Compress a devd to an MKV file on disk with FFMPEG

[snifferpro]

My objective - Rip and compress a DVD to an MKV file on disk.

I’m a complete novice to using ffmpeg to rip a DVD to a compressed (mkv) file.

I’ve played around with it a little, but there are just too many parameters with the command line switches for this old mind.

Basically all I want to do is rip some old movie DVD’s to disk creating a compressed file similar to the ones you might download from YouTube.

I won’t need the physical DVD’s when done if I can do this and my drive space will be limited till I can upgrade (add an SSD just for movies).

Anyone have a good example of the command line for ffmpeg (with an explanation) to do this that they can share?

Thanks


Input file = I drive - DVD drive
Or
C:\movies\dvd (dvd copied to this drive)

Desired output file location
C:\movies\mkv

Output file name
Movie 01.mkv

[ProWo]

If the DVD isn_t copy protected, you can use clever FFmpeg-GUI. https://files.videohelp.com/u/292773/clever_ffmpeg_gui_314.zip

Start the app, follow the instructions, choose C:\movies\mkv as target folder.

Then click select source, point to VOB 1 of your Title Set (e.g. VTS_01_1.VOB for Titleset 1), answer yes to the question and the entire movie will be ripped and imported.

If finished, click enconde videostream, click resize, set h264 as encoder, set frame width to 720 and frame height to 404 (if your DVD Movie is 16:9) or frame width to 720 and frame height to 540 (if your DVD Movie is 4:3).
Leave all other settings as they are and click encode.

If finished, click multiplex, check all streams on the left except the original video stream (in blue), set mkv as container, click on target name, enter Movie 01, click save, click multiplex.

Done. You'll find your new mkv video in your desired output location.

[snifferpro]

Thanks for your quick response.

I downloaded and tried Clever FFmpeg.

Everything appeared to work, but I didn't get the sound.

I still have the ripped file if that will help me get the sound back.

I think I selected the wrong stream in the multiplex step.

I'll try again and report back.

[ProWo]

post a mediainfo report (text mode) of the ripped file here.

[tebasuna51]

Even if the DVD is copy protected you can use https://www.makemkv.com/ to make a mkv selecting the desired tracks.
After you can compress it at your taste.

[Frank62]

Key always found here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053