Newbie: Watching Home Movies on Private Home Network

[nugent73]

Hello all,

Ok I am stuggling with this. I am so new to this and I have done research and all this burning, ripping and formatting is like another language.
I have little experience. I own Nero 9 Pro and a few slysoft software.
What I am hoping to accomplish is to RIP Home movies to my Private home wired network and store them on my Western Digital Share Space Hard Drive and be able to watch them in 4 different rooms using different equipment.
Room 1 (PS3, Sony XBR4 TV) Room 2 (Western Digital Live HD TV Box, Sony HD bravia TV) Room 3 (Xbox 360 Samsung 720p Tv) Room 4 (Western digital Live HD tv box Samsung 720p TV.)

I have tried a few different formats but they always end up making the picture quality poor. I was able to use one slysoft Converting program the picture quality was great but the file ended up being 5 22 minutes long VOB files.

I am looking for a program that can rip the home movies to the drive that is compatiable with the 3 different devices I have and would then also allow me to burn back to a blank DVD if I want to take a movie with me. Still allowing very good quality picture. File size is not worry.


I am stuggling here. I have to admit I did not realize this was going to be so complicated when I purchased the Share S pace drive.
Any advice would be great. I am lost and have spent hours getting nowhere.

Thank you all in advance
Chris

[sreg0r]

I'm not sure what file formats are compatible with your device. Your safest bet is to stick with xvid if you are just dealing with SD content, AutoGK is an easy to use GUI for that.
Alternatively if you want to use h264 for better quality/size then a gui like handbrake is a good option. Really with so many variables you are best of trying a few of these programs (all freeware) and then checking what works for you and what doesn't.

[osgZach]

I think both the consoles will play H264 without a problem, and I own a WDTV HD Live and thats pretty obvious there.

So I would say, try out the various freeware utilities that can do H264 (x264 encoder) and put them into an MP4 container. I don't think the consoles like MKVs too much, and I know my brother had to remux some into MP4 to get his PS3 to cooperate.

If you are interested in being able to burn the files straight to DVD then your best bet is to leave the DVD files alone. Keep them in the VOB format and just mux your VOB's into container files with chapters and whatnot (come to think of it I dunno if the WDTV or console support chapters)

Either way. If you are concerned about quality then leaving the files alone is the best option. Especially if you want the freedom to reburn to DVD... although one could argue why not just make a copy of the DVD from the original, when you want to take one somewhere with you.

Otherwise, H264 w/original AC3, or converted to AAC-LC, or high bitrate MP3 will get you the most compatible playback options across your units.

I don't know why you would be getting poor picture quality, unless the programs are just crap, or you are telling them to aim for a specific file size / target bitrate. I usually aim for 1000 - 2000kbps for Anime, but I don't really know what target to use for live action.. I'm sure it also depends on the length of the video too.

I can highly recommend TMPGenc Xpress however. It is a solid piece of software, can output to DivXHD or H264 muxed into an MP4 container. Has good deinterlacing and IVTC, and other general filters. Its H264 encoder has some tweakable options as well and is pretty easy to use. But it costs $100 or so. Either way I use it whenever possible because it just works for me. So if you aren't satisfied with your other programs, give it a shot.

Otherwise, Handbrake, or MeGUI or Virtualdub w/Avisynth are very good at accomplishing their goals.

I still recommend just burning a copy when you want to take a DVD somewhere with you. When you rip from a DVD it is already a compressed source, you are then compressing it again into a (hopefully) efficient, but lossy codec, and then encoding it a third time if you want a DVD to take somewhere, you are dumping it back into a less efficient container, and putting it through yet another level of quality loss. Unless you want to rip to H264 with constant quality and a huge file size, its not worth it to re-encode that many times.

SO to recap.
You can either decrypt and keep the original VOB's and put them into an MP4 container (assuming the consoles don't have a problem with this) and have the freedom to demux the VOBs and burn them to a DVD.

Or you can rip and encode to H264, stored in MP4.

On the off chance you meant just burning a DVD with the video files on them, to play on another console or media player. Then yeah, go with H264 with AC3 or AAC-LC/MP3 inside an MP4 container. All the mentioned programs should be able to accomplish this.

[nugent73]

I purchased the TMPGENC 4.0 and so far so good I am just not sure of all the settings to get it to the proper format. Is there a guide on how to set it up for the setting you mentioned.

[osgZach]

Have you looked in the documentation PDF yet? Its pretty thorough in describing the program and most of the encoding options. I'm not very H264 literate myself, as I use MeGUI profiles for most of my projects.

I think this is one of the cases, where reading guides is gonna teach you the most. Even if they are for different encoders, there will be commonalities between them all in the way of most settings and then experimentation will get you the best output for what you desire (whats acceptable to me may not be to you, etc)

However in terms of getting it to the proper format, its pretty easy.

First you decrypt your source, I use DVDFab, but there is tons of freeware out there to do it too.

Once you have decrypted source files to work from, import them into TMPGenc with the Source Wizard, ideally your decrypted source files will be in a directory on a hard disk, mimicking the structure of the DVD (C:\myrip\video_ts\etc) and you can point it to the directory where your files are at that point.

It should should you a list of the video tracks /chapters available and let you select your audio track and subtitles if you want.. I'm not sure how it will treat the subs (hardcode them into the image or not) as I don't usually do subs with TMPGenc. You're also limited to one audio track on import, but there are ways to work around that if you need to.. That's another long post though..

At that point it imports them, and a new window opens, on the cut-edit screen. There is another tab to switch to the source properties and another tab to switch to Filtered mode. Filtered mode lets you see what your image looks like with the applied filters you select.

After you're done fiddling with that, if you close that window it'll put you in the main program window with the track listings for your project. Then you select the "Format" button, and it gives you a plethora of codecs to choose from. If you have external codecs like Xvid you'll have to select AVI as the output format, then it will list the AVI compatible codecs you have installed (Xvid, or another DivX version outside of TMPGenc, etc)

When you select your format (in this case, to make an H264 in an MP4 container, you would select MPEG-4 AVC, and not MPEG-4 ISO, ISO is for BluRay projects)


But basically from there you set your options, etc which should be explained in the PDF help file included in the program directory. As I said before its a very well documented program. It names all the features you can use, and tells you what those features do, be they a filter or a codec setting, or a cutting tool, etc..

The last step is to select the Encode button, which takes you to the encode stage.. As far as I know, its always gonna output an MP4 container, even if you only process a strictly video or audio project. Don't know why that is, but thats how its set up (and why I use MeGUI to get my H264 raws for making MKVs)

Hopefully this is enough to get you started, but the documentation really is good. So don't forget to read it. At the very least, TMPGenc can be a valuable asset to have around purely for its video filters. When possible I use TMPGenc over Avisynth/Vdub, but I output a lossless YV12 AVI with TMPGenc and always do the final encode through MeGUI. It just depends on your situation. I'd like to play around with it to make some stuff for my iPod at some point.

Also if you have a CUDA 2.0 capable video card (I use an 8800GTS 512MB) it can really help out to turn on hardware acceleration, it makes it easier on the filter previews, and also usually speeds up the encoding process.

[7ekno]

I purchased the TMPGENC 4.0 and so far so good I am just not sure of all the settings to get it to the proper format. Is there a guide on how to set it up for the setting you mentioned.

Your limitation is going to be the PS3, so searching "DVD to PS3" conversions will be what you need ...

So I am guessing that means MP4's less than 4GB in size with whatever audio constraints are forced by PS3 (think it will need to be AAC, but not sure) ...

For the files to work on the WDTV Live boxes it will need to be 1 file (which means the goal of "buring back to DVD" will only be realized with programs like DVDFlick, etc, or a faster way would be just to copy the original DVD) ...

TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 is a solid piece of software, but not sure how good it's "MP4" support is (although that was the ONLY HD container it supported before DivX went to MKV) ...

As for "settings" I would look for settings for a PS3 and stick to those (there will be limitations on reference frame, etc for PS3) ..

7ek