DVD Ripping Help - The Lazy Way

[khat17]

Hi all. been here a while, but have mostly looked around. After looking and checking around a bit I've still not found a ripper to do what I want. There's probably CLI versions out there to do what I need - but as video editing and ripping is a past-time for me, I'm looking for a lazy way.

There's tons of freeware and payware apps out there to rip to AVI, but not that many to rip to MKV. And the few that are available to rip to MKV will not rip ALL audio and subtitle streams.

After searching and digging I found a post by someone about MAKEMKV. I tried it and I like - but it doesn't have an option to encode the video to something else - just rip it directly.

Heh, this is where the lazy part comes in. I've used Gordian Knot - then AutoGK - then purchased FairuseWizard - then tried Handbrake on BEOS - then Handbrake became ported to Windows - then played around with some other stuff like AutoMKV / DVDtoMKV / Megui / MKV Magiv / and a couple others that I could find. I kinda regretted FairUseWizard after Handbrake came out - but recently I had an issue with Handbrake that I never had with FairUse - where I set it to rip subs and it didn't. Twice. Back to back. Anyways.....

What I'm looking for is something that has the range of content ripping options like MakeMKV, but allows you to encode the video stream to something else - X264/DivX/XviD/etc... - and choose lazy stuff like size/quality and whatnot.

I came across HDConvertToX, and it looks NICE - but it requires third party software (AviSynth) and I'm looking for the LAZY way. All else fails, I guess I'll try it, because it DOES look nice. The options are very attractive, and the screenies show that it may do exactly what I need. I guess there's no getting around installing additional stuff to get the rip the way I want.....

Handbrake and FairUse had the better ideas - standalone with CLI to get the work done. Hopefully later developments of HDConvertToX will not need to use additional installs, or will use CLI versions that it calls for when it needs to.

The other thing I wanted was some way to convert from MKV back to DVD. DVDFLICK and TSMUXER came up in my searches, so I'll try those before whining.

Later on I'll try and do some 1080p rips when BD becomes more popular and everyone is toting one. Hehe.

Please let me know if answers to what I've asked already exist - if so please link me to the relevant threads. Thanks.

From what I've seen so far, setarip_old may know which apps I need to get to accomplish my task - but is a little difficult to get in touch with.

Many thanks to Doom9 for their site - if it wasn't for this site I'd not have found Handbrake or Gordian Knot back in 2005 when I started to get interested in ripping and customizing my rips. Keep up the good work!

[Inspector.Gadget]

Get used to Avisynth. For filtering and frameserving capabilities, little (if anything at all) compares. That said, what are you actually ASKING ABOUT? There is no "lazy" way to do things well, and this applies well beyond video encoding. If you want to pay $45 for an ffmpeg rip-off made by some fly-by-night company that leaves you with A/V sync problems, broken container headers, inverse telecined true interlaced content or deinterlaced hard telecined content, doesn't do color conversions properly, and uses the most nonsense set of encoding parameters possible, then fine. But that's not the goal most people here work toward, and it's not one you're going to get help with except from 3-post spammers who want to push their latest scamware on you.

[khat17]

Meh - figured....

So AVISYNTH and HDConvertToX it is then.....OK. Thanks for your help thus far. I figured there was no lazy way to do it........but was kinda hoping. I've done a few rips, but the time it takes to set everything up and then the additional hours to leave it encoding..........ah well.

Handbrake was a good "lazy" way, but as I said - had an issue with it a few times and am trying to workaround. Will post if I find anything "easier" with free or paid solutions though.

As it stands - for "easy" it's Handbrake and Fairuse.

For quality, I've only tested Gordian Knot. I have used AutoGK, but I actually like GK more than AGK. Personal preference....

[Inspector.Gadget]

"Quality" is up to the source, the encoder, and the parameters used and has nothing to do with the frontend unless the frontend passes a bad set of commands. And please don't post endorsements of "paid" solutions: they get enough exposure as is, and nearly all of them rip off ffmpeg, x264, etc. code. FWIW, I can index a ripped film-length DVD PGC with DGIndex in usually about 5 minutes, write an AVS script in 1-2 minutes, and set up x264 in a frontend or at the CLI in another 2 minutes. After that, it's all encoding. I'm skeptical of the idea that the quality/granularity/setup time calculus for paid "converters" is a net positive.

[khat17]

FairUse has a free version which does most everything the paid one does. Actually - at this time - I can't recall what the feature were that made my buy it.....Even more reason I regret the purchase.....I just never expected Handbrake to come with a Windows port - they had it on their site for some time that they'd probably never do it. Anyways.

But ya - aware that the quality is dependent on the input and settings - of those I've tested, the ones with the "simplest" interface to get decent quality with minimal input from the user would be GK.

For "lazy" or "easy" - what I'm thinking is to use Handbrake to do everything, then if it fails on the subs - or if I want to get all the subs - use MakeMKV to rip out the sub I want then mux them with MKVToolnix. Either that or use MakeMKV to do it all, then extract the video stream - re-encode it - then place it back into the container.....Will still test out HDConvertToX during the coming week to see how much easier it is. Will just have to re-learn writing the AVS scripts........or find some app to do it for me. Heh.

Going sleep after this post, so will respond tomorrow.

[Guest]

Why did you post this stupid poll?

[Inspector.Gadget]

Apparently it is opposites day, because ripping and demuxing and remuxing subtitles separately after encoding etc. is more complex than anything I've ever needed to do when starting from a DVD. By the way, there are MANY tools other than HDConvertToX. buzzqw has been very generous with his coding experience and his time; looking at that GUI its much more "complicated" in terms of things to click then anything I'd use.

[buzzqw]

try something based on mencoder/ffmpeg

BHH

[khat17]

Why did you post this stupid poll?

Either yourself or another mod please remove poll when next you visit.

Apparently it is opposites day, because ripping and demuxing and remuxing subtitles separately after encoding etc. is more complex than anything I've ever needed to do when starting from a DVD. By the way, there are MANY tools other than HDConvertToX. buzzqw has been very generous with his coding experience and his time; looking at that GUI its much more "complicated" in terms of things to click then anything I'd use.

As I said, I've used a few but HDConvertToX is the latest one I've seen that I'm yet to try. Many thanks for the suggestions though. Possibly the "easiest" or "laziest" way is to use one of his tools. Will post after I've tested.

try something based on mencoder/ffmpeg

BHH

Last tools you did that I tried were AutoMKV - 091 - and AutoMen - 5.0 - but It's been a while since I visited Doom9, and I think I had found AutoMen at some other site. Multiple commendations, coupled with small donation to buy a drink, on your work so far. Will leave feedback after testing HDC.

[RunningSkittle]

Also look at ripbot264, I think its just what your looking for!
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127611