TV DVD Episodes to VCD

[Bright Knight]

Could someone please tell me if there is a different format for ripping TV DVD Episodes (i.e. Alias) to VCD? I might have read somewhere that if you have three or four episodes on a DVD disc, once ripped to your PC it will appear as one giant movie file. Is this true? Is there any way to include audio commentary or special features?

I really appreciate any help and am very grateful that this site exists. I went through my first ripping process this past weekend and was at an impasse until I found a thorough guide here that gave me the answer.

Many thanks,

Bright Knight

[Dhruv]

I've made backups of my Friends episodes in the past, and each episode was in a seperate Vob file. I'm not sure if that's the case with Alias though.
Even if it does turn out to be one huge vob file, then after you've encoded to mpeg simply use a slicer to cut the mpeg into multiple ones.
Cheers,

[BobK]

I'm not sure what you mean by "different format". But not all episodic DVDs are the same. Some (most that I've seen) have a different file for each episode. A few have one large file for the whole disc.

The few times I backed up an episode DVD to VCD I just used Eazy VCD (free download). It rips the files and converts them to mpg1 for VCD. If each episode is a different file then you rip them individually and the final product is ready to burn to VCD. If they're not all in a separate file then you need an editing program to split the file into different episodes.

If you have a DVD burner then I'd suggest you just backup the entire disc to another DVD. 4-5 CDs cost around 40-50 cents, 1 blank DVD about $1, so the cost is a little higher but you end up with DVD quality instead of VCD.

[Ejoc]

Examples:
Stargate SG-1 - Each episode is a seperate PGC(different files)
Patlabor TV Series - 1 big clip w/ all episodes together
Gundam Wing TV Series - Each episode is a seperate PGC(which PGC varies from DVD to DVD)

So there's no 1 answer.

Using DVD Decrypter in IFO mode, you can rip the extras inaddition to the episode, they usally will have their own VTS/PGC and are around 15minutes long, so just include those too.

Using DVD Decrypter in File mode, you could rip the entire DVD, then you would have *everything* as one big clip when you run it thru DVD2AVI.

[Bright Knight]

Thanks to you all, I appreciate the help. I guess the best thing to do is give it a try and see what happens but it helps to get some feedback.

Brt Knight

[telemike]

Use DVDshrink to explore the DVD and rip the episodes to your harddrive.

[Bright Knight]

Just wanted to send out a thanks, especially to BobK, for help on this request. I used Eazy VCD for Alias and am extremely pleased with the end result. It also seems to be somewhat easier to find and rip special features. My next goal is to copy with commentary but that's a fun job to tackle.

Many thanks,

Bright Knight