Easiest way to get good quality movies on CD-R's

Hi, what is the easiest way to get good quality dvd movies onto CD-R's that work in a dvd player(using 3 or less CD's) in your opinion. I've tried many different things, and only one worked, but the quality wasn't awesome and it took like 30 steps.

 

Tools you need:
1) DVD Decrypter (Or SmartRipper)
2) DVD2SVCD
3) Cinema Craft Encoder or Canopus ProCoder
4) burnatonce
======================================================
How to backup your DVD to SVCD
This would have to be the best method to produce top quality SVCD's from your DVD's. The guide is substantially quicker than using DVD2AVI/TMPGEnc and the final results have an improved overall quality, for both Video and Audio. It uses DVD2SVCD with the aid of Cinema Craft Encoder.

The latest version of DVD2SVCD can now produce VCD's, however, I would not recommend it, stay with DVD2AVI/TMPGEnc method for VCD's and this method for SVCD's.

Although this guide uses SmartRipper to rip (remove the movies encryption and transfer to your Hard Drive) the movie off the DVD, the built in vStrip ripper can also be used. DVD2SVCD is used basically as a fancy but simple GUI of many command line freeware programs to produce the Audio WAV file and then CCE ( a commercial product) to actually do the final encoding. Then further programs to mux Video and audio together and cut them ready for burning. So far I have not experienced anything than perfect lip-sync as well.

This guide is based on using Nero to burn the final SVCD, although if you choose to incorporate Chapters, you need to use CDRWIN to burn the BIN files to CDR.

I have tested this method with PAL Region 4 DVD's and only a few NTSC Region 1 DVD's. I know it works for PAL, there may be some tweaking needed for NTSC.


Software you will need:

1. SmartRipper 2.41 or later, if needed (d/l from _http://www.down4free.com/view.php?Id=241 )
2) DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/download.asp
2. DVD2SVCD: http://www.dvd2dvd.org/
3) burnatonce (free): http://www.burnatonce.com/downloads/
You will also need a Computer with:

* Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP installed.
* A Pentium III 600mhz or equivalent as a minimum.
* At least 128meg memory, 256meg prefered.
* An internal DVD Rom player (any speed)
* Hard drive with at least 10 gb FREE space in one partition.
* A CDR(W) Burner to produce the SVCD and a box of good quality CDR's
* A sound card and SVCD player to check the finished product.


Tips before we get started:

* Turn OFF your Screen Saver, it will simply slow the conversion down by hours.
* Do not run any other program in the background while DVD2SVCD is running, especially if you have a slower computer.
* Turn the screens colour depth to 16bit colour or better.
* Re-boot the computer BEFORE you start the conversion.

So you have downloaded the software and checked that you have the right stuff in your computer. Sounds good, then lets get stuck into it!



Step 1: Getting Ready.

1. Install SmartRipper (if needed)
2. Install CCE
3. Install DVD2SVCD
4. Install Nero or CDRWIN as required.



Step 2: Copying DVD files to harddrive.

1. Put the DVD movie into your DVD Rom player. It doesn't get much easier than this!

2. I prefer to use SmartRipper than DVD2SVCD own internal programs as I can strip out unwanted Audio and Subtitles. This speeds up the conversion. I can also do this part at my leisure.

3. Run SmartRipper, it should detect your DVD and unlock all files. If it has problems, actually play the movie with WinDVD or other DVD player first, then run SmartRipper.

4. Select Settings and for Key Check set Every VOB File. For File Splitting, set Every VOB File and for Options select Unlock Drive, DeMacrovision, Copy IFO File and Create Directories.

5. Click on Stream Processing tab and check which audio stream is English or the language you wish to rip. Also, if you enable Stream Processing and unselect the langauages and subtitles you DONT want, then the final conversion can be sped up considerably. The VOB files will now be smaller on your HD than they are on the DVD.

6. Selecting Start to start ripping the VOB files of the DVD to your hard drive. This can take 5 to 30 minutes depending on your computer setup and the actual DVD.


A typical directory of a DVD is similar to :

VIDEO_TS BUP 16,384
VIDEO_TS IFO 16,384
VIDEO_TS VOB 43,008
VTS_01_0 BUP 77,824
VTS_01_0 IFO 77,824
VTS_01_0 VOB 1,695,744
VTS_01_1 VOB 1,048,565,696\
VTS_01_2 VOB 1,048,565,696 \ <-- This is the Main movie
VTS_01_3 VOB 1,048,565,696 /
VTS_01_4 VOB 589,365,248 /
VTS_02_0 BUP 18,432
VTS_02_0 IFO 18,432
VTS_02_0 VOB 43,008
VTS_02_1 VOB 296,014,976 <-- This is normally the Trailer, Interviews, etc



Step 3: SVCD Conversion.

1. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only.

2. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the IFO file of the DVD you have ripped to your HD. It will indicate its length and select the correct Aspect ratio mode. There is no Cut or Trim features here. I do not recommend ticking NTSC to PAL box unless you like jerky movies.

3. Click the Misc. tab, then Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go. Un-tick Dont Delete any Files (not important if you dont) change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced.

4. Click the CDImage tab. If you dont want any fancy Chapters or Title pictures, etc, just click Dont Make Images and you will end up with 2-3 MPG files ready to burn with Nero. If you do want to include Chapter and/or Title Pictures select VCDXBuild. The dafault ChangeCD pic is excellent.

5. Click the Subtitles tab if you want to include and subs. Tick the Rip Subtitles box and select either Permanent Sub titles or SVCD Subtitles (this allows them to be selectable on your DVD Player). In Subtitle Lang. 1 pick the language you want. It must have been on the DVD originally.

6. Click the Audio Tab and click on Audio 2 Priority if your including a second audio track. Leave Audio downsample 48 -> 44.1 ticked as this makes a fully compliant SVCD. Change Audio Bitrate from the default 160bps if you wish but the higher it is, the larger the final file or the lower the Video bitrate used to fit to the CD's.

7. Click the Frameserver tab and select Resize Method to be Bicubic Resize.

8. Click the Bitrate tab to see the number of CD's and their size for the movies length. Leave these at default initially, just un-select Min Avg if its ticked. DVD2SVCD calculates the bitrate automatically for you to just fit onto your CDR's.

9. Click the Encoder tab and make sure Cimema Craft Encoder is selected (and not TMPGEnc). Multipass VBR should be set at 3 or 4, remebering 4 takes 33% longer to encode than a 3 pass. If time is not an issue select 4, else select 3. There is very little quality defference between a 3 or 4 pass SVCD.

10. All is now setup and we are ready to begin the encodeing.

11. Click the Conversion tab again and if all is ready, click the GO button. Click Start Conversion then confirm with OK. If you have selected Subtitles, it will now ask you to select the actual one from the VOB file list.

12. Go to sleep, work or school as this process can take a long time. On a P700 it can take over 24hrs with a 4 pass encode!

13. When finished you will have in the default folder you selected, about 20-30+ files. There will be 2-3 MPG files like bbMPEG_Muxed_File00.mpg if you did not make an image. You will have 2-3 BIN & CUE files like CD_Image_File_CD1.bin if you did.

14. Play them with WinDVD (or your favorite SVCD player software, I dont recommend Windows Media Player) to check them for lip sync near start and finish of each file and any other problem.

15. You have now made your first SVCD files and all thats left is to burn them.



Step 4: Burning.

1. If you have BIN & CUE files, run CDRWIN. Click on the top left button and then the Load Cuesheet button. Browse to the folder where the images were saved to and load the CD_Image_File_CD1.cue file for CD1. Select the Write Speed to be 4x or 8x and all other boxes un-ticked. Hit the Start Recording button and sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt.

2. If you have MPG files, run Nero. Click the Super VideoCD tab for a SVCD, select Create Standard Compliant CD. In Volume Descriptor tab, enter a Volume Label, such as THE_GLADIATOR_1 for disk 1 of the Gladiator. Click on New and then drag & drop the bbMPEG...00.mpg file from the right window (your HD) to the left window (the SVCD disk). Nero will check through the mpg file to confirm that it is a compliant SVCD file. After it finishes checking the file all should be well, click the Burn Button. Select the Write Speed to be 4x or 8x and make sure Disk-At-Once is selected and Finalize CD is ticked. Then click Write and sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt.

3. The excitement builds! When the burning is finished, shut down the recording program, label the CD with a felt pen and rush to your DVD player to check it out. If all is okay, repeat this for the second or third disks remembering to change the Volume Label in Nero. Refer to Nero's or CDRWin's help for further info and clarification on how to use them.

4. You can now safely delete all the files created by DVD2SVCD and delete the DVD VOB files as well.

5. Use only good quality scratch resistant CDR's. Some DVD stand alone players will only read from CDRW's, then burn to CDRW's instead. Burning at greater then 4x or 8x speed can also make them unreadable by many players, particularly the latter part of the CD. Many DVD stand alone units have problems playing SVCD movies, even though the book indicates it can and many will jump and stutter if the bitrate is to high or to low.



NOTE 1. If you experience any interlacing problems, particularly with TV episodes or CG cartoons, I have found if you click on Advanced Settings in the Encoder tab (DVD2SVCD level in Misc tab must be set to Advanced to see this), and de-select Linear Quantizer Scale, ZigZag Scanning Order and Progressive Frames, then this will produce a perfect interlaced picture on both the PC and TV.


NOTE 2. DVD2SVCD does NOT directly support Batch mode processing of movies. This is handy if you wish to process a few small TV Episodes or cartoons. But it can be done, run DVD2SVCD, load in movie, set everything up to your liking and particular the folder you will be saving/encoding to. Hit Go and start the conversion. Let it run for 2-3 seconds until you see the long line about DVD2AVI come up. Then close DVD2SVCD by clicking the small X top left of its window. Go immediately to the task bar and right click on the DVD2AVI button and select Close. Repeat this for all the movies/episodes you wish to convert but be careful to select a different Deafault Output Folder for each movie. I use MOVIE1, MOVIE2, etc folders. Now go to the folder where you installed DVD2AVI and you will see a file called dvd2svcd batch.bat. Open this in Notepad and add the following lines so it will look similar to:

@ECHO OFF
REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
"E:\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"H:\MOVIE1\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
"E:\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"H:\MOVIE2\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit

where E:\DVD2SVCD\ is the folder where you have DVD2SVCD installed and H:\MOVIE1\ is the folder where you have selected all will be encoded to. These will probably be different on every computer. Now Save the file, create a shortcut on your desktop to this file and when you are ready, run it. The above example will now process the 2 movies I set up in Movie1 and Movie2 folders. If you wish to shut the computer down after encoding, change the -exit to -shutdown in the last line. I have sucessfully done up to 7 episodes this way without a problem.



ChickenMan (c) 2002
Guide copyright by ChickenMan

_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Afterdawn forum rules
http://www.afterdawn.com/general/legal.cfm
Please see our guides before posting
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/[/small]

 

shoey i bet that took some time to write.

the programe i used is svcd2dvd ripper i just put my dvd in clicked which format i wanted and presto it did it for me took about 40mins and it was good quality copy as well.
but can't understand its the same name as the 1 you said but i did't have to go though all what you put or use any other programe.
_X_X_X_X_X_[small]pentium 4 3,2ghz 1224mb ddr 2700
120gig sata hdd
gforce fx 5600 8x agp
6.1 sound[/small]

 

If you wan't the best possible video playback (SVCD)then use DVD2SVCD using Cinema Craft Encoder or Canopus ProCoder. I've been backing up DVD's to SVCD for over 2 years and have yet to find any better encoders m8. Any expert in this field will tell you the same.

 

cheers shoey you learn new stuff everyday ill give it a try

 

i burnt some movies at a vcd format (with nero), and when i play them they are black and white. what am i doing wrong?
where can i download Cinema Craft Encoder, for svcd?

 

Shoey, I'm intersted in your encoding choice app. I was just wondering why you prefer cinema craft over tmpgenc? I just started doing this, DVD to SVCD conversations, and I would like to know any advantages. It usuaully takes 7 hours to do a 90 minute movie, is tmpgenc slower? Thanks.

 

YO kingtroy
The easiest way to burn good quality movies is to

first have the movie you want to burn in avi. format

Then convert it to vcd using CUCUSOFT AVI. TO VCD.
This my take a while.

also this may increase the file size so make it smaller by splitting it with avi. splitter pro

Then after that use Nero burning rom to burn it on a
cdr

but make sure your dvd player is vcd compatible adn can play it otherwise it will not work.

INFOHASH

 

Cinema Craft Encoder is a much faster encoder than TMPGEnc. Using the latest DVD2SVCD, you have the option to use the extra program included in the package called D2SOBRA and if you get the right "Q" factor, you can enocode with CCE even faster with the same video quality playback at MP-VBR4. Encoding times generally are dependent on how fast your CPU, memory and hd is m8.

 

TMPGEnc is much slower than CCE encoding a file. Canopus ProCoder and TMPGEnc are about the "same" time encoding but experts prefer Canopus ProCoder. CCE is by far the fastest of them all, even encoding .AVI to MPEG1(VCD) or MPEG2.(SVCD)