Convert DVD disc to MPEG/AVI

[magisbladius]

I am having trouble understanding how to convert a DVD disc (which I can extract as either .vob or ISO files) into .avi or mpeg (or whatever other types of files TMPGEMC accepts as a video source). I would like if someone could point me in the easiest way to do this. Preferably I prefer good video quality if possible.

[SaSi]

Welcome to the forum.

The subject you ask about has been discussed quite a few times before, perhaps to the point of miscomprehension...

Rip the DVD onto the HD in file mode. DVDDecrypter or SmartRipper can do that. Set the program so that it doesn't split the VOB file into 1Gb segments. This will give you a single VOB including audio and video.

You will need to use an NTFS partition (using Windows 2000 or XP) if the VOB will become larger than 4Gb (which is pretty likely).

Then use VirtualDUB MOD to open this VOB file.

VirtualDUB will take a couple of minutes to parse the file which is normal.

To save the video/audio in AVI format you will select Save as Avi from the menu. Before that, you need to specify how to compress video and audio.

In order to reach a small and manageable size, you will need to use either DivX or xVid as a video codec and MP3 as an audio codec. You need of course to have these codecs installed.

How much you will compress and what quality settings you will use will set the quality of the resulting avi.

For MP3 audio, 128kbps Joint Stereo usually is good enough. For DivX video, a quality setting of 2 is good. (In single pass Constant Quality mode). A quality setting of 3 is acceptable - by my eyes.

If you are going to view the AVI on the computer and if the DVD is anamorphic 16:9 and/or has black bars, you will need to crop the black bars and resize the video so that the aspect ratio goes back to 1:1 and the image is not distorted when viewed on the PC. You can also do that using the VirtualDUB filters.

Tools to look for in the tools section:
DVDDecrypter or SmartRipper
VirtualDUB mod
DivX
MP3 codecs

Guides to help you from the How To section:
Using VirtualDUB filters

Hope this can help you. Post back if you need further explanations.

[magisbladius]

One question, so I would know in the future, where is the audio compression? I can only find video compresion.

[teegee420]

The "Streams" menu.

[magisbladius]

Last question, might there be any reason why I currently can not access the audio compression? It is not in the menu and I can not use any shortcut-keys to access it.

[teegee420]

Go to "Streams", then Stream List, right click the audio and select "Full Processing Mode". Then right click the audio again and select "Compression".

[SaSi]

One question, so I would know in the future, where is the audio compression? I can only find video compresion.

If you are refering to VirtualDUB, then it is under the Audio menu. You must first click on "Full Processing Mode" within the Audio menu. This allows VirtualDUB to decode the audio and then encode it to whatever you want. For some reason, VirtualDUB starts with Audio in "Direct Stream Copy" mode.

Also, having read your original posting, I come to think that you may be wanting something different altogether.

You orignally asked "how to extract the movie from a DVD in a format that Tmpgenc can accept". Well, this doesn't really require you to convert to AVI. You can demux the DVD movie into an audio and a video stream. If you want to make a backup DVD, then you can feed the video to Tmpgenc to re-compress and use the AC3 audio as is.

[alandla]

Hi all. I am also looking for a way to convert DVD VOB files to MPEG2 to be encoded by TMPG Plus.

I have captured some programs with my ATI TV Wonder VE card using PowerVCRII but couldn't seem to edit out the commercials effectively without synch problems (TMPG or Womble didn't work).

I was finally able to do that with TMPG DVD Author. This of course makes the files smaller and I realize that I can almost fit 2 shows onto the one DVD-R.

I don't know if DVD Shrink or the like would work as they seem to remove excess stuff like chapters, etc and my files wouldn't have that.

If I could just get the files into TMPG Plus, I could re-encode them to size and author again with TMPG DVD Author.

Any suggestions? As I say, I'm not doing any editing, just shrinking.

Thanks.