I've been ripping all my kid's movies (and my own but they've got many more than me) onto my hard drive for backup with DVD Decrypter for a long time now. I suddenly realise that they're taking far too much space. If I kept the movies in .AVI format I'd be better off. But how to get from those directories of .VOBs etc. that DVDDecrypt makes to an .AVI file? regards, ab
Use dvdfab (freeware) to rip, as newer movies have encryption that dvd decrypter is unable to handle. You can use autogk to convert your dvd files to avi. http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd_to_avi_using_autogk.cfm
I'm also an AutoGK fiend, i convert my DVD's to 1401MB XviD's (even figures result in split output files hence the 1401MB). There are better and more efficient ways (and smaller, better quality files too) but i like simple methods and usually get stuck in my ways until things no longer work
LOL creaky, I had gotten out of the habit of using AutoGK and favored discs for backups. As my collection has grown and my home has become increasingly networked, I find myself going back to GK the last few months for the ease of watching anything anywhere. What more efficient ways do you speak? H.264 codec???
Yeah i think it's H264. I'll try and find a link, i haven't experimented with it myself, i've spent literally weeks ripping and converting many hundreds of movies, i can't face doing that again (and i haven't even seen the electric bill for those weeks of 24/7 encodes yet!!). I just use 1401MB and xvid under AutoGK personally. edit- here you go ~ http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/763984/4626054
No worries, keep us posted. I do wish i had stuck to 700MB now, all my drives are close to being full now, i've moved a lot of stuff around and shoehorned stuff in all over the shop, it's a shame i picked 1401MB as i would have sooooo much free space left for more movies
Well thanks for the input, guys. I took your advice and I downloaded installed and ran autogk. I got an avi out of it, too. Media Player Classic wouldn't play it. It thought it was playing something, it didn't complain, but there was no picture and no sound. But VLC media player played it alright, so I guess that's fine. BUT, the first one I tried had MPC's ( Multiple Program Chains I discovered from autogk's help file ) and autogk doesn't handle those. The second one was the one I mentioned. And then the third one I tried had MPC's too. This is no good. I'd like something that'll work every time. Is there anything else anyone can suggest? regards, ab
Alltoavi should work too (free): http://alltoavi.sourceforge.net/ Probably have to join the vob's containing the movie with something like VobMerge or the avi's after with AviMux_Gui or whatever but either only take a minute (free too). Edit: never heard of this so could be junk or just what you need, WinX DVD Ripper free for one day: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm working on it. Currently waiting for handbrake to finish processing a directory of vobs and such - i.e. a dir created by dvddecrypt. Handbrake didn't seem to worry about program chains at all. I tried alltoavi and had a problem - it couldn't ascertain the size of one vob in the set, it said, so quit on me. So I got Vobmerge and tried the merging trick. Finally found which vob to begin with and now have a single big vob which I'm planning to feed into alltoavi after handbrake has done it's thing. Nero Show Time plays that single big vob okay, so I reckon its alright. I will report for the sake of the thread which prog or set of progs I finish up solving my problem with. Handbrake kinda looks like the best thing to me - I really like these open source things - but it is really slow. I wonder if the other things would be as slow? Anyway... on with the testing... thanks again.. ab
Update: Handbrake spent hours on the job, reported a successful conclusion and failed to create a file. Or I can't find one anyway. I fed it the directory. So I just fed the single big merged vob to videotoavi. It took the 5gig file and turned out a 5meg file ! It only processed the first vob. I tried to give it the directory but the fifth vob it complains about it can't find the size of it... So now I'm trying handbrake again.... ab
I've never used Handbrake (at least i don't think i have!), can't comment on it, good or bad. Have you tried AutoGK yet ?, it's dead easy..
Are you merging just the vob's containing the movie, should be pretty easy to spot, usually something like VTS 1_01, VTS 1_02 and so on. They'll be .99 G in size with a final vob of whatever size. I have had problem's in the past with a merged vob when the menu or something was included and only the first vob was converted (think it was VTS 1_00). Like said, AutoGK should do the job and is easy to use, just need's some kind of progression bar but the log show's what's happening. Almost sound's like a codec issue if MPC can't play it. Never used HandBrake so can't say but hear good thing's of it, that doesn't help much though if neither it nor AutoGK are working. To anyone, doesn't DVDFab Platinum create an avi or is the trial restricted (not free) or am I thinking of ImToo DVD Ripper Platinum?
I do not use it but have read around here somewhere that its a bit slower and not as good quality. As I said it is not from experience so take it for what its worth. Interestingly enough the best DVD encoder DVD-RB has mobile output options in the pro edition but the few settings I have tried also took longer with OK quality but still not GK standards.
Dvdfab Platinum can create an avi file under the "Mobile" option. Mine normally takes a while as I use the double pass option. I still prefer using autogk to convert dvd to avi, as to me it does a far superior job.
