RatDVD?

[video]

hi. have anybody succeded setting destination size before the conversion?

[Mr. Monte]

Oh yes, rest assured. :)

Lossy (original MPEG-2) --> lossy w. blurring (RatDVD) --> lossy (MPEG-2).

Hmm..I was under the assumption that it was doing a LZW compression (PKZIP) to the files..kinda like Monkey's Audio does to CDA.

If that were the case, your output when decoding would be the exact size and quality of the original.

[wmansir]

Hmm..I was under the assumption that it was doing a LZW compression (PKZIP) to the files..kinda like Monkey's Audio does to CDA.

If that were the case, your output when decoding would be the exact size and quality of the original.

Lossless compression would be impossible. MPEG-2 encodes are already compressed, and it is very difficult to further shrink a compressed file losslessly. You can get a little with MPEG-2 because it's not as efficient as other encoders, but no more than single digit % compression.

But .ratDVD files are .zip files, it can be extracted with a zip program. However, that is (mostly?) used as a method of keeping all the files together, like an .iso of a disk image. I didn't check to see if any compression was used at all in the zipping. With large files the processing time to uncompress is often not worth the benefits of compressing. One advantage over .iso is that archive formats usually have error detection and recovery methods built in. Since the author intended this format to be used in internet transmissions it would make sense to include corruption detection.

[Backflip]

Interesting format. How exactly would this tool/format etc compare with any other full DVD backup (keeping menus, extras, etc). Is there anything out there that's as good?

[video]

i've failed with the tagging of my ratDVD compilation :(

[Sbofen]

Ok, who's gonna make the proggy that lets you choose which of the 4 movies you just burnt to your single layer dvd? :D

[kl33per]

Has anyone got a ratDVD file to play successfully in MPC. I can get it to play, but can't navigate the menus using the mouse, or the ratDVD Navigation Filter.

[infoscapeone]

Has anyone got a ratDVD file to play successfully in MPC. I can get it to play, but can't navigate the menus using the mouse, or the ratDVD Navigation Filter.

MPC is not on the list of supporting players (http://www.ratdvd.dk/play.htm). Will probably not work without changes... but I agree that it would be great if the MPC guys could implement support soon.

[bond]

ratDVD gets played via directshow filters, so playback should work in any directshow player, like mpc, without having the player devs to adopt anything ratdvd specific

[kl33per]

@bond
Well that's what I thought, but damned if I can get navigation working under MPC.

[Cyberace]

I asked here (link) (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138951) about ratDVD support in MPlayer, VLC and XINE and never got a reply http://club.cdfreaks.com/images/smilies/6/sad.gif ...the problem is that the filters that the ratDVD developers released is only a (pre-compiled) DirectShow-filter binary, (not the full source code to the codecs nor the muxers/splitters), and VLC, MPlayer, XINE, etc. are not DirectShow-based so do not support DirectShow filters nativly (because DirectShow is Microsoft Windows propriotory and copyrighted). ...so best would be if the ratDVD developers open sourced their codecs and muxer/splitter so that non-DirectShow players can playback ratDVD.

PS! I very much doubt that ratDVD don't use any code at all from GPL/LGPL codecs, (or take advantage of the patents/specifications held in copyright by the MPAA for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, or Dolby for AC3), but if they don't they don't have to even release the source code of the codecs they have created from scratch, however if they just used a single line of code from a GPL'ed project inside their codec code then they must comply with the GPL license and release the full source code http://club.cdfreaks.com/images/smilies/4/policeman.gif ...they managed to legally workaround the GPL with libdvdnav and imdbexport by encapsulating the code inside a COM server to dynamicly load these when needed (do I don't see any ratDVD headers for them which they technicaly should have released too) however I don't see how they can ever get around it with the GPL and other licenses and copyrights of existing video and audio codecs without violating numerous copyrights and even laws :sly: ...I don't know maybe they plan to release the full source code soon in which case I pre-apologize now, I hate to sound like a OSD-zealot but I'm really disappointed that they are still holding on to the should code

[Tom Ellard]

ratDVD gets played via directshow filters, so playback should work in any directshow player, like mpc, without having the player devs to adopt anything ratdvd specific

I can't get a .ratDVD file to be recognised or played by any player whatsoever. Instead I get endless hard drive thrashing.

More than that, the DVDs I have authored myself in DVD Lab cause an immediate crash in RatDVD despite the notes saying that's fixed.

And it's bloody slow.

Maybe better off waiting a bit on this one.

[infoscapeone]

Can you get a bit more specific?

What errors do you get? In which players? With what movies?

[Tom Ellard]

Can you get a bit more specific?

What errors do you get? In which players? With what movies?

Under Windows XP SP2 on a P4 I took a DVD that I had previously copied to my hard drive and passed it through RatDVD and ended up with a .ratDVD file. It was a collection of old public domain Warners cartoons that lasted about 3 hours all up. It went from about 6.5Gb to 2.2Gb

This file, when I tried to open it in Windows Media Player 10, caused the hard drive to start working hard, the player didn't show anything except the 'opening' signal, I waited for a few minutes and then shut down the task. Restarted the machine, tried again, same result.

Double clicking the file opened ratDVD again and offered to decompress it. The chapters looked intact.

[baer999]

"First DVD-Player (stand-alone) manufacturer plans to integrate native ratDVD support (making ratDVD to DVD redundant)"

The News are released today at their HP !!!

[Morbo]

I'll wait for BR or HD-DVD......

I was kinda hoping for monkey audio for DVD too....but it's
not even Xvid..

Now if someone could twist ratDVD into using XVID,I'd be more
thrilled.

I hate block filters......

[easy2Bcheesy]

I gave RatDVD a go using the BBC DVD, Jonathan Creek, Series 3, Disk 1. That's about 2.5 hours of low-motion footage, which RatDVD took down to 1.2GB. On my Dell 8400 with 3.4GHz CPU, with AnyDVD sorting out CSS, the RatDVD process took about five hours.

Playback was on a Dell 2405FPW which does show up artefacting pretty badly, but I thought the results were unacceptably poor quality. In fact, I'd say 'shockingly poor' to be honest. But then, what do you expect for 2.5 hours at 1.2GB?

At the other end of the spectrum, quality level 150 (max) produced an 8GB file, and 125 was at 4GB at 60% before I quit it.

Personally I'm looking for a good quality back-up tool for archiving my DVDs onto my media PC. From what I've seen, this isn't it. Time to experiment more with Nero Recode then.

[infoscapeone]

Playback was on a Dell 2405FPW which does show up artefacting pretty badly, but I thought the results were unacceptably poor quality. In fact, I'd say 'shockingly poor' to be honest. But then, what do you expect for 2.5 hours at 1.2GB?
I guess the real question here is what the size of the video was? E.g. if you have 1GB audio, subtitle, dvd, etc. and 200MB video - the quality would probably be very good? Also, what were the quality settings you used?

At the other end of the spectrum, quality level 150 (max) produced an 8GB file, and 125 was at 4GB at 60% before I quit it.
That's not surprising. The ratDVD FAQ says it is currently not optimzed for the higher qualities and the best ratio is about 100:

...Another important thing in the moment is that the codec is optimized most for medium settings around 100...

[Teegedeck]

...and that means, the results we were getting here at the default settings of 95% already are supposed to be RatDVD's 'sweet spot'. And they are really, really below par, to put it mildly.

As the results of 95% quality usually are around 1.2-1.4 GB, I suppose that's what easy2Bcheesy has used.

Nero Recode AVC certainly sems the better 1-click solution to me.

[easy2Bcheesy]

I did indeed use the default 95% quality and the result was awful. You have to chuckle at the scale too - 95% of what exactly? Certainly not 95% the quality of the original source material...

Even the material I chose - Jonathan Creek - is hardly colourful or full of motion, it's mostly talking head stuff set in drab UK locations. A one-pass q-based VBR solution should lap this sort of stuff up. I'm even getting horrible macroblocking on the intro screens which are white text on a plain black background :|

[Tom Ellard]

Pity - I want a way to distribute my own DVDs on the net for easy download. It has to be a single file that unpacks into a DVD image that any wally can burn and then play on their DVD player.

ratDVD is an excellent concept in that way - but I guess what we need is something that uses AVC (or a known encoder) but can preserve the disc structure.

Actually if it encoded slow but could decode fast that would be better.

And yes - it has to unpack to a standard DVD none of that DiVX malarky :p

[bond]

ratDVD could have used xvid, but than they would have been forced to make ratDVD opensource because of the GPL, which the devs propably wanted to avoid and therefore had to develop an own codec...

[Leonardo1001]

@easy2Bcheesy: Could you answer the question and let us know an estimate of the bitrate - at leatst how much audio and subtitles are included? Judging quality without bitrate doesn’t make sense to me. And, why do you think the quality setting is ‘%’?

@Tom Ellard: Decoding is a lot faster than encoding. You can play it back in real time but for encoding in real time you probably need a very fast machine (at least faster than I have). Also ratdvd to dvd is faster that dvd to ratdvd.

@bond: I didn’t know that. Every program that can use an xvid codec needs to be open source? Even if xvid is already installed on the system?

[bond]

@bond: I didn’t know that. Every program that can use an xvid codec needs to be open source? Even if xvid is already installed on the system?depends on how xvid gets used (you are not forced to use it via vfw, which most people do, but could also integrate it fixed in your app. in the later case you would have to release the code of your tool. in the first case it would be a big hassle to integrate it in a "all-in-one" solution

[baer999]

New version !!!

Release Notes ratDVD v0.7.1235:
------------------------------

New Features:

Added Direct burning capability *1
Added ISO creation engine *1
Added MCE (Windows Media Center Edition 2005) support
*ratDVD files are listed as video files
*full control with mouse and remote control
Codec quality/speed optimizations
Added advanced codec options
*Ignore scaler
*Use alternate quantization model
*MV Search Path
*P Bonus
Multi-Language support
*ar - Arabic
*ca - Catalan
*cz - Czech
*de - German
*dk - Danish
*en - English
*es - Spanish
*fr - French
*gr - Greek
*hu - Hungarian
*it - Italian
*nl - Dutch
*pl - Polish
*pt - Portuguese
*pt_BR - Portuguese (Brazil)
*ro - Romanian
*ru - Russian
*sr - Serbian
*sk - Slovak
*th - Thai
*tr - Turkish
*uk - Ukranian
ratDVD naming scheme
*Automatic content based naming extension
Tag editing while adding tagging
Shut down after convert
Setting for conversion task priority
Custom sounds
*For successful completions
*For failed completions
Remote Control Support with WM_Input interface
*Allows usage of WM_Input compatible remote controls (like the Microsoft Media center remote control) to control ratDVD playback.
New default quality set to 105
New maximum quality to 120
Source import plug-in architecture
*Allows extensions for different source material (e.g. ISO Images, all kind of optical media, etc.)
Destination export plug-in architecture
*Allows extensions for all kind of different output targets (e.g. ISO Images, or transcoding to other formats, etc.)
Custom action at end of successful conversion process
*Allows a higher degree of automation (e.g. automatic batch conversions, transfers in ratDVD archives, etc.)

Bug fixes:

Playback fixes:
*Chapter change after seek was sometime not correct
*Wrong time display in Media Player
*Acceptance of only known video render filters solves problems with some codec packs/ffdshow
*Fix for illegal NAV pack positions that sometimes happens in DVD Shrink created discs
*Fix for wrong subtitle display on some movies
*Wrapping of navigation component as COM module – can now be used from all programs system wide
*Fix for wrong audio/subtitle switching at next chapter after seek
*Fix for changing aspect ratio change with VMR9 (Video Mixing Renderer)
*Fix for graph stopping in certain situations
Support for >4GB images
Fix for “list index out of bounds” conversion issue for some movies

Known Issues:

Seek bar in Media Player
*No reset at new title start
*Does not reflect complete length with some movies
Resume ratDVD function in MCE2005 starts movie from the beginning

*1 – Nero needs to be installed for ISO creation / DVD burning functionality

[baer999]

OK tonight I did a first Test with the new version and i am very impressed !
5,08 GB to 0,86 GB and the quality is still good - the improvements are very good, and playable is the file, too !

[Tom Ellard]

The error with my DVD_Lab project is now fixed.
Windows Media Player crashed once then played the .ratDVD file OK
Went from 236Mb to 11.2Mb

[baer999]

Wow and how about the quality, because it is an amazing file decreasement ! The both versions before were cool, because of the new "idea" but now the quality ist better so it is a well solution to share his DVD safely ! And on the Homepage is an old news that DVD Standalones will play *.ratdvd's too in future !

[Teegedeck]

...but one needs to be pretty naive to believe that.

[bern]

I'm not much of a coder but I made this exec file to do batch ratting / unratting and optional turn off computer when finished. It works on win2k and should work on xp although I don't use xp myself. The two exec files must be put in the same folder as XEBencoder.exe. I hope its of use to you guys, it works for me.

[baer999]

@Teegedeck

Yes maybe you're right and there will be no Standalone Player which is compatible with the *.ratdvd format, but when the usage of RatDVD would increase then it would be possible ! It is a great solution if you want to save complete DVD backups - and your PC plays the files correctly ...

[mgh]

Pl. see news item dated 6/30/05 at
http://www.ratdvd.dk/
There is a big improvement with latest version as far as compression vs quality is concerned.

[baer999]

Yes I already know the news, but Teegedeck means that it is naive when you believe it... The improvement which was made is fantastic !

[Mr. Monte]

Yes I already know the news, but Teegedeck means that it is naive when you believe it... The improvement which was made is fantastic !

I believe he may have been talking about a rat compatible standalone DVD player

[Tonio Roffo]

OK you've all noticed the ratdvd container is a ZIP file right?

Rename one you made to a .ZIP and look inside:

Go to the DBG folder and open the LOG file you find inside with notepad.

Now read it.... There's an *afwul* lot of information about you and your computer inside, I don't like this about ratDVD:

Examples out of the log file on a ratDVD test:

...
[0:02:27] CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2800+ (x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0)
[0:02:27] OS: Windows XP (5.1.2600 Service Pack 2)
...
[0:02:27] TRATDVDCreator.Load -> X:\xxx\xxx\xxx.ratDVD <<< Last ratDVD I've converted back to DVD plus physical location on my disc.
...
[0:02:31] TRATImageCreator.Load -> X:\xxx\VIDEO_TS.IFO
[0:02:35] TRATImageCreator.Convert -> FOutputPath = X:\Unknown.ratDVD
...
Physical location of my source and destination files on my disc (this ratDVD)
...
[0:02:35] LastOutputFolder = "X:\"
[0:02:35] LastInputFolder = ""
...
[0:02:35] LastDVDOutputDevice = "X: MyDVDBurner MyRevision" <<< The BIOS entry of my DVD writer and it's physical location
...
[0:02:35] Loaded Module: C:\Program Files\ratDVD\XEB\XEBFCL.ax Version: 1.0.0.1 Date: 2005-05-xx xx:xx:xx <<< Physical location of ratDVD on my system (standard here) and time/date of last access
...
Computer:
----------------------------
4.1 Name : MYNETBIOSNAME
4.2 User : LOGGEDINUSER
4.3 Total Memory: 1023 Mb
4.4 Free Memory : xxx Mb
4.5 Total Disk : xx,xx Gb
4.6 Free Disk : xx,xx Gb
...
Operating System:
------------------------------------
5.1 Type : Microsoft Windows XP
5.2 Build # : 2600
5.3 Update : Service Pack 2
5.4 Language: MYLANGUAGE
...

Furthermore there's a sh*tload of version numbers of all kinds of ratDVD and windows files listed, with location, a stack memory dump, etc.

I'm not happy with such a log on my computer - I don't feel good *AT ALL* when my ratDVD would somehow end up on the 'net.

ratDVD should have the option to REMOVE those personal entries from a ratDVD.

[Ishan]

That's another good reason not to use that thing...
I'll stay away from it as long as this log is in the file and as long as the resulting video quality is so bad (and it'll be a long time I think).
It would have been a good format for my HTPC but I'll wait for someone to do a h264/aac version of it :)

[bern]

I'm not happy with such a log on my computer - I don't feel good *AT ALL* when my ratDVD would somehow end up on the 'net
Depends on what you're using it for. If it's for Pirating then you should be worried. But if like me its for storing your legitimatly made home dvds on your pc and saving HD space then there's no need to worry as the files won't end up on the net at all will they?

[TripleA]

Depends on what you're using it for. If it's for Pirating then you should be worried. But if like me its for storing your legitimatly made home dvds on your pc and saving HD space then there's no need to worry as the files won't end up on the net at all will they?

Pearls of wisdom!

What do you need privacy for? If you are not breaking some law, you have nothing to hide, right?

[bond]

very strange that a format which calls itself "the DVD movie download format - The only way to share complete DVD movies with multiple audio tracks, subtitles, video angles and bonus materials online" (what else than piracy does this refer to? i mean how many not copyrighted dvds are out there...) stores these kind of infos

[Tonio Roffo]

Yes, yes, we're all here because of backups, that's right... :rolleyes:

And even that is breaking the law in most countries. We're allowed to make backups but we can't, as we can't reverse engineer DVD protections on the originals.

[gpilot]

I'd be very concerned if detailed information unique to my PC were being recorded in to ratdvd file, so I just checked the log file in the last conversion to ratdVD that I did. While I did find a lot of details about the ratdvd program, which I expect is helpful for debugging, I didn't see any of the details about my computer, like Netbios name or userid, that you said were in your log file. I was using the latest version, 7.1235. What version were you using?

[Tonio Roffo]

I'm using latest now, but had installed an older version before it.

However I did make my test with the 0.7 version and it recorded all this stuff in my log file.

[Ishan]

Why don't you just delete that file from the archive? Does that prevent playing the file?

[kl33per]

Latest version allows you to not have the log files included in the final file.

[Ishan]

I tried it on R2 Starwars and all I have to say is the result is VERY far from any moderne codec. It looks like divx4 to me with A LOT of bluring.
The worst thing is the encoding tooks forever (12h on my sempron 2600+)
The idea is good but the choice of video codec is killing it...

[infoscapeone]

What quality settings did you use and what bitrate did you get/compare it with?

Did you try any of the advanced codec settings?

[Teegedeck]

I tried it on R2 Starwars and all I have to say is the result is VERY far from any moderne codec. It looks like divx4 to me with A LOT of bluring.
The worst thing is the encoding tooks forever (12h on my sempron 2600+)
The idea is good but the choice of video codec is killing it...
Edit: He, I got your main-complaint wrong the first time - speed. :p

There seem to be quite a lot of users who are ready to accept the slowness of this encoding process. The ironic thing is, I always thought we should have an XviD solution that leaves the user no choice but to encode at the highest-quality settings, no matter how long it takes - but nobody thought the simplicity and quality would be enough for users to accept the time-penalty. And now this app here demonstrates that users are willing to take that, even if the result is only of mediocre quality. They're ready to accept incredibly slow encoding - and even for just the minor benefit of having nifty menues and simple handling (conversion, MPEG-2 re-conversion)...and NOT great quality.

Perhaps this whole thing gets us a bit away from that "encoding-has-to-be-fast-fast-fast-for-the-average-user"-idea. Average users seem to be willing to put up with a lot of things, as long as handling is simple and they get automated reconverting to MPEG-2.

Edited: Restructured the post, sorry.

[Doom9]

and even for just the minor benefit of having nifty menues and simple handling (conversion, MPEG-2 re-conversion)...and NOT great quality.Isn't that what DVD Shrink is for? And shrink doesn't look too bad in many cases (especially if you can get rid of some space consuming DTS tracks and get 1.5 mbit more for the video bitrate). Or Rebuilder.

[onesoul]

Isn't that what DVD Shrink is for? And shrink doesn't look too bad in many cases (especially if you can get rid of some space consuming DTS tracks and get 1.5 mbit more for the video bitrate). Or Rebuilder. In general the idea of dvdshrink and dvd rebuilder is to compress a dvd to dvd-5. But ratdvd takes a whole dvd and compresses to 1.xx gb but the quality, like it has been said, is terrible. It would be a good idea if ratdvd used xvid instead...

[Teegedeck]

Or, if we are talking about full-resolution at sizes of 1 CD, x264. Wait! Wasn't there someone coding a nice GUI, or rather: full-scale encoding app, for mencoder whom we could ask? :D