Hey, I've been reading many many guides and reviews of many many dvd ripping, decrypting, converting programs...and to be perfectly honest i'm more confused now than I was....
What I want to do is back up all of my Movie DVD's onto my hard drive purely for playback on my pc preferably using Windows Media Player, I would like to get the best possible picture and audio quality and I am not worried about high file size as hard disk space is not an issue.
As far as programs goes I am willing to pay for one if its gonna save hours of stressfull use with free programs.....
Also whats the best format to output as for highest possible quality playback in Windows Media Player??
Help would be very very much appreciated!!!
Dave
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what format will the video be in using this software?
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Originally Posted by King Otoss
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I have just read on another forum that If I want to keep the full quality of the film then i should rip it as an .iso and not convert it, as converting decreases quality which i already knew from video editing, but i didnt realise that WMP plays .iso files....is this right?
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Originally Posted by King Otoss
As far as conversion and information loss is concerned, you're correct. Any conversion of the audio or video data will incur a loss in quality of the resultant audio or video. This doesn't mean that you need to keep the video in the same container format. There are many programs out there that will copy the audio and video data into a standard container format such as MPEG without converting the audio and video data. This will give you the exact same video and audio stream and therefore no losses, but still have the simplicity of a standard MPEG file or whatever.
As for the max quality point, while any conversion of the video stream you do will incur some loss in quality, storing the raw MPEG2 stream off the DVD will chew up your disk space quickly. I don't know how much disk space you have that it's "not an issue", but invariably no matter how much you have, it will eventually become an issue. I have a 3TiB array with another 3TiB on hand and I still choose to transcode my DVD collection into H264 video. I would recommend using the x264 codec using constant rate factor encoding. I'm using crf=22 which is giving me great quality results and files between 10-20% of what they would be if I stored the raw MPEG2. The quality differences between the original DVD and the encoded stream are largely imperceptible, although if you believe that you have a more picky eye than me, you could try crf=20 or even lower and see how you like it. Audio is not so much of an issue. I usually keep the raw AC3 stream as the disk space gains are much lower and AC3 can be streamed directly to my home theatre receiver. -
Welcome to this forum! FYI, I'm not an official greeter (like at Walmart), just another ordinary forum member. It's normal to be confused at first, requires a fair amount of reading and experimenting to figure things out. You'll find some helpful people here and the answers to most of your questions, if you persist. It's not necessarily easy, but it's possible.
The most popular freeware for ripping is DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter, RipIt4Me, and DVDFab HD Decrypter. You can find them in the Tools section of this forum.
As long as you don't compress/shrink when you rip, you will retain the original quality with either an .ISO file or DVD Video format (VIDEO_TS folder with .VOB files), the most common output formats. They're the greediest of hard drive space, but you said that was not a factor for you. I use and prefer DVD Video format which plays fine with WMP, PowerDVD, and most other computer players, as well as all standalone DVD players. Conversion to other formats such as .AVI or XVID/DIVX can save a lot of space but takes longer, is much more complicated technically, may lose quality depending upon your expertise, and is less compatible with various players.
My older versions of WMP player and PowerDVD won't play .ISO files. Some software/systems play .ISO files, some don't, so try it for yourself to see what works for you. I've heard that you can play .ISO files with VLC media player, for example, but I've tried it and don't like it. I greatly prefer PowerDVD. You can get different versions of PowerDVD at http://www.oldversion.com/PowerDVD.html - the 5 version is the last unbloated version and works best on my older XP computer. -
Originally Posted by hech54
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JohnnyBob: That must be in the settings somewhere. I just installed DVDFab HD Decrypter 6.2.1.8 and it defaults to "DVD9"
This is after a full uninstall of the previous version, and deleting the program folders.
I've always had this behavior - always have had to set it to "DVD5" if and when I wanted it to shrink.
I really suspect it's in YOUR settings somewhere.
For the OP. The only means to play an iso without a player that will read these direct is to mount the image. Use the tools of your choice.;/ l ,[____], Its a Jeep thing,
l---L---o||||||o- you wouldn't understand.
(.)_) (.)_)-----)_) "Only In A Jeep" -
Originally Posted by classfour
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Same download - different settings????
All I've ever seen with the program (paid or free) is default to DVD9.;/ l ,[____], Its a Jeep thing,
l---L---o||||||o- you wouldn't understand.
(.)_) (.)_)-----)_) "Only In A Jeep" -
Same here, til the last few versions, which default to DVD5 output for DVD to DVD on my system. A mystery.
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I would probably just decrypt the DVDs and store them as VIDEO_TS folders or ISOs. Figure about 8GBs per DVD. The ISO container has the advantage of showing the name of the video on the ISO file, while with VIDEO_TS folders you would have to put them in another folder to add the title. And I wouldn't use WMP for much of anything, IMO. VLC works fine for ISOs.
But you can try both formats and see what works for you best. You would have no quality loss with either format. You could also use DVD Shrink if you just wanted the main movie with no compression and that can halve your filesize at times. With your listed computer details, higher compression formats will take a fair amount of encoding time and will have some quality loss.
And welcome to our forums. -
Could somebody please explain what my options are?
I just want to back up my film collection onto my hard drive with excellent video quality...i want to be able to pick and choose what bonus features, subtitles, languages i want...
I will be playing the video's back in windows media player so i want it in a format that WMP will recognise....
What are my options?
Thanks for the good comments.
DavePeace
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Originally Posted by King Otoss
One trick I found is to leave it set on DVD-9 (8.5GB) output all of the time. If so, then it will never compress/shrink anything. Switching between the DVD-9 and DVD-5 settings encounters some quirks, so it better to sidestep that possibility. Since you are storing on hard drive (not burning discs), you don't have to worry about the difference between DVD-9 and DVD-5, which applies only to burning discs. Layer breaks are also irrelevant to your purpose, except it's advisable to remove them when ripping. -
Originally Posted by JohnnyBob
To the OP - what's more important to you? Using WMP or retaining the entire menu structure and all the features from each DVD? You're probably going to have to pick one, because I'm not sure that you can have both. It may help if you explained why using WMP is so important to you. Are you perhaps using a remote control and don't know how to make it work with anything else bu WMP? Whatever the reason, people may be able to suggest another alternative that still meets your needs. -
Originally Posted by brettski74
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