Rip my HD-DVDs collection for backup and playback

[shogo_kawada]

Hi, I'd like to rip my entire DVD-Bluray-HDDVD collection for backup and for playback with a NMT I'm planning to buy (I think it's going to be the Dune Base HD, but that's for another thread :)).

It's going to be a long procedure, so I have to set my priorities: right now I'd like to start with all the cheap HD-DVDs I've been buying since the format lost the war to Bluray.

What I want to do is first ripping the entire HD-DVD for storage and backup purposes, and then, since I know those HD-DVD structures aren't going to be playable in a NMT, extract the main feature only with best A/V (no reencoding nor transcoding). So what I need are suggestions on how to rip the entire disc, and how to extract the main feature. Here's what I'm asking in detail:

1. About ripping the entire disc: I have AnyDVD HD, which I'll be using for the rip. Should I rip to image or rip to hard drive (keep in mind after the rip I'll have to proceed in the main feature extraction)? And, if I rip to image, should I keep protections or not? Since the option to keep protections is there I think there's should be some reason: why should anyone want to keep them?

2. About extracting the main feature: my goal is to keep al the HD audio without any transcoding, since I own an Onkyo 608 which can decode HD audio and my future NMT can bitstream HD audio from mkvs. I'll use eac3to to extract all the tracks, suprip to convert the subtitles and MKVMerge to mux into a single mkv. My doubt are about remaining audio delay and dialog normalization. What should I do with them? I read some receivers have troubles with dialog normalization removed, so maybe I should keep it. What are the disadvantages in keeping the normalization?

Well excuse me for the lenght and for any bad english I put in this thread :o, I hope all my doubts are clear though.

[shogo_kawada]

Still no answers, maybe is time for a bump :helpful:

My main doubt is about dialog normalization: why should I keep it or remove it? In other words, what does dialog normalization do? Is it active when playing movies form the actual disc? Does the receiver remove it, and if yes, why is it there in the first place?

[saint-francis]

Just fire up andvd and then use eac3to to extract whatever you want. It makes it really easy to see the different play lists and what's in them exactly (you can use one of the many eac3to GUI's out there. There's also one in MeGUI). Then just use mkvmerge to stuff it all together in a .mkv container.

Simple. The process will probably take about 70 minutes or so per disk. Maybe more, maybe less.

Also you mentioned something about dialog normalization. Eac3to will take care of that. Don't worry.

[shogo_kawada]

First of all, thanks for your reply ;)

Yeah I know eac3to will take care of dialog normalization, but I'd like to understand wether I should let him do that or not, and why. Why is dialog normalization there, if is such a bad thing that we remove it when we backup our movies? How does it work when playing the actual disc? I suppose it is handled by either the disc player or maybe the receiver, am I right? And if is so, why removing it and not letting them do the same with the backups?

I'd like to have rips the closest as possible to the originals, and since is a time (and drive) consuming task, I want to be sure to do everything right.

[saint-francis]

What is meant in eac3to by removing dialog normalization is: The decoders used by eac3to may automatically perform dialog normalization. The resulting file will be normalized. This is obviously not unadulterated. You can choose preform dialnorm upon playback if you so desire. Just let eac3to perform the way it wants to and you will be fine. If you are simply extracting the audio tracks I do not believe there are any decoders involved so you don't have to worry about it at all any way since you say you want to keep the HD audio tracks unadulterated.