I've found several programs that claim to convert a DVD movie to a Divx file with one simple click, but so far I can't get any of them to work right, and I'm fairly certain I've got all the settings right. The latest one I've tried was Cybergame2000's "DVD to Divx" proggie, and it looked like it was going to work, but sure enough, it had the same problem the last one did. They start out fine, and they clearly state the full running time of the movie, along with an estimate for when it will be done (this last attempt said it was going to take 6 hours to complete), but then, for some reason, they stop early. I end up with a 100 meg file that's about 6 minutes long. What could I be doing wrong? I saw no error message, and it did appear to be saying it was doing the full length. Any ideas? A secondary question would be: Are there any other programs of this nature that are "idiot proof" I could try? Y'know, "Ripping Movies for Dummies" sorta thing? And one last, semi-related, question. I once saw a Divx rip that had two audio tracks. To be specific, it was Pink Floyd's The Wall (on Kazaa), and it had the director's and Roger Water's commentary track as well as regular, and you could switch between them. That was incredibly cool, and I'd love to learn how to do this, but could it be done with the simple programs like above, or would I have to learn to do it the hard way in stages? Thanks for any advice! Kurgan
Yes there is and it's free. It's called DVDx and does everything in 1 step. Personally I think it's the best simple ripping program. You can find guides at the link of my site at my signature and download DVDx from there 2. About the second question, the file was just an AVI file right? What has been done is that they used another sound stream of the DVD with contains commentary. You can do this kind of settings with DVDx. Enjoy!
One click video conversion programs are good because they are, as is the case with DVDx, pretty easy to use and produces great quality, however, in my opinion, you wont get the best quality without using something that requires you to actually get your hands dirty so to speak. So, yes DVDx is great when you know little about video encoding and the like, but after you gain more knowledge about this kind of thing through the internet, or whatever source is available to you and you are more confident in your ability to do video conversions, then you might want to try your luck on a more hands-on program like GordianKnot. Though GordianKnot is somewhat similar to DVDx in the way that you simply click on your desired settings, it requires you to think more on how to achieve the best possible results with the given settings you may choose. If ever in the near future you feel you are up to trying gordianknot, id recommend checking this site out for all the information you may need. http://www.doom9.org/ Good Luck.
Well, I gave it a try. After downloading DVDx I immediately noticed that it was the exact same program as Cybergame2000's "DVD to Divx," which I had already tried. Looks like someone took it and simply changed the logo. Anyway, I decided to try again, so I grabbed my notebook of DVDs and picked out one to test. I settled on John Carpenter's The Thing, since I remembered it had a director's commentary (see above). I popped it in, fired up the program, and started tweeking. Right away I found that one of Afonic's responses was mistaken, as the program only allows one audio stream to be ripped. Major bummer. I blew it the first time. The output settings don't automatically synch with the input (movie length), so my movie was about a half hour short when it was done. I found the prob and reset it to the correct length, reset a couple of other things that, for whatever reason, keep popping up and yelling at me even after I've set them, and tried again. Bingo. It worked. I was rewarded with a backup of the movie, commentary track only (unfortunately), and it came in well under the enforced maximum of 700 megs. Sweet. Quality of the video and audio is great, and that's even with Lame and not AC3, which it wouldn't let me do (kept telling me I still hadn't picked an audio codec, even though I'd clicked AC3). Another interesting thing is that it was done in far less time than it initially claimed, about 1:45 instead of 6:00. Now, if I can just figure out how to rip a single audio track, and then merge it into the existing file, I could then go back and get the 'normal' track and have a dual tracked flick where you can choose which you want to listen to. Hell, I suppose I wouldn't even mind doing it that way in the future, since DVDx seems to work so well. I did give Gordian Knot a try, but man, it was loaded with features and I got lost really quickly. (On the downside, GK screwed up my system a little bit when it installed a few zillion things --half my DVD players don't work now and audio filters all over the system got reset and were dead.) Anyway, overall it looks like I'm making progress, but I'm curious, how large is the average audio track after being ripped? I hate divx files that get too big and won't fit on a single disc, and the movie came out at about 634 megs, so I've got some room to work with (about 65 megs) to add the other track, if that's possible. Kurgan
I had a go with GordianKnot myself using the guide at Doom9 for dvd -> divx. Have to say I didn't like it one bit, and it produced an ultra crap quality rip. You could always Dr.DivX, but I still reckon the 16:9 guide on this site gives the best quality out of the ones I've tried so far. If you put the effort in its worth it.
hey, try the "really working" dr. divx to encode dvd to divx and then merge ac3 audio in it via virtualdubmod !! that takes around 4 steps and the output is a full-blown high quality divx movie!! (for further help with dr. divx, visit www.tt9.net and search for it)
