Newbie: Where to start. ISO - AVI

[emoyeni]

Hi there.

Great site containing useful information.

New to Auto GK and encoding. Have trawled through all the guides and tutorials and searched within these forums and can't find an adequate explanation to step 1. If I'm informed of one in existence then I stand corrected.

In the meantime I'm going to take Manono's suggestion literally and make a comment on the guides.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=92089

Welcome also are comments and suggestions about the guides, with the aim of improving them. Comments are especially welcome from those new to this site and new to video encoding. Something that may seem obvious to those of us more experienced at video encoding might be a major stumbling block for the rookies among us.

I have been using DVDFAB Platinum to backup my collection. Initially the intention was to backup onto individual blank media but as an afterthought I felt it was a shame to delete from my HDD once complete so I will convert to AVI as I have hundreds of discs to process. Enter AGK.

First question.
1.Up to now I have been ripping to ISO. If I extract files using WinRAR do I get to the equivalent structure as if I processed through DVD Decrypter IFO mode?
If the answer is yes then see Q2. If the answer is no how do I get to the same stage if at all as it seems I can only input an IFO?

2. What IFO file should be selected at step 1. Is it the first numbered one, the largest one etc.
The text within the tutorial supplied with the program suggests naming each .vob sequentially (which they are) and by selecting the first one it associates all the other vobs within one vobset. I did this and it didn't work. There was a huge (minutes) audio sync issue although the video was excellent. I know how to "fix" the sync in classic but want to get the output right at source.

3. For episodic type dvd's unlike other posts in the forums I am not bothered about seperate avi's per episodes so can I treat these as normal movies and create one avi file. The reason I ask is I do not notice any difference within the VideoTS folder for either of them in terms of file types etc.

Hope my questions make sense.

Thanks for your time.
Emoyeni.

[mr soft]

Welcome to the forum

Couple of tips I use for easy backups .

1. Rip the disk with DVDfab , movie only is good to get rid of unwanted languages and such.
This should create the desired ts folder with your vobs inside.
2. I then run it through DVDshrink reauthor mode to cut out any long intro´s or long end credits.
3. Run through AGK click the input tab and choose the first vob.
underneath the output file you should see the duration length of the movie,if not try the next vob (vts_01_2) and so on.
note: no.2 is´nt necessary, But has helped me with some sound sync issues. You can also re author (in shrink)a 5 min part of the film and save it as a vob to test. This is handy for a test and tweak method.