Want to get mp3 from DVD, trouble getting aspi going

[jeremybb]

OK, as said in the subject, I am trying to extract the audio from a DVD and have it in (ideally) mp3, although AC3 could be OK.

I have an older computer (900 MHz P4, WinXP SP2).

I started with the smartripper guide, under the idea that that was the first step to get the AC3 to my hard drive (if this is wrong let me know). It balked on start up so I then went here:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/aspi.htm

As expected the adaptec program agrees that that the ASPI layer isn't installed. I downloaded forceaspi, unrar'ed it, and ran it. However, the adaptec program and smartripper still indicate taht there is no aspi layer.

The unrar gives an alert that there is a duplicate file name: two of the files appear to have two copies each. I have tried unrar'ing both ways: overwriting and not overwriting the first of the duplicate files.

Presumably I am doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. All advice appreciated.

[gameplaya15143]

You don't need aspi for smartripper to work, but you will have to unlock the disk with a player (Media player classic, VLC, windvd, powerdvd, etc.), that means just play some of the dvd then close the player and start smartripper (you might avoid the 'no aspi' message if you start smartripper with 'noaspi.bat' instead of with the executable)

After you get that all going, enable stream processing and demux the audio track you want. It will be in ac3 if its ac3. Then you can use your tool of choice to transcode it into mp3 or whatever format you want.

...
If you want to get aspi working for smartripper, you will/should need aspi v4.6, no higher, no lower. You can download it from the ddump frontend website.
http://www.geocities.com/ddumpfrontend/ (in the download section)

[jeremybb]

OK, unlocking the drive with WinDVD works, in that I can now get Smartripper going, and it will make progress on the ripping (before it would only report broken blocks). However I am having trouble getting the demuxing working.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see now how it works. I leave here my question and how I solved it in case others have the same problem, since I think it is not quite obvious how Smartripper works.

I have Smartripper in movie mode and in the input tab I find and select the correct chapter.

Under the Stream Processing tab I have Enable Stream Processing checked.

In the Streams list I have 3 things listed: Video NTSC, Audio English AC3, and Others.

I think I am supposed to select the AC3 stream and the Demux to Extra File radio button, but these buttons are greyed out with Direct Stream Copy selected unless I have all three streams selected. I have tried 2 ways: 1) select all three streams and the Demux radio button, and 2) select only the AC3 stream and allow the Direct Stream Copy button to be forced on me. In both cases I do not get an AC3 file.

Also, under the Settings I have tried both "normal" and "auto" for VOB file access.

EDIT: Here's what was wrong: the radio buttons have a setting for each stream. There is a difference between giving focus to a stream (clicking on the stream name) and checking/unchecking the button next to the stream. With the streams all on, give focus to the ones of interest and set the radio button for each one as desired. Then uncheck all the undesired streams. Now you are good to go and press start.