New to decrypting..couple of questions

[gvegastiger]

Hey guys, I'm a noob looking for some advice. Let me first tell you what I'm trying to do and then ask some specific questions. I'm not just asking a generic question about what's the best software but which software are specific features for my purposes. I hope this isn't breaking any forum rules (I don't think it is).

I'm at the beginning stages of taking my 40ish or so DVDs in my personal collection (just SD stuff) and making a backup as well as serving them up to my Tivo in On Demand fashion. Tivo S2's read mpegs and mpegs only, so in order to get my movies there, I just need to rename the VOB file ext to mpg.

Here's what I'm trying to find and am not sure which combination would work best.

1) Free would be great
2) Something that rips my DVDs that may have new encryption methods (DVD Decryptor won't work for me bc its unsupported now)
3) Something that will rip only the main title into 1 VOB file. (which is why DVDFab Decryptor won't work for me)
4) Something that allows me to compress the VOB file while it rips (ala DVDShrink)

Now for the questions. I tried DVDShrink and it did ok, however the files it creates skip when playing on my Tivo. I had to run them through the Quickstream Fix on VideoRedo to clean them up.
Is there a better ripping software that wouldnt require me to clean up the VOB file before serving it up to the Tivo and that rips into one VOB file?
Or
Is there a free software tool similar to VideoReDo's Quickstream fix that I could use instead? I liked VideoReDo's tool however I don't want to pay $50 for that one aspect of the software.


And the very last question, am I being a total noob in trying to accomplish my goals in this fashion, or is there a better method/toolset out there? Should I be just ripping into multiple VOBs and then piecing them together? Am I losing a lot of functionality or quality by doing it this way?

[dat720]

Your asking some questions that may be better answered by a TIVO forum, and the short answer is you need to find a method that works with your hardware/software, there are so many different methods and each of them may give different results with your DVD's and or installed software.

You might like to try:
DVDShrink
DVDDecryptor
DVD2One
RipIt4Me

The list goes on, you may also need to try these in combination with a program like AnyDVD.

You could also encode off the disc straight to a mpg with something like mencoder, my pc does this direct off the disc with anydvd installed at around 30fps so dvd to mpg/avi is a 1 step process.

With what you are doing i'd be looking at Mencoder, last movie i did using this method was The Kingdom it encoded at 40fps so took less time that the movie takes to play and once done i had a 1.2gb avi with very close to dvd quality, obviously not as good as the bitrate was nowhere near as high but still very good. You will need to play with mencoder to find a set of commands that makes a video compatible with you TIVO.

code:
mencoder.exe -priority idle dvd://# -dvd-device i: -ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=3:threads=2:max_bframes=2:bquant_ratio=100:bquant_offset=100:vhq=0:me_quality=6:chroma_me:chroma_opt:hq_ac:trellis:lumi_mask:bvhq=0 -alang en -oac copy -channels 6 -o "The Kingdom.avi" -vf harddup,crop=704:352:8:64

[gvegastiger]

If I wanted to rip the entire DVD and preserve its menu's and extra features, etc I could use DVDFab Decryptor correct? What software could I then use to put the different VOBs into one contiguous file? Does VideoReDo do this?

Also, I'd just like to say that if a tool doesn't exist out there that will compress the VOB files as they come off the DVD that is still supported (unlike DVDShrink) then there needs to be. Its the best feature of that program in my opinion.

MEncoder sounds too complicated for a noob like me. I need a GUI to look at.

[dat720]

if you want just the movie another option could be smart ripper, it is capable of just ripping the movie and remuxing it into either multiple vobs or 1 single vob

mencoder can be abit full on but its results can be awesome as it is extremly flexible and supports a ton of codes, if you use a gui it is much easier, automen, megui and media coder are all good examples

again do some research and play around and find a combination of programs you are happy with...... asking questions doesnt really teach you anything, trailing different methods will teach you what works with your setup and what doesnt

and changing the extension of a vob to a mpg does not make it a mpg, it is still a vob file, vob is a container format, as is mpg avi wmv mkv ogg, and anything else i can't/too lazy to think of right now

a container is exactly what the name suggest's, for instance a vob file can have a .m2v mpeg2 video stream and a .ac3 dolby digital stream inside it, the player weather it be hardware or software demuxes the container and play's the streams inside it, your tivo is able to playback mpg containers but may not like the vob container, when you rename a vob to a mpg it is still a vob just renamed to a mpg, it still contains all the vob info which is why your tivo may not like it very much your best bet would be using something like smart ripper or tmpgenc or some other software that could demux the vob to a mpg file.....

[gvegastiger]

Thanks Dat. I just learned something from asking a question. I didn't realize that about the vob and mpg files.