DVD rip to H264

[Taddeusz]

I actually did this myself with a movie. Set DVD Decrypter to rip to a single file. Make sure to chose only the video and audio streams you want. Then you can use eac3to to combine the two vob's into a single mkv and a separate single audio stream. Mux those using mkvmerge and you should be golden.

[ttdberg]

Taddeusz,

Thanks a lot for pointing out the makemkv tool. - I hadn't heard of it before now. I tried it this weekend and it works great! I just doesn't get any easier than that. Still, I'd like to see a few features added such as the ability to default subtitles to be hidden. Even without that, though, it's a really simple and great tool.

Do you mind elaborating a bit more on how you combine videos that span multiple disks into a single MKV? I have a few of my own that I would like to try this with. I though of ripping them out into multiple video streams and stuffing them into a single MKV, but I don't think that will achieve the desired result of having them play back-to-back like one non-stop long video.

Thanks.

[Taddeusz]

It looks like MakeMKV could be a great tool. It still needs some refinement though. I've run across a few bugs. It flat out doesn't work with some DVD's. It runs through like it rips it and then the resulting file won't play. I've had it happen on about 1/3 of the DVD's I've tried to rip. Most of the time it works fine.

It also has the problem of not being able to see any SATA optical drives on a system with AHCI enabled. That's rather annoying but can be gotten around if you have AnyDVD.

The latest bug I found is that it doesn't seem to like fading subtitles. I have a copy of Star Wars Ep I which has fading subtitles. It only ripped the first frame of the fade from each subtitle so it never goes opaque and it never fades at all.

But overall it is shaping up to be a great tool.

As far as merging two DVD's together, the two tools I used to do that were DVD Decrypter and eac3to. I'll PM you for the details.

[benjamintm]

Has anyone tried MakeMKV with Blu-Rays? I did a rip of the movie Wall-e, without menus or extras, and that played flawlessly in Plex (and looks amazing). When I try it with my HD100, the movie freezes about 5 seconds in and then I'm prompted with the Restart/Stop message. When I did the same thing with a DVD the rip played perfectly (so far) on the HD100. I played the Blu-ray rip over the network in both Plex and HD100.

Thanks,
Ben

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by benjamintm

Has anyone tried MakeMKV with Blu-Rays? I did a rip of the movie Wall-e, without menus or extras, and that played flawlessly in Plex (and looks amazing). When I try it with my HD100, the movie freezes about 5 seconds in and then I'm prompted with the Restart/Stop message. When I did the same thing with a DVD the rip played perfectly (so far) on the HD100. I played the Blu-ray rip over the network in both Plex and HD100.

Thanks,
Ben

I haven't tried. My main focus is on DVD's. For my BD's I transcode them to save space.

[Taddeusz]

As a side note, since I'd been having issues with MakeMKV on certain DVD's I finally figured out why I get audio sync problems and how to fix it. And it actually simplifies my manual process till MakeMKV works better.

The crux of the matter is that even though a DVD VOB is an MPEG program stream there are differences. Because of this if you just drop the VOB into mkvmerge the resulting file will probably have audio sync issues. The VOB needs to be converted to a real program stream. I don't know about free tools but I did it by running the VOB through Videoredo's quickstream fix. Then drop the resulting MPG into mkvmerge and bam, an MKV file without audio sync problems. :-D

[gibsonpa]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

As a side note, since I'd been having issues with MakeMKV on certain DVD's I finally figured out why I get audio sync problems and how to fix it. And it actually simplifies my manual process till MakeMKV works better.

I have been using the MediaShrink utility to convert my DVD's (vob's) to MKV...and it has worked great. Just curious what the similarities/differences are between that and your process? I have converted over a hundred this way...but only tested a dozen or so....hope I don't have audio sync issues...

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

I have been using the MediaShrink utility to convert my DVD's (vob's) to MKV...and it has worked great. Just curious what the similarities/differences are between that and your process? I have converted over a hundred this way...but only tested a dozen or so....hope I don't have audio sync issues...

I kind of led this thread a bit off topic with this but my process keeps the original video and audio without converting it to something else (i.e. MPEG4 or H.264). In otherwords it is completely lossless with regard to the main movie on a DVD.

Converting the video to MKV vs ripping the VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD has the primary advantage of being able allow the movie to be watched over Placeshifter while keeping the original quality for viewing at home. Whereas with ripping the DVD to VIDEO_TS you may get the original quality but it cannot be viewed with Placeshifter.