Help: Newbie....Farscape DVD Ripping

[neo211]

i just recently got into the Xvid scene and i'm trying to start out by converting all four seasons of Farscape to Xvid. I bought a Philips DVP642 so that I can watch them once i've converted them. I've been searching through the forum for help on backing them up and apparently Farscape is a pain in the ass due to its interlacing or something like that. I also see a lot of talk regarding the use of scripts in GKnot. I'm not familiar with scripts and all the deinterlacing and optimizing seems to take place in the scripts. i know i'm not supposed to ask "whats the easiest way to do this?" or any questions resembling that. i'm simply asking for help or pointers on how to get the best quality for my Farscape encodes. i'll be encoding from the R1 DVD's. i noticed that the encodes of the peacekeeper wars were at 624x352 with a framerate of 24.975. i'm trying to achieve the same quality or close enough. any help would be greatly appreciated. and please dont tell me to searc the forum as i have spent many late nights reading and still need the help. thank you in advance for any help u may provide me with.

[celtic_druid]

Sounds like maybe this should be in the AVISynth forum. I don't see any questions about XviD settings.

[Mug Funky]

farscape was shot in PAL video, then deinterlaced, then telecined to NTSC.

you'll have to look through your video in virtualdub to see how badly this has been done.

i've seen a TV cap of peacekeeper wars (a few threads down from here :)) that was quite awful, but recoverable (just).

if you're new to the scene, there's a few things to learn, especially about frame-rate conversion and deinterlacing/bobbing.

if this is a blend-conversion, you'll need the restore24 script and a good bobber (try Tdeint).

if it's a 25fps telecined to 29.97 interlaced, you'll need an inverse telecine (IVTC) plugin. definitely get decomb, because there's useful stuff there like decimate that other filters can use. also get smartdecimate or again, tdeint (it'll IVTC as well).

i can imagine there'll be a steep learning curve here :)

[manono]

i can imagine there'll be a steep learning curve here :)

You said it, Mug. My advice is to walk before you run, and for neo211 to start with something easier.

[Mug Funky]

...in that case, post a VOB sample and i'll figure this bitch out for ya! :)

use chopperXP to cut about 10-20 seconds out of the original DVD file. if you don't have webspace, PM me and i'll give you my email addy (gmail has tons of space on it :))

[neo211]

thanx so much for the help guys...i really appreciate it...i've already cut a 25 second sample from the original vob. its 15.4MB.
i know a bit bout framerate conversions but not much bout deinterlacing and nothing bout bobbing. in fact i have no idea what that is. from what i can tell telcine is a technique used for converting PAL to NTSC but i'm not sure. never really used it. maybe thats why whenever i have attempted to do a PAL2NTSC conversion it has failed miserably. thanx again. i'll pm u now for your mail addy =).

[Hironimo]

Hi there.

A long while ago, when Farscape just came out as DVD in pal, I did some encodings (til episode 2x09). My encodes should still be around.

What I can say: Pal quality just rocks. No interlacing, the DVDs werent even encrypted. So naturally the NTSC dvd won't be nearly as good. If you thus want good quality either download encodes from the net - or get the PAL DVDs.

Kindly, Hironimo

[PiXuS]

Originally posted by neo211
i know a bit bout framerate conversions but not much bout deinterlacing and nothing bout bobbing. in fact i have no idea what that is.

Check that out (http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm).

[neo211]

thanx for the info i'll check it out.

[Chainmax]

Be sure to thoroughly read the help files that come with decomb.

[Calculon]

I've ripped Farscape for personal use from a tv source, which ended up being 24.975 fps after I was done, and from both R1 and R2 DVD sources. The DVDs were very simple actually. It seems they made the R1 versions run at 24fps. A simple script with decomb's telecide and decimate functions worked. The R2 DVDs were easy as well. I still used telecide on the r2 DVDs to be safe though. Everything turned out fine. The tv rip was trickier, but decomb's decimate(cycle=6) worked just fine. At least it did when I ripped the last show before the miniseries a year ago.