Using Mencoder to rip TVshows from DVD

[lukec13]

Hi all,

This is my first post here so please go easy on me. I am using Mencoder to rip TV show from my DVD collection toXVid and had a few questions.

Does anybody have any recommended settings for ripping a) cartoons such as Simpsons and Futurama and b) sitcoms ie: Seinfeld and Frasier?
Right now I am using 2 pass, bitrate=2048, chroma_me (cartoons only), cartoon (cartoons only), hq_ac, vhq=4, no resizing have tried both mpeg and h263, not sure which of those I prefer.

With the above settings my files are a little bloated 300-500 MB for a 22 minute episode but if I reduce the bitrate then there is a noticable degredation in quality. Filesize isn't a huge concern but I was hoping to get a little smaller with "near DVD" quality. Also when running mencoder, the encoding rate starts off pretty good at 40+FPS but will soon die to about 3 FPS. This is on each pass on my AMD 64 3700+. There are no other signifigant processes running on my machine. Is this normal?

So basically, are there any obvious changes I can make improve speed, quality, or filesize? Sorry for the long post

[CWR03]

Due to the nature of most animated series' conversions to DVD, you're much better off keeping them in DVD format. Simpsons and Futurama are both hybrid format and extremely difficult to convert to XviD and still play properly. Any "near DVD" quality rips will end up being as large as the original files.

[lukec13]

Really? Those are the two that are looking best right now in the rips I've tried. At about 300-350 MB per episode they aren't exactly small but I have the storage space. Its the time its tking that kills me.

[Nexium]

I've been wanting to do the same as u lukec13, I've been wanting to backup my DVDs of family guy. To do this I use staxrip with a constant quality xvid profile with a quantizer of about 4.3 (producin file sizes ~180mb). The quality is good but not the best, expanding to full screen you can clearly see noise in the picture but watching from a distance its not that noticable.

What gets me tho is the that ive seen xvids of the same episodes that are almost perfect quality at bout the same file size. I've no idea how they manage it.

[celtic_druid]

Probably with some pre-filtering and 2 passes.

[stax76]

What gets me tho is the that ive seen xvids of the same episodes that are almost perfect quality at bout the same file size. I've no idea how they manage it.


For low bitrate encodes which quant > 4 really is you get a better overall quality using 2 pass. Also use slow settings like VHQ 4 as these settings are more effective using low bitrates.

[Nexium]

I have found that using a 2 pass encode (to achieve exact filesize) means that when the file comes out and you split it up into each episode the file size varies drastically from episode to episode (for a ~20min epsiode i get filesizes ranging from 140 to 200mb).

This is why I started using a 1-pass encode. Would it be best to do a 1-pass encode with a high quality then re-encode them using 2 pass to get the filesize down?

[stax76]

1-pass using a fixed quant would as well result in a different filesize and fixed bitrate might not be the best approach. Can't you encode each episode separately? Seems to me the best approach though I don't know if mencoder does this. With DVD Decrypter every episode should be a PGC.

[Nexium]

i dont actually use mencoder. I use staxrip to do my avis. I cant do each episode seperately as the episodes are all joined together due to the nature of the vob files. The fixed quant method (in my experience) does result in a variable file size for each episode after splitting in virtual dub but it is v.minimal. Down to a couple of mb.

I'm sorry, I'm not actually sure what PGC is?

[stax76]

some guides:

http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/autogk.html#ripping

http://www.anders.com/guides/convert/video/iPod/windows.html

http://elliottback.com/wp/archives/2005/12/26/how-to-rip-a-dvd-a-tutorial/

[Nexium]

what would i do without this forum - cheers stax.