ch AAC which is pretty shitty for PC use. The PS3 doesn't have that problem so the files you create for it look and sound fine through a PC. If possible stick to PC/PS3 encoding until MS pulls their head out of their ass and stops trying to make WMV look better by failing to support other formats fully.

[Galgor]

Comfortable medium, AutoMKV?

[Vorph]

AutoMKV does the job too, hell you can even just use AutoGK and just change the container and encoder it uses if I recall right. I preferred MeGUI over everything else I tried because of the autoupdater thing it has for getting the latest version of itself and all the 3rd party add-ons it uses to encode the movies. Haven't used anything else in over a year though, so maybe they all do that now.

Also, the latest version of AutoMKV is 0.95c not 0.95. http://download3.videohelp.com/AutoMKV095c.rar

[Vodo4321]

Originally Posted by Vorph

If you're only ever going to be playing those files on a PC of some sort, or an Xbox360/PS3* if you encode specifically for it, I would highly recommend using the Matroska container instead of AVI. The video quality difference between h.264 and standard MPEG-4 (xvid) is massive at any bitrate, and if space is a concern you can easily get video quality comparable to xvid while still keeping AC3 5.1 audio instead of shitty 128kbps 2ch MP3.

MeGUI is what I use. It's a bit more complicated than AutoGK, but there are some good guides on that page to get you started.


* - It's possible to encode a file that will play on both, but the afaik the 360 still doesn't support 5.1 audio so you'll need to encode 2ch AAC which is pretty shitty for PC use. The PS3 doesn't have that problem so the files you create for it look and sound fine through a PC. If possible stick to PC/PS3 encoding until MS pulls their head out of their ass and stops trying to make WMV look better by failing to support other formats fully.

You saying that a MKV will play on a PS3? I've never got em to work before. Thats pretty much what I'm using these files for, Windows Media Player 11 sharing media and playing through a PS3. AVIs are the only ones that'll consistently work for it. If any of the others will I'm more than willing to use em.

I've been using DVD decrypter to get the vob files onto the PC after that the GUI one is asking me for AVSynth files for the import file. Not sure how to get those. The Auto GK will just read in the IFO files so thats why I've just been using it so far.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Vodo4321

You saying that a MKV will play on a PS3? I've never got em to work before. Thats pretty much what I'm using these files for, Windows Media Player 11 sharing media and playing through a PS3. AVIs are the only ones that'll consistently work for it. If any of the others will I'm more than willing to use em.

Ah, my bad, no... people generally use the VOB container for H.264 playback on the PS3. As long as the H.264 profile used is compatible with the PS3, you can run a simple conversion program to change MKV to VOB (called, unsurprisingly, mkv2vob). VOB allows the use of AC3 or DTS audio, which is much more common than AAC.

I've been using DVD decrypter to get the vob files onto the PC after that the GUI one is asking me for AVSynth files for the import file. Not sure how to get those. The Auto GK will just read in the IFO files so thats why I've just been using it so far.

MeGUI has a tool that creates the AVSynth file for you if you don't know how to make one by hand (or don't need to do anything special in it).

See this guide for specifics on using MeGUI with the PS3.

Since WMP doesn't support any decent file formats, you'd need to use TVersity to stream the video as well.

[Vodo4321]

Thanks Vorph, ill give that method a go when I get home. Personally I'm more concerned about the picture quality as opposed to the audio. I dont have a top of the line stereo hooked up to the system yet so any of the highest quality stuff is lost in it anyways.

But eventually I'll be gettin the kickass sound (read when i can afford it) and it'll be nice to not have to redo everything.

Question though. Is the actual quality on the AC3 that much better than the AAC or is it just that you lose the surround sound? Also the AC3 encoding methods they say it doesnt support file seeking on the PS3 playback, does that mean no fastforwarding or rewinding?

[Vorph]

Main reason I avoid AAC is that normal home stereo Dolby/DTS hardware decoders don't support it. The PS3 can decode it and send the 5.1 signal to your receiver in a format it does understand (LPCM most likely). For a computer to do the same thing you have to decode it in software and use the analog outs which to me is a pain in the ass not worth bothering with.

If you don't care about just having 2ch digital audio on the computer or you use the analog outputs already or you only want to play the stuff on the PS3, then using AAC 5.1 is fine and the container file type you want is MP4 in that case.

As for the seeking, I'm not sure. I don't have a PS3 to test it on, but you could probably find out easily enough by downloading an episode of a TV show in 720p mkv format and convert it using mkv2vob. I believe the H.264 Main Profile that most TV release groups use is compatible with the PS3.

[Vodo4321]

Well I gave meGUI a go last night Vorph and followed that guide you linked. I had to look around for some of the preset PS3 profiles and import them but everything worked fine until I got to the last step of processing everything.

I'd get an error on the audio jobs and it'd stop working.

[Vorph]

What was the error?

[Vodo4321]

On this screen...

http://www.digital-digest.com/images...egui_queue.png

The two audio jobs would just say error where this one says waiting. Thats it.
No info to try and correct things.

[Vorph]

There's a logfile in the MeGUI directory, look in there for the error message.

[Vodo4321]

Its saying

Required file 'C:\Program Files\megui\neroAacEnc.exe not found

or something along those lines, I downloaded those things and have em in both the tools directory and put em in the base dir after I saw that, still no dice though.


and now this

Log for job job1



Error:

------------------------------------------------------

End of log for job1





wow thats helpful