RatDVD?

[ajp]

Just noticed this software. I wonder what it really does.... ?

http://www.ratdvd.dk/

"If it sounds too good to be true...." :p

[KickF]

Just noticed this software. I wonder what it really does.... ?

http://www.ratdvd.dk/

"If it sounds too good to be true...." :p

Hey I have just read about it to and had hoped that someone in here had tested it ... well there is only one way to find it out .. DL and try it yourself hopefully a test of it will soon to bee found on the doom9 site ... I intend to test it myself .. maby I`ll post pictures of the result
:D ... I`ll start with the Matrix DVD ;) and the lobby ;)

[Enots_]

Looks real. I took out a 2 minute sequence out of galaxy quest using DVDShrink's reauthor mode. Used ratDVD to convert it and had it playing back nicely in media player. I then converted it back to a DVD - all worked like a charm. I'm certainly looking forward to testing menus and angles when I get back from work.

"If it looks too good to be true, it might just quack like a duck"

[KickF]

"If it looks too good to be true, it might just quack like a duck"

"If it quaks like a duck it is a duck" :p

I`ll sure read more about the codec he uses ... it not DivX , Xvid ore 264 ... just read what he wrote in the FAQ site :

Why didn't you use a standard codec like XviD, H264?

There are three main reasons I have my own codec. First, I needed to store many of the original MPEG2 features to restore the original. Second, I had this idea that a real transcoder would be better than a decoder/encoder approach.

Third, I wanted to write my own video encoder just for the hell of it. XviD is nice but it's an OLD STANDAR and it'll be outdated soon. Also H.264 and XviD (and other standard codecs) are covered by a wide range of patents and patent pools. I don't like that.


:D LOL do I smell GNU ? ore GPL :confused:

[mezzanine]

I don't know about compression and everything but the name is horrible.

[Leonardo1001]

Actually I like the name... and I start the like to program more and more... BUT, is this the right place for a discussion about it? It is not really about 1 click DVD backup... but than again, maybe I would place it here and in Containers and in new Codecs...

Well, one thing is for sure, I am eager to get other opinions about it from people that tried it out! And personally I would love if one day I could get my downloads with everything that makes a DVD - eventually as ratdvd.

[MaXiMuS]

i am testing RATDVD now so far encoding went ok .I did for testing purpouses used :
"Sound & Vision : Home Theater Tune Up" (DVD5) R1 (NTSC) i chose this disk because it has a lot of menues and different soundtracks including DTS

compressed to 600 MB (about 2 hours compression time)
i was not able to play whole disk ...
right now i am decompressing it to regular DVD5 & i want to see the difference bettwen original and recompressed one ... will post pics later

i am attaching picture of part of structure.. huh...

=====[EDiT]=====
i forgot to mention after decompression from RATDVD back to DVD5 audio is Ac3 92ch)
i will test it with other disk

[jwo62]

I am trying it too. i dont see how to set a destination size. i am trying it with a movie called suspect zero.

how small are we supposed to be able to compress advd?

[Amnon82]

Sounds interesting. Lets see what the Software can do.

[hpn]

cdfreaks.com just posted an article at
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11893

Sounds interesting, but most likely just another "compress your DVD to a single diskette" project :)

Anyway, the guy claims he has developed his own patents free codec (unlike XviD, H.264 etc.) to do the DVD shrinking.

[danpos]

It seems very interesting and cool ! I'll d/l and will give it a try soon.

I like of tool name so much ! :D

See ya !

[unskinnyboy]

Interesting indeed. Will be interesting to see how the badly authored Asian DVDs fare against this tool, which will be its real fire-test.

[opsis81]

Video quality is very good and audio quality is superb.
I couldn't render the graph automatically with graphedit and all players crashed when I tried to open a ratDVD file with them.Maybe it's a codec conflict in my computer because I have successfully created a grf file from them manually.Zoom Player opened those grf files successfully.
a .ratDVD file is just a zip file.I have successfully unzipped it with winzip and winrar.The video files have the XVO extension.These seem to be mpeg files.Microsoft's MPEG Demultiplexer could split the AC-3 VS audio that they contain and ffdshow Audio Decoder could decode it.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Can anybody encode a small 720x480/576 sample and make it available for download please?


Cheers

[unskinnyboy]

Video quality is very good and audio quality is superb.
I couldn't render the graph automatically with graphedit and all players crashed when I tried to open a ratDVD file with them.Maybe it's a codec conflict in my computer because I have successfully created a grf file from them manually.Zoom Player opened those grf files successfully.
a .ratDVD file is just a zip file.I have successfully unzipped it with winzip and winrar.The video files have the XVO extension.These seem to be mpeg files.Microsoft's MPEG Demultiplexer could split the AC-3 VS audio that they contain and ffdshow Audio Decoder could decode it.
What was the space savings like? I am interested to know how much of space is saved from DVD-->ratDVD while setting the 'max quality' settings (if any).

Even though there might be no size prediction per se, over a period of time and a range of materials, we should be able to arrive at a safe estimation.

As SMD said, sample(s) would be nice..:D

[jwo62]

Video quality is very good and audio quality is superb. all players crashed when I tried to open a ratDVD file with them.


So what player did you view the ratdvd file with to determine the video quality was good? or did you just look at stills?

the first movie I tried didnt seem to work right. it played all the previews,without audio,but hung up on the main title. I was using windows media player 10.

[opsis81]

@jwo62
I explained that I created manually a grf file with graphedit and opened the grf file with Zoom Player.Please read more carefully :(
@unskinnyboy
I have made only one complete backup of the hellenic version of Blade Trinity.I used anydvd/clonedvd for ripping it and removing the unwanted titles (with no compression of course) and ifoedit for removing unwanted menus.Then I encoded it with ratdvd using the default settings(value 95).The final ratdvd file was 786 MB.I'm not going to use it until it includes size prediction.But we have to be patient,this rat is newborn,only 3 days in life.

[Leonardo1001]

@opsis81
Why do you need size prediction? I understand it of XviD and the like that are meant to fit on a DVD. However, with ratdvd isn't the really interesting part that it fits to the DVD after "unratting" the .ratdvd file? For me the size of the .ratdvd file is sort of irrelevant... I care more about the quality - and that seems to be fine.

[unskinnyboy]

Agree with Leonardo1001. I don't care about size prediction much. Then we are again talking about CD sizes, DVD sizes, bah! There is enough and more tools for that atm.

What would really be interesting to see is how much of the original DVD quality will ratDVD retain if we 'rat' a whole DVD (menus, extras, trailors etc) setting 'max' quality values, and then compare the size versus the original uncompressed DVD.

[opsis81]

@Leonardo1001
I also care about quality very much,that's why nowdays I'm using DVD+R DL for my DVD backups.I want to use ratDVDs for my HTPC.I want to store them to my 300 GB hard disk.When I say I want size prediction,I don't mean exact size prediction :) .I would like each ratDVD not to exceed 1 GB for example.I'm waiting for a "max file size" option.

[Scarpad]

My guess is this is moreof a Dowload transport tool than anything else, however I'll be testing it. I Wonder about it's server application. If this couldbe useful for a DVD Server tool. WHat I Would Like is to see the Entire DVD compressed to 2GB but be able to play it and have it uncompress in real time and full quality...

[jwo62]

@jwo62
I explained that I created manually a grf file with graphedit and opened the grf file with Zoom Player.Please read more carefully :(

sorry,I thought I did read carefully,I just wanted some clarification.

I understood that you "opened" the grf file you created with graphedit(not familiar with that program) with zoom player(which I dont have either).

The intention of my question was to find out if you played the .ratdvd file successfuly (un modified) and if so,what player.

I guess I should have been more clear

You seemed,to me, to contradict yourself by saying the file crashed every player you tried and also saying the video quality was good. Not being familiar with graphedit,I didnt know that a .ratdvd file converted to grf will give an accurate representation of how the .ratdvd file should play.

Now I do know.


Jim :)

[Leonardo1001]

@opsis81: Understood and agreed. Let's hope for version 2

@Scarpad: Not sure I get it. Yes, ratdvd is a kind of a transport format, but what do you mean with Server application? As I understand it, you can watch the ratdvd files in realtime without converting etc. already...

[opsis81]

Jim I think I should be more clear.
I should explain better what a grf file is :)
After re-registering ratDVD's filters (the ax files that are located in XEB folder) and rebooting everything works OK.I can open ratDVD files in all directshow players including WMP10.In MPC you have to disable the built-in MPEGSplitter to make them work.

[Scarpad]

Ok I did some tests tonight and some more are ongoing. This is an interesting program. Here's what I did. I pulled an episode of Space 1999 off one of the disks. The Ep was about 2.5 Gigs. I chose this show becasue one it's film and two it's quite Large for TV on DVD. I also took Disk 1 of the Show "The Job" and did that. And Right Now I'm doing movie only of Criterion's Disk of "The Rock"

Impressions.

Disk one of "The Job" took about 4 Hours. This was on my Centrino Laptop.
I kept the default 95%. The Result 1.2 Gb. All menu's intact. Now I can only view this on my Laptop, but my Dell 700m has a pretty nice screen. And I compared it to the original. One person said his result was soft. I don't see that. Occasionally you do see some Macroblocking but overall this is a very nice result.

The single Episode of 1999 reduced down from 2.5 Gb to 450mb at 95%.
Once again very close to the original except to the macroblocking. I would say it looks like a very well encoded High Bitrate Xvid, and probably comparable to Nero Digital's Cinema Template.

The Macroblocking may keep this from being usuable on my 96" Projector, but I'm hazarding a guess here that on my 30" Widescreen Samsung I'd be Hard Press to tell the difference. And Keep in mind this is the First release and you can do better than 95% if you'll accept hight file size.

The Negative aspect would definately be that for know you have to use WMP10. I'm hoping eventually more players will be compatible, I personally use Theatertek, but Hell I'd settle for Nero Showtime 2.

I can see this as very usable for someone that wants to encode either Single TV Eps or their entire Disks for a TV Server.

I'll report Back after I see what happens with "The Rock" and see how it looks via the Projector.....

JW I meant this would be a good application to save Movies or TV to a Media server. Look at my "Job" Disk above, the original is Over 8Gb, and the 1.2 GB Rat version is very usable.

I also wonder what happens when you convert the Rat version back to DVD. In my Space 1999 example above Putting it back on DVD it would be 2.5 gb again, so what happens to the macroblocking? Would the reburned DVD be an exact copy of the original or would it show signs of compression? I'll have to test this.

[Chetwood]

@opsis81
Why do you need size prediction?

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the main reason for him to release it to be able to download movies from the net (which therefore need to be small) that when 'decompressed' later would fit on a regular DVD (and thus playable on any standalone) keeping all the menus intact? So the smaller you can get the rat file the better and size prediction matters.

[celtic_druid]

Well no. If you are simply aiming for smaller downloads from which you can create a DVD. Then size prediction doesn't matter. It only matters when you are aiming for a specific media, like when you convert the ratdvd back to DVD.

But if on the other hand your aim was to store the ratdvd file on a CD then size prediction would matter.

[Leonardo1001]

Why does someone still want to bother with CDs? To save 0,2 US$? No, I think DVD is the was to go... are CD-Recorders still getting sold?

[eb]

Graph from ratDVD
http://img177.echo.cx/img177/9113/ratdvd2wv.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

[celtic_druid]

CD Recorder? What as in standalone audio recorder?
No idea. But CD writers are still being sold and I most certainly still use my CD burners along with my DVD burners. For instance in my car head unit only accepts CD's or ipod's for input. DVD's are not an option.

[Enots_]

Strange graph, Eb. It probably renders it's video and then all them other filters ends up getting connected. I'd say it looks like your computer is full of junk filters with a too high merit that'll connect to anything when you render. Since I doN't have all them filters even installed I know for sure that ratDVD doesn't intend the graph to be that way. Maybe you should clean up your filters?

Anyway I rattet Independence Day yesterday. Complete with all audio, video and menus with default settings. The movie is 7.74 GB in the original covering some 3 hours 2 minutes. I has still as well as motion menus and the movie has seamless branching. It compressed to just short of 2Gb. Playing back in media player work 100%. Converting back to DVD worked like a charm and the DVD played back without any problems. The quality was nice with no too obvious hitches. As for AC3 VS I was unable to distinguish between the original 5.1 and AC3 VS on my PC-speakers. Taking the original DVD and the unrattet to my stereo I was able to hear the difference, in dialog scenes as well as music scores there where no real difference. With surround effects the 5.1 was more "directional" and thus marginally better. But AC3 VS is in my opinion definately an ideal replacement for 5.1 when size matters.

[eb]

Strange graph, Eb. It probably renders it's video and then all them other filters ends up getting connected. I'd say it looks like your computer is full of junk filters with a too high merit that'll connect to anything when you render. Since I doN't have all them filters even installed I know for sure that ratDVD doesn't intend the graph to be that way. Maybe you should clean up your filters?.

You are absolutely right!
It is a good example how "inteligent" M$ system is trying to build filters for players that are based on this system. Main reason why I am using VLC Player.
This graph was not so bad, but in many other cases you can hear from WMP, MPC, mplayer2 super hiper surround efects when players build their filters for audio with Matrix Mixer+AC3Fiter+ multiple ffdshow audio decoders numered up to 10 or more. Again for playback in M$ use VLC !!!.
Main target in my post was to present three basic ratDVD filters together with their pull downs.

eb

[danpos]

@All

Dedicated RatDVD forum at http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/155

Just for information ... :cool:

See ya !

[jwo62]

Why does someone still want to bother with CDs? To save 0,2 US$? No, I think DVD is the was to go... are CD-Recorders still getting sold?



I thought I could use this program to compress movies to watch on my pc at work.

[gpilot]

I just finished converting a highly interactive dvd with 91 titles, lots of menus, and multiple angles everywhere. It's amazing, but the ratDVD file plays back great in media player and all the interactivity (menus, angles, etc) work just like the original dvd! This dvd would be useless unless you kept all the menus and angles. The original dvd was ~7GB, and the ratDVD file, using all default settings, keeping everything, was ~ 1.8GB. And the quality was great.

[danpos]

@gpilot

Impressive result indeed ! :eek:

See ya !

[denret]

I tried it out.....took 8+hrs to compress a 4.35g movie file to 1.2g. When I tried to watch it via Media Player 10, I got jerky motion and poorly synchronized audio. Also it appears that it will be usefull only for small screen viewing. I then tried to re-expand the file as advertised, and it was on it's way to another 8+hrs session. Thats when I gave up. I found the resulting file pretty much unusable.

I like the idea however, and if anyone knows what I may have done wrong please feel free to call me an idiot.

[jwo62]

I tried it out.....took 8+hrs to compress a 4.35g movie file to 1.2g. When I tried to watch it via Media Player 10, I got jerky motion and poorly synchronized audio. Also it appears that it will be usefull only for small screen viewing. I then tried to re-expand the file as advertised, and it was on it's way to another 8+hrs session. Thats when I gave up. I found the resulting file pretty much unusable.

I like the idea however, and if anyone knows what I may have done wrong please feel free to call me an idiot.


I had similar results with son of mask. but the finished files were still 2.8 gb.

[mrbass]

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5731042.html

[KickF]

everyone says they don`t know where the program comes from ... in the articel I read at a norwegian online IT mag. ( www.itavisen.no ) they told that a group of students in denmark and a grup of students in St. Petersburg.

You can read more about it here ( if you can read norwegian ;) )

http://www.itavisen.no/showArticle.php?articleId=1306273


Bak det nye programmet står studenter ved universitetet i Århus, Danmark - i samarbeid med studenter ved universitetet i St. Petersburg i Russland.


What it say is : Behinde the new program RatDVD stands a group of students from Århus, Danmark which have work togeter whit students in St.Petersburg Russia

I can`t say I have read that in any of the other Online News I have readed

I just thougth you pepz would like to know ... maby some you allready know but what the heck :D

[dragongodz]

from the link mrbass gave
"I don't know what people will use it for; that's an individual decision," said the programmer, who asked to remain anonymous. "I don't think the program does anything illegal, although it certainly could be used illegally."

hmm and yet on the main rat page we have in big bold letters at the top
Welcome to ratDVD - the DVD movie download format
and then further down
RatDVD is the result of my downloading experiences. Downloading movies, even DVD rips never really worked out to what I expected.

so pretty damn clear to me what this programs intended purpose is. as such not suitable for discussion IMHO under rule 6.

[Leonardo1001]

from the link mrbass gave

Quote:
"I don't know what people will use it for; that's an individual decision," said the programmer, who asked to remain anonymous. "I don't think the program does anything illegal, although it certainly could be used illegally."


Like guns

hmm and yet on the main rat page we have in big bold letters at the top

Quote:
Welcome to ratDVD - the DVD movie download format

What is wrong with downloading movies? Aren't there legitimate uses like Cinema Now or T-Online? Wouldn't ratDVD be better than the current "VHS like" MS DRM approach?

and then further down

Quote:
RatDVD is the result of my downloading experiences. Downloading movies, even DVD rips never really worked out to what I expected.

I would agree to that statement. Without ratDVD viewing downloaded movies isn't really like watching DVDs.
so pretty damn clear to me what this programs intended purpose is. as such not suitable for discussion IMHO under rule 6.

Why please?

[dragongodz]

What is wrong with downloading movies? Aren't there legitimate uses like Cinema Now or T-Online? Wouldn't ratDVD be better than the current "VHS like" MS DRM approach?
tell me how many people(not companies) have permission to make the dvds or movies they buy available for download by others. dont bother i already know the answer...none. this isnt a tool for companies to better facilitate a reasonable business model for pay services. its for people to make their complete dvds smaller to download by others.

I would agree to that statement. Without ratDVD viewing downloaded movies isn't really like watching DVDs.
quality of downloaded movies is irrelivent. downloading copyrighted content,such as copyrighted movies(rips or complete dvds), is illegal in most countries and discussion of such things is against this forums rules.

could it have a legal use ? yes if it was used for distributing home movies. considering however it also says things like
Keep movie versions (Directors Cut, Theatrical version, etc.), Alternate story endings, making of, video commentary , cut scenes, etc..
and all pictures on the page are of commercial films there is not even an attempt to suggest a legal use.

[wmansir]

Regardless of the author's intent, I don't think this tool is inherently designed for copyright infringement, at least not any more than many of the tools we discuss here. It has obvious legitamate backup usage potential and is interesting on a purely technical level also. I haven't had a chance to check it out myself, but it sounds very interesting.


@KickF
That is interesting, but,from the language used, the RatDVD website suggests this is the work of one author,.

[wmansir]

@dragongodz

I agree his intent is clear, but as long as the discussion remains about using it as a backup tool and not sharing/shared material, I think it is appropriate.

[opsis81]

I'm sorry dragongodz I don't want to be rude but only moderators can decide what is suitable for discussion and what is not.
Everybody here is talking about making dvd backups that we own with ratDVD to ratDVD format.
Like everybody here is talking about making dvd backups that we own with DVD Rebuilder to DVD-5.
I'm sorry but I can't see any difference.

[Enots_]

I do believe we're all entittled to an opinion about what is appropriate or not for this board, moderator or not. Obviously the moderators ultimately have the responsibillity and thus the priveledge of making the decision.

I'm of the opinion that Doom9 does not nor should it any manner or fasion further the violation of copyrights. Authors are entittled to reap the benefits of what they sow. Like the rest of us.

As for Dragongodz opinion that we shouldn't discuss ratDVD because of rule 6 I couldn't disagree more. There is times when free speech shouldn't apply. Yelling "Fire" in a cinema is one such case. However this is not one of those times. Censorship (and that is what it would be) is a tool that should be used a bit more carefully - except if you're Kim Jong Il or a close friend of Saddam Hussein.

1. To draw inference from your interpretation of the authors intend to that of the users is a gross misrepresentation of the people in this forum.

2. ratDVD has legitimate uses - even in connection with downloads. The movie of somebody's wedding say could be "ratted" and thus easilier distributed over the internet without this being a copyright violation. I find absolutely no reason why we should try to discourage such use. Another possible use would be that of harddisk backups of DVD collections. I couldn't possibly put my 40 movies on my harddisk without compressing them - with ratDVD I just might!

3. Even when ratDVD wouldn't have a legitimate use it would still serve a purpose to discuss it. ratDVD regardsless of how you see it does contain technology which is interesting. I'm convinced that most of doom9 users have an outspoken interest in technical matters - regardless weather they use them or not. I don't use Xvid - it odesn't by a long shot mean I'm not interested in the technology.

4. You may or may not be right about the intend of ratDVD. Judging by an out of context quote from an online interview and the word "download" - is probably a bit of a harsh way to judge people. I believe the entire quote is:
"I don't know what people will use it for; that's an individual decision," said the programmer, who asked to remain anonymous. "I don't think the program does anything illegal, although it certainly could be used illegally." And although I think the statement was unwisely chosen wouldn't this statement not be true for DVDShrink, Nero, Nero Recode, DVDDecrypter, XVid, Matroska and windows explorer (Infact I cannot think of a single tool that is intensely discussed in DOom9 for which this statement wouldn't be true)?

5. It would set a dangerous presidence as to when rule 6 should be applied. Let's not forget that XVid is the tool of choice by internet movie pirates. I think we would be kidding ourselves if we assumed that people didn't use Nero recode to commit copyright violations (The users of Doom9 of cause all don't - but in the real world). DVDShrink, DVDDecrypter and AnyDVD goes even further than ratDVD does because they contain code which is defacto illegal in the majority of the countries from which the users of doom9 comes. And I havn't even gotten to the slippery part yet..... Are you willing to suggest censoring discussing on those programs too, Dragongodz?

[onesoul]

I smell a rat. :D Sorry, couldn't help it. ;)

[Leonardo1001]

@Enots_: I couldn't agree more!

@onesoul: Do we continue with this "good software, good guys" vs. "bad software, bad guys" discussion now involving posters from doom9, or what do we do? We'll see...

[bond]

ok lets try to collect the facts:

1) audio is 2 channel ac3

2) the .ratDVD format is mpg (ps) in a .zip (is it imaginable that they simply use the original .vob from the dvd with reencoded streams?)

3) any info about the video format? the authors claim its a new format. anyone tried playing the unzipped mpg program stream in mplayer, videolan aso?


another thing i saw is that the ratDVD tools look very much like nero's tools (buttons aso...), also their navigator dshow filter looks exactly like nero's dvd navigator filter properties

[danpos]

@All



Come on, guys ! Lets go calm down. I think that the discussion is gonna OFF-TOPIC way. We must to discuss the tool itself, because of it presents new technology that's very interesting. And only this. Because of any knowledge can be used in "white side of force" or "dark side of the force" and each one has freedom of choose what way to follows with all implications that a such decision can carries out. In this way, why do we back to the good TOPIC discussions about the tool and then to forget the OFF-TOPIC posts (like this one :D for example) ?



See ya !

[bond]

it presents new technology that's very interesting.what new technology?
till now i only saw proove of ac3, mpg and zip, which i wouldnt really call "new technology" ;)

[opsis81]

@ bond
I 'm sure it's the original .vob.MPC can't play it unless I disable the internal MPEGSplitter,Showtime loads Nero Splitter(the filter that uses from mpeg and vob files)
I had a strange feeling that the video stream might be AVC(yes it looked that good to me).But it seems that it isn't,I have tried to play the xvo files to videolan and I have tried to connect to it in graphedit with moonlight's mpeg splitter (the version that handles avc-in-mpg) but it the video stream couldn't be splitted.
ratDVD tools look very much like nero's tools?I don't think so.The only resemblance I can see is that it uses the "menus-main movie-extras" style like Recode and DVDShrink.
Speaking for nero,I think formats like that will push them to finally add mp4 menu support in Recode.Seriously what are they waiting for?

[opsis81]

what new technology?
till now i only saw proove of ac3, mpg and zip, which i wouldnt really call "new technology" ;)

Yes it isn't a "new technology".But this is also the power of the program.It can transform even DVDs with the most complicated structure to ratDVD format and convert it back to DVD.

[Leonardo1001]

@bond: I think the navigator looks like the MS DVD Navigator - maybe they just hacked it? Regarding Nero: I don't think that they even have a DS Navigation filter but I am not sure. I have tried to find it in graphedt but could not find one. Do you happen to have it's name, guid or something so that I can have a look?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I wonder whether the people behind ratDVD have developed an new type of Mpeg2/VOB video compression tool...

A kind of "souped up" ZIP, RAR or 7-ZIP, if you will :)


Cheers

[bond]

@bond: I think the navigator looks like the MS DVD Navigator - maybe they just hacked it? Regarding Nero: I don't think that they even have a DS Navigation filter but I am not sure. I have tried to find it in graphedt but could not find one. Do you happen to have it's name, guid or something so that I can have a look?
its called "nero dvd navigator"

[opsis81]

Nero DVD Navigator

CLSID
{6C7CDDD4-C4EE-470D-B643-0EF3B68E6396}

FilterData
hex:02,00,00,00,00,00,60,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,70,69,33,\
08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,06,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,74,79,33,00,\
00,00,00,20,01,00,00,30,01,00,00,31,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,40,01,\
00,00,32,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,50,01,00,00,33,74,79,33,00,00,00,\
00,20,01,00,00,60,01,00,00,34,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,70,01,00,00,\
35,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,80,01,00,00,31,70,69,33,08,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,\
00,00,90,01,00,00,31,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,a0,01,00,00,32,70,69,\
33,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,74,79,33,\
00,00,00,00,20,01,00,00,b0,01,00,00,31,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,c0,01,00,00,b0,\
01,00,00,33,70,69,33,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,30,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,d0,01,00,00,b0,01,00,00,6a,91,0b,ed,4d,04,d1,\
11,aa,78,00,c0,4f,c3,1d,60,2b,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,\
2c,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,32,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,\
d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,33,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,34,80,\
6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,4d,50,34,41,00,00,10,00,80,00,00,\
aa,00,38,9b,71,4d,50,34,56,00,00,10,00,80,00,00,aa,00,38,9b,71,26,80,6d,e0,\
46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,2d,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,\
6c,bb,ea,74,78,74,73,00,00,10,00,80,00,00,aa,00,38,9b,71,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00


XEB Navigation Filter

CLSID
{482D10B6-376E-4411-8A17-833800A065DB}

FilterData
hex:02,00,00,00,00,00,80,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,70,69,33,\
08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,74,79,33,00,\
00,00,00,98,00,00,00,a8,00,00,00,31,70,69,33,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,30,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,b8,00,00,00,c8,00,00,\
00,32,70,69,33,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
30,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,b8,00,00,00,d8,00,00,00,31,74,79,33,00,00,00,00,e8,\
00,00,00,d8,00,00,00,76,69,64,73,00,00,10,00,80,00,00,aa,00,38,9b,71,59,34,\
58,83,96,f7,18,41,84,52,aa,80,ad,fc,69,0a,6a,91,0b,ed,4d,04,d1,11,aa,78,00,\
c0,4f,c3,1d,60,2c,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,2d,80,6d,e0,\
46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,6c,bb,ea,20,80,6d,e0,46,db,cf,11,b4,d1,00,80,5f,\
6c,bb,ea

Different CLSID and FilterData

[Leonardo1001]

@bond,opsis81: Somehow I had to reinstall Nero, but now I got it. However, when I compare the three navigation filters (MS, Nero, ratdvd) only the MS and ratdvd have the same number of pins. The property pages all look some kind of identical (probably no big surprise since they all have the same function, right?) but all are different in the number of buttons, layout, etc... In summary: For me it looks like this are three totally different, independent filters...

[onesoul]

@ Leonardo1001

Actually I was making a pun on the weird choice of naming the software.

I find the concept interesting although I didn't test it yet.

[milh31]

Ok time for some pics but first a few infos

Movie : Tokyo Fist (1995 - Japan)

Original DVD size : 3.76GB
RatDVD file size (with 5.1 -> 2.0) : 995MB
Transcoded DVD size : 2.88GB

Quality : Default 95%

A bunch of before/after pics : http://users.skynet.be/fa036594/RatDVD.TEST.TOKYO.FIST.zip

[onesoul]

It blurs too much but I guess it is the preferred method, which presents less blocks, at this kid of compression.

How does it behave at higher quality?

[Seimour]

A new dedicated forum has been added in cdfreaks' club (as show in ratDVD main page). It can be found here (http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=108)
This looks interesting because, xvid took too much time when encoding in 2 passes mode, full quality (Ultra High, Wide Search, QPel)

[danpos]

My first trying with ratDVD:

Movie : Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Original DVD size : 7.49GB
RatDVD file size (with 5.1 -> 2.0) : 1.44GB
Transcoded DVD size : 6.05GB

Quality : Default 95%

I just don't get to play with .ratDVD, using neither MPC and VLC (my WMP is old and don't want to upgrade it to WMP10, because of I already used it before and I didn't like it).

I've tried re-registering the .ax inside XEB folder and reboot my machine. I still only get to play the audio from .ratDVD file, but video didn't.

Some advice are greatly appreciated.

TIA,

[wmansir]

You can try using the zoom player with some tweaking. Check out the instructions here (http://www.ratdvd.dk/faq.htm#ZoomPlayer).

[danpos]

You can try using the zoom player with some tweaking. Check out the instructions here (http://www.ratdvd.dk/faq.htm#ZoomPlayer).

:thanks: mate ! I'll give it a shot asap ! ;)

CYA!

[danpos]

@wmansir

I followed your advice and I went to ratDVD FAQ, readed it and I did all recommended. When I fed ZP with a .ratDVD file, I got the following error: "Divison by zero" :eek:

I'm using ZP Pro 4.03 ...

Some tip?

CYA!

EDIT: I got sucess for playing .ratDVD for now ! I just did some adjust in it, installing filters and other minors stuffs. BTW, I got a weird playback with .ratDVD. The movie was resized, appeared other 2 retangles with piece of movie running and the movie itself find it out without color (b/w) ... :eek: Well, solved the playback issue, I'm gonna to do the reverse procedure (.ratDVD -> DVD) and then I'll see that I got at final ...

[MaXiMuS]

from VCDHelp.com forum (http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=270225)
Ratdvd use's the exb encoder which is part of directx9c which basically put gose

Black "ditto" "ditto" green white "ditto" , ect ...

The "ditto" is a small replacement code for the actual code required for each pixel , very smart and clever and was something I was doing a while back ... but couldnt get the matrix exactly the way I wanted it , came close , but not as close as ratdvd has ...

This is how its able to pack the video down into such a small size , and unpack it without so much as blemish on the origianl look .

Just tried it out on a mini dvd of 280mbs , defaults used , output was 80mbs .

encode time was about 30 minutes per 10 minutes of video , and equal in return .

Quality was unchanged in conversion back to dvd format .

Excellent work , and it will make sharing whole dvds alot easier ...

[bond]

so anyone knowing already what video coding format is used in ratdvd?

i read somewhere that it might be mpeg-1 or some variant of it. can anyone deny or agree with that?

[celtic_druid]

Surely if it were MPEG-1 based it would be quicker?

[JonRead]

Mpeg 1 ?? I can't imagine the quality would be as good as it is in ratDVD if it was using mpg1, also I don't think mpg1 creates the smudging effect in this codec, it usually creates blocks. To me it looks like a WM9 or 10 or something.

[bourtzovlakas]

Is it true, that the program doesn't work with any other OS, than XP??

[SeeMoreDigital]

Mpeg 1 ?? I can't imagine the quality would be as good as it is in ratDVD if it was using mpg1, also I don't think mpg1 creates the smudging effect in this codec, it usually creates blocks. To me it looks like a WM9 or 10 or something.There's not a lot wrong with how Mpeg1 looks, especially when it's been encoded at DVD resolutions ;)


Cheers

[wmansir]

I just read a post (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138959) by the author over at CDFreaks.

•I have extended the libdvdnav. I have to clean it up a bit but will probably release it as open source this week.
•I hope to release the playback filters also this week.
•Yes, I will publish details about the format although I don’t know when I will get to that.

I did my own test and have to say I was disappointed. Although the disc I used was a difficult source (The Abyss, R1). The video quality was terrible, and that was with the quality slider moved all the way up. However, I am impressed by the fact that it worked at all.

[Kurtnoise]

There are now a package (http://www.ratdvd.dk/code.htm) for the playback in any dshow players. So, Bye-Bye WMP10... ;) The libdvdnav sources are also available.

[Enots_]

MPEG1 are you guys insane, blind or just in between? Typical artefacts in MPEG1 are ringing (mosqito's) and blocks - especially at low bitrates. I don't see any ringing arond sharp edges as I would expect from something that had been cored or quantized to death. What I see in ratDVD is beyond all a bit of blur. Now the blur could come from resizing back and forth - accepted - that is however is inconsistent with the fact that some (I'd say most) edges are sharp and well defined and those edges which shouldn't be sharp (like shadows) aren't. I also got to love the argumentation from some that MPEG1 looks great in DVD resolutions - it does - but below 1 Mbit in Full (or even half) D1? Bollocks!

So lets take a look beyond visual impression and go to the data. The .ratDVD container is really a zip as been duely noted. Within this zip you find the .VOB which is now called .XVO. Within the .XVO you find a muxing format which appears to be related to the original DVD. Demuxing this you don't find any 0xE0 video stream. Instead I found a mysterious 0xEF stream. This stream always start with a "XEBC" identifier. Interestingly the UI says converting MPEG2->XEB - and the exe file is called XEBencoder.exe. If it where MPEG1 we'd be able to find startcodes here. 00 00 01 00 (Picture header) no where to be found, 00 00 01 xx (Slice headers) none. 00 00 01 B7.. nada.. nothing of what you'd expect in MPEG1. You could argue that it is an encrypted stream, but I don't see nothing which would indicate encryption....

What is this codec then? No fucking idea. But it ain't MPEG1.

[LordIntruder]

Hi,


I've been playing with this new tool. I had a 71min rip available on my HDD, an old movie, not clean with grain. I encoded it with Xvid, 1291Kbits and Ogg at q3. Looks great once encoded.

Now with ratDVD I deselected all bonus to only keep the video, the audio and the menu (total size of vob was around 3Gb). I choose this to do a fair compare with my 700Mb Xvid rip.

I selected "95" on the slider and launch the encode. Around 4 hours on 2400+ and it weigh 1Gb (0,97Gb exactly).

I have WMP 9 and not 10 as recommended and I got some problems to select the menus. Nothing appear then a yellow icon popup, then it disappear, reapper later then I click it and the movie start. Here I'm really disappointed, the image looks ok if you look far but close to the screen every detail is gone, I can see many blocks, light blocks but still they are here. The image looks like RV10, I mean when there is not enough bitrate with RV10, it clean and blur every detail. Same here with ratDVD.

I don't know what is the final resolution because I don't know how to see it on WMP.

So ok the movie is watchable, I see ten times worst but it is not the revolution expected. ;)

This tool is absolutely the easiest I ever play with. It is a real one-click program. You launch it, you select the IFO in the \video, everything is already ticked, you just have to click "Go" and ratDVD begin the work. Very very easy.

It's a very good tool for beginners, rip DVD, burn it on CD-RW or DVD-RW, play it on PC, loan it to a friend, and if a day you want to make it a real DVD, it is really easy too. But for those who want quality, high quality, I wonder...

In short: at the quality "95" and compare with a Xvid rip:

- bigger file
- worse quality
- play only on XP with WMP but didn't tested the direct show stuff.
- absolutely easy to use, a real one click program.

I saw that the slider allow me to go up to 150. Maybe that at 150 I would got a very good looking movie but at what size? So the publicity "one DVD on one Gb" we saw on every site is totally ridiculous, obviously not verified. On the ratDVD site it is told:

".... of about 1.x GB in size...."

Yes you can get an 1.00Gb file size or a 1.99Gb or even more, depends of the size of the DVD. ;)

Anyway, thanks to the author for his work and hope he will improve its baby. :)

[infoscapeone]

Strange. In my tests it was always clearly above XviD quality at the same bitrate. Can you give us some more data about the test you did?

Which movie did you use? Was it transcoded already?
What was the content of the movie (e.g. sizes, stream information of every title/title set)?
Which part of this did you enode with XviD (title, streams, etc.)?
What settings did you do in ratdvd (regarding the subtitle and audio streams) and Xvid?

Thanks.

[Teegedeck]

Strange. In my tests it was always clearly above XviD quality at the same bitrate.

I would call it 'high art' to manage to produce a picture worse than RatDVD's with any modern codec.

Load XviD's default-settings and try again...

[Cyberace]

so anyone knowing already what video coding format is used in ratdvd?I too like to know and have asked over at cdfreaks.com forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=139402) as ratDVD devs seems to reply to posts there ;)

[onesoul]

RatDVD merchandise (http://www.cafepress.com/ratdvd)! What a heck is this? Lol, you gotta be kidding.

[Fishman0919]

onesoul, we usually don't agree... but that is some funny s###....LOL

[danpos]

RatDVD merchandise (http://www.cafepress.com/ratdvd)! What a heck is this? Lol, you gotta be kidding.

LOL, that's very funny ! I wanna a sweatshirt for me ! :D

CYA!

[riggits]

tell me how many people(not companies) have permission to make the dvds or movies they buy available for download by others. dont bother i already know the answer...none. this isnt a tool for companies to better facilitate a reasonable business model for pay services. its for people to make their complete dvds smaller to download by others.


quality of downloaded movies is irrelivent. downloading copyrighted content,such as copyrighted movies(rips or complete dvds), is illegal in most countries and discussion of such things is against this forums rules.

could it have a legal use ? yes if it was used for distributing home movies. considering however it also says things like

and all pictures on the page are of commercial films there is not even an attempt to suggest a legal use.

What's wrong with backing up commercial films on DVD? Most people think it quite reasonable to keep copies of films they have purchased, but for many it is unfeasible to do the backup themselves. Lack of equipment, time, knowledge, and desire to spend countless hours on ripping/burning can prevent a sensible backup operation.

Maybe you should review your own relevant Supreme Court rulings and common law re: downloading copyrighted works. If you have the original DVD, you can download a copy of it whenever it appears on P2P networks; there's no law against common sense (yet) AFAIK, and it saves hours of encoding, hard drive space.
Believe it or not, you still have (some) rights in the USA. Don't be so quick to force your narrow-minded assumptions onto others here with such reckless abandon. If you value your freedoms so little, and live as if you don't have them, you probably won't notice when they're actually gone.

[dragongodz]

What's wrong with backing up commercial films on DVD?
nothing, i never said there was. its the distribution of said copyrighted material that is wrong and illegal in most countries.

for many it is unfeasible to do the backup themselves
sorry but the law doesnt care that you can not afford to buy the equipment to do it yourself. so this is irrelivent.

If you have the original DVD, you can download a copy of it whenever it appears on P2P networks
show me exactly where the law says that please, and i mean for the majority of countries not just one.

Believe it or not, you still have (some) rights in the USA.
hmm strange, the country listed next to my location doesnt look like U.S.A. to me. so please do NOT try and tell me what rights i do and do not have in my country, i know them much better than you.

Don't be so quick to force your narrow-minded assumptions onto others here with such reckless abandon. If you value your freedoms so little, and live as if you don't have them, you probably won't notice when they're actually gone.
dont be so quick to try and take pot shots at people without knowing your facts because you obviously know bugger all about me and my views.

heres some things for you to consider.
1. downloading copyrighted material is NOT legal in every country, owning a movie does not automatically give you this right.
2. this board has rules and if you do some searching questions about downloading copyrighted material is generally considered to be under rule 6 to cover all legal possabilities.
3. i will quote wmansir from page 3 of this thread
I agree his intent is clear, but as long as the discussion remains about using it as a backup tool and not sharing/shared material, I think it is appropriate.
so a mod, whos opinion is the only one that really counts in the end, has clearly said what can and can not be discussed. if you have a problem wih that then try talking to him about it.

[Teegedeck]

I too like to know and have asked over at cdfreaks.com forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=139402) as ratDVD devs seems to reply to posts there ;)
Alright, now the developer(s) come(s) forward with details about the codec in the FAQ:
* It is block based (No wavelets anywhere)
* It has a dynamic GOP structure, P frames have only one reference frame, B frames two.
* GOPs are significantly longer than normal DVD GOPs and always closed
* To avoid drift in long GOPs it has a build-in intra-refresh mechanism
* It has intra prediction significantly more advanced than MPEG2, but not quite as flexible as H.264
* It uses an integer transformation that approximates DCT
* It uses a piecewise linear adaptive quant. The Quant level is determined for each macroblock by a simple psycho visual model
* It has a primitive in-loop deblocking filter
* Mode decision is part lagrangian optimization, part ad hoc based on statistics manually tuned to fit.
* It uses an in-codec scaler and the actual encoded picture size can vary in both dimensions between GOPs
* In order to maintain navigation ability and the reconvertability the codec suffers some limitations that others don’t
* The MUX format is H.262 + some private extensionsSo it seems basically a non-standard MPEG-1,-2 or -4 (assumption, until we learn otherwise --> quote: "obviously I didn’t reinvent video-encoding"). As the codec is too weak to be actual MPEG-4, I tend to believe it is a 'Frankenstein'-MPEG-1 or -2 with some MPEG-4 features (from various levels and profiles) thrown in.
Although he tries to make adaptive quantization sound like he invented it. :p

One of the features lent from MPEG-4 seems inbuilt deblocking; the more interesting thing though is: The impression that this codec reduces resolution doesn't seem to be all untrue - quoting again:
"It uses an in-codec scaler and the actual encoded picture size can vary in both dimensions between GOPs"That (and deblocking) should explain the high CPU load on playback, too.

I think the most striking characteristics of RatDVD (blurriness, strong compression) are mostly explained now by these two:
- reduced resolution encoding
- deblocking

[bond]

indeed very interesting

tough i find very funny his statemtents to have to devlop an own codec because
1) keeping mpeg-2 features, for being able to do "transcoding" and not decoding/encoding
2) not using patented technologies

i would say that his tool indeed simply does decoding/reencoding (cause how else could you change the gop structure and use loop, reduced resolution?), so something like bitrate peeling isnt used

about patented technologies: well as long as he doesnt show any specs he will be on the save side with this claim, but i heavily doubt it that his tool doesnt use any patented tech (unless he is a good lawyer too :D )
after all he uses patented technology already with using ac3 and therefore isnt "on the save side" legally (at least in western countries)

would have been a chance for ogg theora/vorbis useage :)

[Enots_]

As the codec is too weak to be actual MPEG-4, I tend to believe it is a 'Frankenstein'-MPEG-1 or -2 with some MPEG-4 features (from various levels and profiles) thrown in.


Bollocks. MPEG-4 is a bitstream definition... Although bitstream does set some upper limits to the quality you can achieve they set no lower limits. Infact don't take my word for it - eliminate all inter-mode decisions in Xvid and it'll still produce Xvid conform streams but they'll look like shit at bitrates that worked well before...

[Teegedeck]

Bollocks. MPEG-4 is a bitstream definition... Although bitstream does set some upper limits to the quality you can achieve they set no lower limits. Infact don't take my word for it - eliminate all inter-mode decisions in Xvid and it'll still produce Xvid conform streams but they'll look like shit at bitrates that worked well before...
So your point is, it might as well be a bad MPEG-4 implementation?

[708145]

So your point is, it might as well be a bad MPEG-4 implementation?

It seems to be much closer to what On2 does. In-codec scaling and such.

bis besser,
Tobias

[Teegedeck]

bond, these are some interesting points you came up with in the cdfreaks-forum.

Can the devel have written such statements not knowing he contradicted himself?

[bond]

Can the devel have written such statements not knowing he contradicted himself?
hm i dont know actually, he might refer to the ideas that the same video coding formats can encode themselves best (eg a mpeg-2 video codec can reencode mpeg-2 best), but i never saw any real proove for that

[MaXiMuS]

More Codec info from RatDVD FAQ (http://www.ratdvd.dk/faq.htm)

Are there any more details about the Video codec you are using?

RatDVD uses a video codec called XEB. This codec is the result from an experimental project I did with some fellows and that does not use any XviD, x.264, etc. code although by the very nature of it contains routines which is similar in function and even to a small extend in output to what you’ll find out there – obviously I didn’t reinvent video-encoding. Since I have been asked here is a small summary of the codec internals:

It is block based (No wavelets anywhere)
It has a dynamic GOP structure, P frames have only one reference frame, B frames two.
GOPs are significantly longer than normal DVD GOPs and always closed
To avoid drift in long GOPs it has a build-in intra-refresh mechanism
It has intra prediction significantly more advanced than MPEG2, but not quite as flexible as H.264
It uses an integer transformation that approximates DCT
It uses a piecewise linear adaptive quant. The Quant level is determined for each macroblock by a simple psycho visual model
It has a primitive in-loop deblocking filter
Mode decision is part lagrangian optimization, part ad hoc based on statistics manually tuned to fit.
It uses an in-codec scaler and the actual encoded picture size can vary in both dimensions between GOPs
In order to maintain navigation ability and the reconvertability the codec suffers some limitations that others don’t
The MUX format is H.262 + some private extensions
The main reason for this codec was the ability to transport the complete DVD navigation data to be able to recreate the original DVDs. Now that this goal is reached I can look in more detail at the performance and quality optimizations since I believe that there is still a lot more potential.

[bourtzovlakas]

There is also a new version....
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/ratDVD/1117684936/1


* Tagging with IMDB support
* Shellextension to display ratDVDs with DVD cover in Windows Explorer
* Windows 2000 support
* AC-3 SP/DIF support (see settings tool)
* Implemented warning for corrupted input material from DVD
* Some optimizations regarding speed
* Bug Fixes: Delete only created destination folder when canceling conversion to DVD
* Bug Fixes: Convert to DVD creates separate folder in which the VIDEO_TS is stored
* Bug Fixes: VIDEO_TS title search pointers corrected
* Bug Fixes: Fix for DVDs created with DVDlab(Pro)
* Bug Fixes: Fix for “list index out of bounds” when removing specific titles on some DVDs
* Bug Fixes: Fix for pink blocks occurring on specific chapter changes on some discs when reconverting to DVD
* Bug Fixes: Fix for displaying three/five black/white images during playback on some computers
* Bug Fixes: Fix for subtitle handling in .ratDVD playback (subtitles were disyplayed too often)
* Bug Fixes: Flickering in progress dialog when converting stills or very short titles

[QQ]

no go for me till i get size prediction :(

[gpilot]

The tagging support in the new release (6.1117) is pretty cool. I just opened the source DVD to convert to ratDVD, and did the search under 'Tags', and it found everything from IMDB pretty fast. Having the DVD case cover attached to the ratDVD file is neat.

[Leonardo1001]

@QQ: For what exactly do you need size prediction? Isn't the only thing that matters the size on the disc? And there the bitrate calculation is working fine to make sure the disc is filled. What else matters?

[Soulhunter]

RatDVD merchandise (http://www.cafepress.com/ratdvd)! What a heck is this?

But where to get a official XviD shirt?


Bye

[CrisCr0ss]

Is there great quality loss when going from DVD>RatDVD>DVD

im curious.

[Teegedeck]

Oh yes, rest assured. :)

Lossy (original MPEG-2) --> lossy w. blurring (RatDVD) --> lossy (MPEG-2).

[video]

hi. have anybody succeded setting destination size before the conversion?

[Mr. Monte]

Oh yes, rest assured. :)

Lossy (original MPEG-2) --> lossy w. blurring (RatDVD) --> lossy (MPEG-2).

Hmm..I was under the assumption that it was doing a LZW compression (PKZIP) to the files..kinda like Monkey's Audio does to CDA.

If that were the case, your output when decoding would be the exact size and quality of the original.

[wmansir]

Hmm..I was under the assumption that it was doing a LZW compression (PKZIP) to the files..kinda like Monkey's Audio does to CDA.

If that were the case, your output when decoding would be the exact size and quality of the original.

Lossless compression would be impossible. MPEG-2 encodes are already compressed, and it is very difficult to further shrink a compressed file losslessly. You can get a little with MPEG-2 because it's not as efficient as other encoders, but no more than single digit % compression.

But .ratDVD files are .zip files, it can be extracted with a zip program. However, that is (mostly?) used as a method of keeping all the files together, like an .iso of a disk image. I didn't check to see if any compression was used at all in the zipping. With large files the processing time to uncompress is often not worth the benefits of compressing. One advantage over .iso is that archive formats usually have error detection and recovery methods built in. Since the author intended this format to be used in internet transmissions it would make sense to include corruption detection.

[Backflip]

Interesting format. How exactly would this tool/format etc compare with any other full DVD backup (keeping menus, extras, etc). Is there anything out there that's as good?

[video]

i've failed with the tagging of my ratDVD compilation :(

[Sbofen]

Ok, who's gonna make the proggy that lets you choose which of the 4 movies you just burnt to your single layer dvd? :D

[kl33per]

Has anyone got a ratDVD file to play successfully in MPC. I can get it to play, but can't navigate the menus using the mouse, or the ratDVD Navigation Filter.

[infoscapeone]

Has anyone got a ratDVD file to play successfully in MPC. I can get it to play, but can't navigate the menus using the mouse, or the ratDVD Navigation Filter.

MPC is not on the list of supporting players (http://www.ratdvd.dk/play.htm). Will probably not work without changes... but I agree that it would be great if the MPC guys could implement support soon.

[bond]

ratDVD gets played via directshow filters, so playback should work in any directshow player, like mpc, without having the player devs to adopt anything ratdvd specific

[kl33per]

@bond
Well that's what I thought, but damned if I can get navigation working under MPC.

[Cyberace]

I asked here (link) (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138951) about ratDVD support in MPlayer, VLC and XINE and never got a reply http://club.cdfreaks.com/images/smilies/6/sad.gif ...the problem is that the filters that the ratDVD developers released is only a (pre-compiled) DirectShow-filter binary, (not the full source code to the codecs nor the muxers/splitters), and VLC, MPlayer, XINE, etc. are not DirectShow-based so do not support DirectShow filters nativly (because DirectShow is Microsoft Windows propriotory and copyrighted). ...so best would be if the ratDVD developers open sourced their codecs and muxer/splitter so that non-DirectShow players can playback ratDVD.

PS! I very much doubt that ratDVD don't use any code at all from GPL/LGPL codecs, (or take advantage of the patents/specifications held in copyright by the MPAA for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, or Dolby for AC3), but if they don't they don't have to even release the source code of the codecs they have created from scratch, however if they just used a single line of code from a GPL'ed project inside their codec code then they must comply with the GPL license and release the full source code http://club.cdfreaks.com/images/smilies/4/policeman.gif ...they managed to legally workaround the GPL with libdvdnav and imdbexport by encapsulating the code inside a COM server to dynamicly load these when needed (do I don't see any ratDVD headers for them which they technicaly should have released too) however I don't see how they can ever get around it with the GPL and other licenses and copyrights of existing video and audio codecs without violating numerous copyrights and even laws :sly: ...I don't know maybe they plan to release the full source code soon in which case I pre-apologize now, I hate to sound like a OSD-zealot but I'm really disappointed that they are still holding on to the should code

[Tom Ellard]

ratDVD gets played via directshow filters, so playback should work in any directshow player, like mpc, without having the player devs to adopt anything ratdvd specific

I can't get a .ratDVD file to be recognised or played by any player whatsoever. Instead I get endless hard drive thrashing.

More than that, the DVDs I have authored myself in DVD Lab cause an immediate crash in RatDVD despite the notes saying that's fixed.

And it's bloody slow.

Maybe better off waiting a bit on this one.

[infoscapeone]

Can you get a bit more specific?

What errors do you get? In which players? With what movies?

[Tom Ellard]

Can you get a bit more specific?

What errors do you get? In which players? With what movies?

Under Windows XP SP2 on a P4 I took a DVD that I had previously copied to my hard drive and passed it through RatDVD and ended up with a .ratDVD file. It was a collection of old public domain Warners cartoons that lasted about 3 hours all up. It went from about 6.5Gb to 2.2Gb

This file, when I tried to open it in Windows Media Player 10, caused the hard drive to start working hard, the player didn't show anything except the 'opening' signal, I waited for a few minutes and then shut down the task. Restarted the machine, tried again, same result.

Double clicking the file opened ratDVD again and offered to decompress it. The chapters looked intact.

[baer999]

"First DVD-Player (stand-alone) manufacturer plans to integrate native ratDVD support (making ratDVD to DVD redundant)"

The News are released today at their HP !!!

[Morbo]

I'll wait for BR or HD-DVD......

I was kinda hoping for monkey audio for DVD too....but it's
not even Xvid..

Now if someone could twist ratDVD into using XVID,I'd be more
thrilled.

I hate block filters......

[easy2Bcheesy]

I gave RatDVD a go using the BBC DVD, Jonathan Creek, Series 3, Disk 1. That's about 2.5 hours of low-motion footage, which RatDVD took down to 1.2GB. On my Dell 8400 with 3.4GHz CPU, with AnyDVD sorting out CSS, the RatDVD process took about five hours.

Playback was on a Dell 2405FPW which does show up artefacting pretty badly, but I thought the results were unacceptably poor quality. In fact, I'd say 'shockingly poor' to be honest. But then, what do you expect for 2.5 hours at 1.2GB?

At the other end of the spectrum, quality level 150 (max) produced an 8GB file, and 125 was at 4GB at 60% before I quit it.

Personally I'm looking for a good quality back-up tool for archiving my DVDs onto my media PC. From what I've seen, this isn't it. Time to experiment more with Nero Recode then.

[infoscapeone]

Playback was on a Dell 2405FPW which does show up artefacting pretty badly, but I thought the results were unacceptably poor quality. In fact, I'd say 'shockingly poor' to be honest. But then, what do you expect for 2.5 hours at 1.2GB?
I guess the real question here is what the size of the video was? E.g. if you have 1GB audio, subtitle, dvd, etc. and 200MB video - the quality would probably be very good? Also, what were the quality settings you used?

At the other end of the spectrum, quality level 150 (max) produced an 8GB file, and 125 was at 4GB at 60% before I quit it.
That's not surprising. The ratDVD FAQ says it is currently not optimzed for the higher qualities and the best ratio is about 100:

...Another important thing in the moment is that the codec is optimized most for medium settings around 100...

[Teegedeck]

...and that means, the results we were getting here at the default settings of 95% already are supposed to be RatDVD's 'sweet spot'. And they are really, really below par, to put it mildly.

As the results of 95% quality usually are around 1.2-1.4 GB, I suppose that's what easy2Bcheesy has used.

Nero Recode AVC certainly sems the better 1-click solution to me.

[easy2Bcheesy]

I did indeed use the default 95% quality and the result was awful. You have to chuckle at the scale too - 95% of what exactly? Certainly not 95% the quality of the original source material...

Even the material I chose - Jonathan Creek - is hardly colourful or full of motion, it's mostly talking head stuff set in drab UK locations. A one-pass q-based VBR solution should lap this sort of stuff up. I'm even getting horrible macroblocking on the intro screens which are white text on a plain black background :|

[Tom Ellard]

Pity - I want a way to distribute my own DVDs on the net for easy download. It has to be a single file that unpacks into a DVD image that any wally can burn and then play on their DVD player.

ratDVD is an excellent concept in that way - but I guess what we need is something that uses AVC (or a known encoder) but can preserve the disc structure.

Actually if it encoded slow but could decode fast that would be better.

And yes - it has to unpack to a standard DVD none of that DiVX malarky :p

[bond]

ratDVD could have used xvid, but than they would have been forced to make ratDVD opensource because of the GPL, which the devs propably wanted to avoid and therefore had to develop an own codec...

[Leonardo1001]

@easy2Bcheesy: Could you answer the question and let us know an estimate of the bitrate - at leatst how much audio and subtitles are included? Judging quality without bitrate doesn’t make sense to me. And, why do you think the quality setting is ‘%’?

@Tom Ellard: Decoding is a lot faster than encoding. You can play it back in real time but for encoding in real time you probably need a very fast machine (at least faster than I have). Also ratdvd to dvd is faster that dvd to ratdvd.

@bond: I didn’t know that. Every program that can use an xvid codec needs to be open source? Even if xvid is already installed on the system?

[bond]

@bond: I didn’t know that. Every program that can use an xvid codec needs to be open source? Even if xvid is already installed on the system?depends on how xvid gets used (you are not forced to use it via vfw, which most people do, but could also integrate it fixed in your app. in the later case you would have to release the code of your tool. in the first case it would be a big hassle to integrate it in a "all-in-one" solution

[baer999]

New version !!!

Release Notes ratDVD v0.7.1235:
------------------------------

New Features:

Added Direct burning capability *1
Added ISO creation engine *1
Added MCE (Windows Media Center Edition 2005) support
*ratDVD files are listed as video files
*full control with mouse and remote control
Codec quality/speed optimizations
Added advanced codec options
*Ignore scaler
*Use alternate quantization model
*MV Search Path
*P Bonus
Multi-Language support
*ar - Arabic
*ca - Catalan
*cz - Czech
*de - German
*dk - Danish
*en - English
*es - Spanish
*fr - French
*gr - Greek
*hu - Hungarian
*it - Italian
*nl - Dutch
*pl - Polish
*pt - Portuguese
*pt_BR - Portuguese (Brazil)
*ro - Romanian
*ru - Russian
*sr - Serbian
*sk - Slovak
*th - Thai
*tr - Turkish
*uk - Ukranian
ratDVD naming scheme
*Automatic content based naming extension
Tag editing while adding tagging
Shut down after convert
Setting for conversion task priority
Custom sounds
*For successful completions
*For failed completions
Remote Control Support with WM_Input interface
*Allows usage of WM_Input compatible remote controls (like the Microsoft Media center remote control) to control ratDVD playback.
New default quality set to 105
New maximum quality to 120
Source import plug-in architecture
*Allows extensions for different source material (e.g. ISO Images, all kind of optical media, etc.)
Destination export plug-in architecture
*Allows extensions for all kind of different output targets (e.g. ISO Images, or transcoding to other formats, etc.)
Custom action at end of successful conversion process
*Allows a higher degree of automation (e.g. automatic batch conversions, transfers in ratDVD archives, etc.)

Bug fixes:

Playback fixes:
*Chapter change after seek was sometime not correct
*Wrong time display in Media Player
*Acceptance of only known video render filters solves problems with some codec packs/ffdshow
*Fix for illegal NAV pack positions that sometimes happens in DVD Shrink created discs
*Fix for wrong subtitle display on some movies
*Wrapping of navigation component as COM module – can now be used from all programs system wide
*Fix for wrong audio/subtitle switching at next chapter after seek
*Fix for changing aspect ratio change with VMR9 (Video Mixing Renderer)
*Fix for graph stopping in certain situations
Support for >4GB images
Fix for “list index out of bounds” conversion issue for some movies

Known Issues:

Seek bar in Media Player
*No reset at new title start
*Does not reflect complete length with some movies
Resume ratDVD function in MCE2005 starts movie from the beginning

*1 – Nero needs to be installed for ISO creation / DVD burning functionality

[baer999]

OK tonight I did a first Test with the new version and i am very impressed !
5,08 GB to 0,86 GB and the quality is still good - the improvements are very good, and playable is the file, too !

[Tom Ellard]

The error with my DVD_Lab project is now fixed.
Windows Media Player crashed once then played the .ratDVD file OK
Went from 236Mb to 11.2Mb

[baer999]

Wow and how about the quality, because it is an amazing file decreasement ! The both versions before were cool, because of the new "idea" but now the quality ist better so it is a well solution to share his DVD safely ! And on the Homepage is an old news that DVD Standalones will play *.ratdvd's too in future !

[Teegedeck]

...but one needs to be pretty naive to believe that.

[bern]

I'm not much of a coder but I made this exec file to do batch ratting / unratting and optional turn off computer when finished. It works on win2k and should work on xp although I don't use xp myself. The two exec files must be put in the same folder as XEBencoder.exe. I hope its of use to you guys, it works for me.

[baer999]

@Teegedeck

Yes maybe you're right and there will be no Standalone Player which is compatible with the *.ratdvd format, but when the usage of RatDVD would increase then it would be possible ! It is a great solution if you want to save complete DVD backups - and your PC plays the files correctly ...

[mgh]

Pl. see news item dated 6/30/05 at
http://www.ratdvd.dk/
There is a big improvement with latest version as far as compression vs quality is concerned.

[baer999]

Yes I already know the news, but Teegedeck means that it is naive when you believe it... The improvement which was made is fantastic !

[Mr. Monte]

Yes I already know the news, but Teegedeck means that it is naive when you believe it... The improvement which was made is fantastic !

I believe he may have been talking about a rat compatible standalone DVD player

[Tonio Roffo]

OK you've all noticed the ratdvd container is a ZIP file right?

Rename one you made to a .ZIP and look inside:

Go to the DBG folder and open the LOG file you find inside with notepad.

Now read it.... There's an *afwul* lot of information about you and your computer inside, I don't like this about ratDVD:

Examples out of the log file on a ratDVD test:

...
[0:02:27] CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2800+ (x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0)
[0:02:27] OS: Windows XP (5.1.2600 Service Pack 2)
...
[0:02:27] TRATDVDCreator.Load -> X:\xxx\xxx\xxx.ratDVD <<< Last ratDVD I've converted back to DVD plus physical location on my disc.
...
[0:02:31] TRATImageCreator.Load -> X:\xxx\VIDEO_TS.IFO
[0:02:35] TRATImageCreator.Convert -> FOutputPath = X:\Unknown.ratDVD
...
Physical location of my source and destination files on my disc (this ratDVD)
...
[0:02:35] LastOutputFolder = "X:\"
[0:02:35] LastInputFolder = ""
...
[0:02:35] LastDVDOutputDevice = "X: MyDVDBurner MyRevision" <<< The BIOS entry of my DVD writer and it's physical location
...
[0:02:35] Loaded Module: C:\Program Files\ratDVD\XEB\XEBFCL.ax Version: 1.0.0.1 Date: 2005-05-xx xx:xx:xx <<< Physical location of ratDVD on my system (standard here) and time/date of last access
...
Computer:
----------------------------
4.1 Name : MYNETBIOSNAME
4.2 User : LOGGEDINUSER
4.3 Total Memory: 1023 Mb
4.4 Free Memory : xxx Mb
4.5 Total Disk : xx,xx Gb
4.6 Free Disk : xx,xx Gb
...
Operating System:
------------------------------------
5.1 Type : Microsoft Windows XP
5.2 Build # : 2600
5.3 Update : Service Pack 2
5.4 Language: MYLANGUAGE
...

Furthermore there's a sh*tload of version numbers of all kinds of ratDVD and windows files listed, with location, a stack memory dump, etc.

I'm not happy with such a log on my computer - I don't feel good *AT ALL* when my ratDVD would somehow end up on the 'net.

ratDVD should have the option to REMOVE those personal entries from a ratDVD.

[Ishan]

That's another good reason not to use that thing...
I'll stay away from it as long as this log is in the file and as long as the resulting video quality is so bad (and it'll be a long time I think).
It would have been a good format for my HTPC but I'll wait for someone to do a h264/aac version of it :)

[bern]

I'm not happy with such a log on my computer - I don't feel good *AT ALL* when my ratDVD would somehow end up on the 'net
Depends on what you're using it for. If it's for Pirating then you should be worried. But if like me its for storing your legitimatly made home dvds on your pc and saving HD space then there's no need to worry as the files won't end up on the net at all will they?

[TripleA]

Depends on what you're using it for. If it's for Pirating then you should be worried. But if like me its for storing your legitimatly made home dvds on your pc and saving HD space then there's no need to worry as the files won't end up on the net at all will they?

Pearls of wisdom!

What do you need privacy for? If you are not breaking some law, you have nothing to hide, right?

[bond]

very strange that a format which calls itself "the DVD movie download format - The only way to share complete DVD movies with multiple audio tracks, subtitles, video angles and bonus materials online" (what else than piracy does this refer to? i mean how many not copyrighted dvds are out there...) stores these kind of infos

[Tonio Roffo]

Yes, yes, we're all here because of backups, that's right... :rolleyes:

And even that is breaking the law in most countries. We're allowed to make backups but we can't, as we can't reverse engineer DVD protections on the originals.

[gpilot]

I'd be very concerned if detailed information unique to my PC were being recorded in to ratdvd file, so I just checked the log file in the last conversion to ratdVD that I did. While I did find a lot of details about the ratdvd program, which I expect is helpful for debugging, I didn't see any of the details about my computer, like Netbios name or userid, that you said were in your log file. I was using the latest version, 7.1235. What version were you using?

[Tonio Roffo]

I'm using latest now, but had installed an older version before it.

However I did make my test with the 0.7 version and it recorded all this stuff in my log file.

[Ishan]

Why don't you just delete that file from the archive? Does that prevent playing the file?

[kl33per]

Latest version allows you to not have the log files included in the final file.

[Ishan]

I tried it on R2 Starwars and all I have to say is the result is VERY far from any moderne codec. It looks like divx4 to me with A LOT of bluring.
The worst thing is the encoding tooks forever (12h on my sempron 2600+)
The idea is good but the choice of video codec is killing it...

[infoscapeone]

What quality settings did you use and what bitrate did you get/compare it with?

Did you try any of the advanced codec settings?

[Teegedeck]

I tried it on R2 Starwars and all I have to say is the result is VERY far from any moderne codec. It looks like divx4 to me with A LOT of bluring.
The worst thing is the encoding tooks forever (12h on my sempron 2600+)
The idea is good but the choice of video codec is killing it...
Edit: He, I got your main-complaint wrong the first time - speed. :p

There seem to be quite a lot of users who are ready to accept the slowness of this encoding process. The ironic thing is, I always thought we should have an XviD solution that leaves the user no choice but to encode at the highest-quality settings, no matter how long it takes - but nobody thought the simplicity and quality would be enough for users to accept the time-penalty. And now this app here demonstrates that users are willing to take that, even if the result is only of mediocre quality. They're ready to accept incredibly slow encoding - and even for just the minor benefit of having nifty menues and simple handling (conversion, MPEG-2 re-conversion)...and NOT great quality.

Perhaps this whole thing gets us a bit away from that "encoding-has-to-be-fast-fast-fast-for-the-average-user"-idea. Average users seem to be willing to put up with a lot of things, as long as handling is simple and they get automated reconverting to MPEG-2.

Edited: Restructured the post, sorry.

[Doom9]

and even for just the minor benefit of having nifty menues and simple handling (conversion, MPEG-2 re-conversion)...and NOT great quality.Isn't that what DVD Shrink is for? And shrink doesn't look too bad in many cases (especially if you can get rid of some space consuming DTS tracks and get 1.5 mbit more for the video bitrate). Or Rebuilder.

[onesoul]

Isn't that what DVD Shrink is for? And shrink doesn't look too bad in many cases (especially if you can get rid of some space consuming DTS tracks and get 1.5 mbit more for the video bitrate). Or Rebuilder. In general the idea of dvdshrink and dvd rebuilder is to compress a dvd to dvd-5. But ratdvd takes a whole dvd and compresses to 1.xx gb but the quality, like it has been said, is terrible. It would be a good idea if ratdvd used xvid instead...

[Teegedeck]

Or, if we are talking about full-resolution at sizes of 1 CD, x264. Wait! Wasn't there someone coding a nice GUI, or rather: full-scale encoding app, for mencoder whom we could ask? :D

[baer999]

Yes another codec would be great, because it is senseless to code another new codec. x264 or xvid would be my wish, but I don't think that the coder of RatDVD will change the codec, maybe it is not possible to integrate or very critical. The greatest future would be a codec form like in Virtual Dub where you can choose codec settings and codec (video and audio, too).

[Ishan]

xvid is a lot faster even with best settings on my setup, and quality is NOT comparable.
An h264/(he-)aac version of this tool would be awesome thow (and I wont complaint about slowness if I get a 1/2 DVD-r rip@full dvd res+sar with the same quality I get with x264 3 passes :) )
Menus don't work with MPC thow...

[Smoking panda]

I've had a lot of problems using DVD2SVCD with some dvd's due to i/o error 103, but I tried RatDVD and it ripped the whole dvd to my HD. The only problem however is that the whole DVD stutters and I am unsure of how to correct that or settings. Secondly, I want to be able to edit what is ripped to the HD, how can I do this?

People keep posting about how it is a "zip" file when a DVD is ratted, but I tried to unzip the file and nothing. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. I know this is quite a new program and probably still not a ton of solutions out there, but I am just glad that a program could actually read my dvd.

[Cyberace]

Is ratDVD violating the GPL?, open discussions:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/215044
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=693256#post693256