DVD, Movie only, What do you do.

[traker1001]

I have been going thru my dvds, And Normally I backup my DVD by just copying the whole Video_TS directory to a folder with the DVD name via CDVD2, This works well with sage.
I realized tonight that I could probably save space by doing something with the DVD's that I only care about the movie on, The problem I am finding, Is that when I use CDVD to rip just the movie to a Video_Ts folder, Sage works, however it just doesnt seem to like that theres no menus to follow, At the end of the movie I get A playback exception.

So now for the question, What do you do. In answering this Please keep in mind I am relativly new to real on demand dvd storage, Whether it be sage or anything.

[AtomicPenguin]

I use DVD Shrink to grab only the movie and then compress it to XviD (MPEG4) using AutoGK, preserving the AC3 audio track. They take up considerably less space and I couldn't care less about not having the DVD extras on there or the DVD menu.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by traker1001

I realized tonight that I could probably save space by doing something with the DVD's that I only care about the movie on, The problem I am finding, Is that when I use CDVD to rip just the movie to a Video_Ts folder, Sage works, however it just doesnt seem to like that theres no menus to follow, At the end of the movie I get A playback exception.

You need to use something like DVD Shrink that will rebuild/remap the IFOs when you rip only part of a DVD, most (maybe all) of the other rippers just copy a subset of files and the result is a broken "DVD".

DVD Shrink works great, I've got over 300 DVDs on my server ripped that way (movie only, with DVD Shrink).

[jominor]

Originally Posted by traker1001

I have been going thru my dvds, And Normally I backup my DVD by just copying the whole Video_TS directory to a folder with the DVD name via CDVD2, This works well with sage.
I realized tonight that I could probably save space by doing something with the DVD's that I only care about the movie on, The problem I am finding, Is that when I use CDVD to rip just the movie to a Video_Ts folder, Sage works, however it just doesnt seem to like that theres no menus to follow, At the end of the movie I get A playback exception.

So now for the question, What do you do. In answering this Please keep in mind I am relativly new to real on demand dvd storage, Whether it be sage or anything.

Since I don't care, usually, about extra features, I compress the movies to divx using Dr. Divx. I have been able to get as many as 191 movies on a single 200g drive. I have over 500 compressed to divx and I play them all through Sage.

[nyplayer]

I use VOB2MPG to convert my DVD to MPG. Rename the mpg to the movie name. I them drop them in the Sage Import folder. Refresh the import folder in Sage.

Finally I use Nielms Web Browser and add the movie Details.

Once In Sage I can also convert it further to save space using SageTV internal compression.

[traker1001]

The thing is, I am extremely picky about quality, It seems all these methods require recompressing, In dooing so Wont I lose stuff like the extra Audio streams and quality of the movie?

***Edit***

Well I just tried divx transcoding, I am very happy with PQ, Sound is great, Except The motion jerks from time to time and I seem to lose the ability to change the sound stream or subtitle options, ended up getting stuck on narrated stream on one movie. Any solution to this?

Ill give Xvid a try next.

One thing is can I use the DVD burning plugin STV to reburn a divx to dvd, If I ever wanted, What about Xvid?

[bcjenkins]

not dvd shrink it is just delivering the stuff you want not compressing

[traker1001]

Is dvd shrink any different that Clone DVD?

Played with VOB2MPG, It would be perfect But again seem to lose the ability to change audio streams and subtitles. Is this a sage problem I am having or are the audio streams being pulled out?

Maybe I am missing something, I am using sage 6 with SageMC, With Mpg files, Is there a different way of selecting Audio streams than with DVD's?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by traker1001

The thing is, I am extremely picky about quality, It seems all these methods require recompressing, In dooing so Wont I lose stuff like the extra Audio streams and quality of the movie?

Not DVD Shrink. I go in and set a custom target size of 16384MB so that it doesn't do any recompression. What you get is a 1:1 copy of what's on the DVD, less the extras.

Is dvd shrink any different that Clone DVD?

Yes, well for one it's free, and second, (save IFO Edit) it's the only program I know of that can extract the main movie only, and leave a DVD-compliant, functioning rip. Everything else I've tried just copies the movie part of the DVD leaving you with a fubar'd rip.

DVD Shrink recreates the IFOs and remaps everything so you can rip just the movie and audio track you want and it works just like a real DVD.

Played with VOB2MPG, It would be perfect But again seem to lose the ability to change audio streams and subtitles. Is this a sage problem I am having or are the audio streams being pulled out?

That's an MPEG issue, MPEG wasn't meant to support multiple audio/subtitle streams.

DVD Shrink will get you what you want. See this:
http://www.sage-community.org/index.cgi/wiki/DVD

[traker1001]

Alright, Ill give dvd shrink a try, Thanks Stanger.

Just an intresting side note though, When I open the Vob2MPG'ed MPG file in The software that came with my DVD-writer, I can switch audio streams just not in sage.

[Polypro]

On some disks, DVD Decrypter with the PGC edit plug-in can be your friend. DVDFab (free version) is also good, just takes longer. In Shrink, just go to Re-Author and drag the main movie over...go to Compression and check "None".

P

[doc]

I've always used dvdshrink, removed all the audio channels I don't want, and have just tried VOB2MPG, it works a treat. Am now converting to avi through sage.

Its fine with normal audio but not sure how it will work with 5.1 if you want that. I don't have anything that uses surrond sound, I just have my 2 poor little speakers. Santa obviously didn't see my wish list.

[traker1001]

Well Doc,
The Mpg files from Vob2mpg output 5.1 great, I don't know about the avi's, The only problem I have is if I try to keep the extra Audio streams like commentaries, Theres no way in sage to tell it to switch streams unless its in VOB format.

However dvd shrink seems to work well, So I guess thats what I am going to stick with until I find something better.

[doc]

thats good to know, if someone every buys me a 5.1 system fingers crossed

I'm not sure how sage copes with different audio streams but I'm sure theres some people out there who know a lot about it. Can mpeg files carry more than one audio stream? I think I need to do some reading.

I'm such a beginnner at all this.

[ChePazzo]

My original 'extender' was Prismiq, which has since gone out of business. But with that unit, the '0' button would rotor through the audio streams, so I would use TMPEGenc's MPEG-Tools to mux the commentary audio streams into my MPG. MPEGs can carry multiple streams of varied sort.

[dlandrum]

I have had success with 1clickdvdcopy:
http://www.1clickdvdcopy.com/

[traker1001]

How would one combine 2 mpg2 files to a Single, So that one plays right after the other?

Any easy way to do this?

[briands]

Originally Posted by traker1001

How would one combine 2 mpg2 files to a Single, So that one plays right after the other?

Any easy way to do this?

DVDshrink can do that. You have to rip one disc (at least) to the hard drive. Then you re-author selecting the movie only from disc one (if it is on the hard drive, select open file) then select the movie only from disc 2. Then select Backup. It will create a single video_ts folder that will net subsequent playback.

[bbroerman]

Well, while it seems to like the DVD folder layout option, it would be much nicer to be able to store the entire DVD in an ISO and have Sage recognize and read that... that way everything's in one neat file...

Only way I know, currently, to do that is with Daemon Tools, and mounting them in windows ouside Sage...

Now, it would be nice if someone could code something that could be plugged into Sage that would do this in a manner that is similar to the imported movie screen... showing a thumbnail for each ISO, and then mounting it when selected, that would be great...

Alternatlely, does anyone know of a program that will take a DVD and create a new-format DivX with the menu structure??

[traker1001]

I actually came to the dumb realization of, Why am I even bothering copying the menus and extras, I own the DVD's, If I really want to watch that crap I can always pop in the Dvd. So I just went ahead and started divx encoding them without compressing them. The Divx maintains the qaulity and the surround sound, So im happy.