cohort36
17th March 2006, 18:25
Alright, this is my first post here, although I have been lurking, searching, and reading a bit on here.
I am interested in backing up my collection of DVD's to a media server and then watching them in my living room across my network via my HTPC. As such, I'm not as interested in hitting a specific size to fit onto a DVD, but rather in preserving as much quality as possible, along with the DVD layout (menus, some extras, etc), while removing annoyances/things I don't need (previews, subtitles). I've started doing some playing around with this, but I just wanted to check if there were any known flaws/issues with my method.
1. Rip DVD to harddrive with DVD Decrypter.
2. Remove PUOP's, subtitles, and foreign audio with DVD Shrink (no compression).
3. Remove foreign language menus, warnings, previews, etc with DVDRemake, and remove/fix menu buttons.
I have done steps 1 and 2, and have done some playing with the demo version of DVDRemake Pro for step 3. Is there anything wrong with the process I have outlined above (ie, am I introducing unwanted errors/corruption somewhere)? Is DVDRemake Pro what I should be using for what I want to do in step 3? Is it worth buying, or are there free tools available that can do the same thing easily? I know there are other tools, PGCEdit, VOBBlanker, etc, but I'm not so sure about their useability.
If all of the above works, I would ideally like to reduce the size by encoding to AVC/h264, while keeping all of the DVD layout and menus. Is this possible? Also, is there enough known about the HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray implementation of AVC/h264 to ensure future compatibility? I'd hate to encode all my stuff now, only to find out in 6 months that the standard is slightly different and my files are no longer compatible. Finally, what is the minimum CPU/RAM requirements to successfully (real-time) decode and play AVC/h264 files? I have several older computers around the house that can play DVD's fine, but I'm not sure if they would be able to handle AVC/h264.
Sorry if any of this is a repost/going over the same old questions. I've seen a few guides on ripping/backing-up, but none used the same process I have outlined above, so I wanted to double-check my method should work OK. And I haven't really seen anything about encoding to AVC/h264 while keeping the DVD structure (unless I've been misreading things).
I am interested in backing up my collection of DVD's to a media server and then watching them in my living room across my network via my HTPC. As such, I'm not as interested in hitting a specific size to fit onto a DVD, but rather in preserving as much quality as possible, along with the DVD layout (menus, some extras, etc), while removing annoyances/things I don't need (previews, subtitles). I've started doing some playing around with this, but I just wanted to check if there were any known flaws/issues with my method.
1. Rip DVD to harddrive with DVD Decrypter.
2. Remove PUOP's, subtitles, and foreign audio with DVD Shrink (no compression).
3. Remove foreign language menus, warnings, previews, etc with DVDRemake, and remove/fix menu buttons.
I have done steps 1 and 2, and have done some playing with the demo version of DVDRemake Pro for step 3. Is there anything wrong with the process I have outlined above (ie, am I introducing unwanted errors/corruption somewhere)? Is DVDRemake Pro what I should be using for what I want to do in step 3? Is it worth buying, or are there free tools available that can do the same thing easily? I know there are other tools, PGCEdit, VOBBlanker, etc, but I'm not so sure about their useability.
If all of the above works, I would ideally like to reduce the size by encoding to AVC/h264, while keeping all of the DVD layout and menus. Is this possible? Also, is there enough known about the HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray implementation of AVC/h264 to ensure future compatibility? I'd hate to encode all my stuff now, only to find out in 6 months that the standard is slightly different and my files are no longer compatible. Finally, what is the minimum CPU/RAM requirements to successfully (real-time) decode and play AVC/h264 files? I have several older computers around the house that can play DVD's fine, but I'm not sure if they would be able to handle AVC/h264.
Sorry if any of this is a repost/going over the same old questions. I've seen a few guides on ripping/backing-up, but none used the same process I have outlined above, so I wanted to double-check my method should work OK. And I haven't really seen anything about encoding to AVC/h264 while keeping the DVD structure (unless I've been misreading things).