Need advice on ripping and encoding episodes of Monk

[Xirix]

Hey all, I heard that Doom9 was 'the' place for messing around with DVD's and DVD related programs, so I thought I'd have an ask around before I get started.

This is the first time I'm going to Rip and Encode a DVD, I've used some old mediocre programs before, but I always screwed it up.

Anyway, I love the look and feel of a folder full of video files over just watching from a DVD, earlier today I picked up Monk Season 6 on DVD, but I'm refusing to watch it... at least not on my DVD player.

So, enough babbling from me. Here's a vague notion of what I want to accomplish.

I want to rip my DVD's to my HDD, I have DVD Decrypter and SlySoft AnyDVD. It shouldn't matter what I use to rip the Vobs I assume?

Monk's roughly a 40-45 minute show, so I'm looking to encode each episode to about 350-400 megs, with X.264 codec for video, probably AAC for audio and mp4 or MKV for the container, though I have no idea if there's an advantage to which container you use.

So you see my goal is quite simple, but I'm at a loss on how to do so, could anyone point me in the right direction and possibly divulge a bit of info? I'm the kind of person who's dumbfounded by new things but quickly picks it up, so please bear with me.

Thanks!

[Guest]

First thing to learn is how to follow our forum rules, specifically, rule9: use a proper thread title. I will fix it for you this time.

[Adub]

For one, there are a bunch of guides of how exactly to do those spread throughout this forum and the internet. Use search.

But in short, you rip the disks using either DVD Decrypter (which should be able to handle 'em just fine, but maybe not) and if that doesn't work then you use AnyDVD. After that is complete you have a choice of different programs to use, varying from Ripbot to MeGUI to a whole host of others. Find which one you like.

Ripbot is pretty self contained and easy to work with, but lacks some advanced features. MeGUI is more advanced, but has an automatic script creator, and even a 1 click encode portion to help you.


One other option is to take a look at HandBrake. This program really is quite amazing, and it practically does everything for you. You don't even have to rip the disk before hand in most cases. It comes with a nice predefined set of profiles for easy setup, and it will even include chapters for you when encoding from DVD's. For simplicity sake, and especially if you are just starting out, take a look at HandBrake to get you started. It is just what you need.