DVD FAB - Doesn't recognize the title of the DVD?

[postalmarke]

I have just started copying over my DVDs to my hard drive and noticed that 2 of the 4 have no titles. I'm using DVD FAB (after reading here that it was the easiest and free!) and it is easy, but I wonder why its not recognizing the title of the movie?

After the software was finished, I did add the title on the copy on my hard drive which I am assuming is okay, but I am a complete newbie at this so excuse me for asking a dumb question.

Also, these movies that I'm copying via DVD Fab will only play through the GOM player on my computer, not RealPlayer or the Windows Media Player. I "assumed" (and we all know what that means) that the copies would play on any of these players.

I'm pretty much just fumbling around here, but wanted to ask these questions early since I plan to copy my entire library over to an external hard drive for safe-keeping. I have no room to keep all these disks anymore!

Thanks!

[hech54]

You have the movie/DVD in your hand....and you can only copy one at a time. Before you copy it, create a folder with the DVD title and direct DVDFabDecrypter to put the finished product in there.

[postalmarke]

You have the movie/DVD in your hand....and you can only copy one at a time. Before you copy it, create a folder with the DVD title and direct DVDFabDecrypter to put the finished product in there.

Uh Oh...should I be using DVDFABDecrypter instead of DVDCopy? Yikes...I've played them back on my computer and they "seem" fine...and most of them do carry over the title of the movie. Can you explain to me the diff bet Decrypter and Copy? I'm not going to put these back on disks...not the whole purpose of this exercise! However I am going to copy the whole folder that DVD fab makes containing the movies over to my external HD once I get it. Hope that doesn't create a problem. I just don't have the room on my laptop

[tinker]

DVDFABDecrypter is a free, strip down version of DVD Fab.
I have to admit that I do not use any of those players you are using, WMP will play DVD, but if it is on the hard drive it will not find it. You have to right click on a Menu bar, than File-Open, find your folder and highlight Video_TS.IFO, than it will start paying.
Good player is VLC (free) or I use Power DVD player.

[postalmarke]

DVDFABDecrypter is a free, strip down version of DVD Fab.
I have to admit that I do not use any of those players you are using, WMP will play DVD, but if it is on the hard drive it will not find it. You have to right click on a Menu bar, than File-Open, find your folder and highlight Video_TS.IFO, than it will start paying.
Good player is VLC (free) or I use Power DVD player.

The GOM player is working fine and is actually automatically listing all the movies in its library, but I thought from what I read that DVDFab or whatever this is called, would copy the DVDS so that they would play on ALL players. I guess, technically, they will play, but you are right, to find them is a real pain. I am going to look at the other players, VLC and Power DVD to see if I like them any more than GOM . The one thing that is NOT working is the subtitles! Even though I tell DVD Fab to include them and the player says they are supposed to show them, they are not. Maybe my screen is too small...I hate being illiterate

[hello_hello]

A fair percentage of DVDs aren't labelled "correctly", and I assume DVD FAB just copies the label/name from the disc.

What types of files are being copied from the disc? If it's simply copying the files (minus the copy protection) then almost any player should be able to play them. If it's saving the files in a different format, such as a single ISO file, then that'd be a different story.

If you're just wanting to copy the movie without all the menus and extras etc, you might consider saving them in a more "convenient" format. For example MakeMKV will extract the movie and save it to a single MKV file. It doesn't do any converting, the video and audio etc are extracted from the vob files on the disc and saved in an MKV container.

[postalmarke]

A fair percentage of DVDs aren't labelled "correctly", and I assume DVD FAB just copies the label/name from the disc.

What types of files are being copied from the disc? If it's simply copying the files (minus the copy protection) then almost any player should be able to play them. If it's saving the files in a different format, such as a single ISO file, then that'd be a different story.

If you're just wanting to copy the movie without all the menus and extras etc, you might consider saving them in a more "convenient" format. For example MakeMKV will extract the movie and save it to a single MKV file. It doesn't do any converting, the video and audio etc are extracted from the vob files on the disc and saved in an MKV container.

Again, this is way over my head...I don't know what vob files are or MKV containers...I just wanted to copy my DVD (movies) to an external HD for convenience sake bc I don't have room for the actual DVDs anymore. This way I can still watch the movies (I think) wherever I am on my computer and with a cable hooked to my TV on my TV screen...I am selling my house and my hub and I are hopefully retiring to the "other" coast so taking in excess of 450 DVDs is out of the question. I was just looking for the simplist and cheapest way to do this...

[jman98]

You better have some kind of backup for your hub because all hard drives eventually fail.

[hello_hello]

Again, this is way over my head...I don't know what vob files are or MKV containers...I just wanted to copy my DVD (movies) to an external HD for convenience sake bc I don't have room for the actual DVDs anymore. This way I can still watch the movies (I think) wherever I am on my computer and with a cable hooked to my TV on my TV screen...I am selling my house and my hub and I are hopefully retiring to the "other" coast so taking in excess of 450 DVDs is out of the question. I was just looking for the simplist and cheapest way to do this...

Vob files are the types of files used on the original DVDs. One way to rip a DVD is to copy the whole DVD "structure", minus the copy protection, to a folder on your hard drive. You'll end up with a whole bunch of vts and vob files in a folder. Some players, such as MPC-HC, can open the folder as though you're opening the original disc and play the video as though it's playing the original disc. In the case of MPC-HC you'd use the "File/Open DVD" menu and select the folder containing the ripped files on your hard drive.
The advantage of doing it this way is you shouldn't lose anything if you've copied the entire disc. All the original DVD menus etc will remain intact. The disadvantage is the files must always be kept together in the same folder or the DVD "structure" won't work.

I assume DVD Fab is ripping using the above method which is probably the safest bet. I've not used Windows Media Player or RealPlayer in years, but if they won't play the ripped files it's probably because they're not designed to open the DVD "structure" unless it's from an actual disc. It sounds like Gom Player will and MPC-HC definitely will if you use the File/Open DVD menu. MPC-HC is my preferred player.

[tinker]

The GOM player is working fine and is actually automatically listing all the movies in its library, but I thought from what I read that DVDFab or whatever this is called, would copy the DVDS so that they would play on ALL players. I guess, technically, they will play, but you are right, to find them is a real pain. I am going to look at the other players, VLC and Power DVD to see if I like them any more than GOM . The one thing that is NOT working is the subtitles! Even though I tell DVD Fab to include them and the player says they are supposed to show them, they are not. Maybe my screen is too small...I hate being illiterate

I am sure DVDFab copy subtitles also, but you have to turn them on either from menu or by remount control. That is why I like Power DVD, because it has a software remount control or you can click on DVD icon and turn subs on from there right on your computer.

[postalmarke]

The GOM player is working fine and is actually automatically listing all the movies in its library, but I thought from what I read that DVDFab or whatever this is called, would copy the DVDS so that they would play on ALL players. I guess, technically, they will play, but you are right, to find them is a real pain. I am going to look at the other players, VLC and Power DVD to see if I like them any more than GOM . The one thing that is NOT working is the subtitles! Even though I tell DVD Fab to include them and the player says they are supposed to show them, they are not. Maybe my screen is too small...I hate being illiterate

I am sure DVDFab copy subtitles also, but you have to turn them on either from menu or by remount control. That is why I like Power DVD, because it has a software remount control or you can click on DVD icon and turn subs on from there right on your computer.

I thought I had all the boxes "ticked" to have them turned on (both when I copied the DVD and when playing it back,but I'll double check it again...I will also see if, when I play it through Power DVD it works..If it does I will switch to that player. Gotta have my subs!

Thanks to everyone for all your help

[hello_hello]

In the case of MPC-HC, once you've opened the ripped DVD files, the "Navigate" menu is the one which gives you access to the usual DVD menus including enabling subtitles.

MPC-HC also has a subtitles option under it's "Play" menu. That one doesn't work when playing DVDs or ripped DVD files. It's used for enabling subtitles in MKV files etc or for enabling external subtitle files. GOM player may work in a similar manner (I've not used it), having a seperate menu for accessing DVD menus and subtitles etc when you're opening DVD files.

[postalmarke]

Well this is becoming a colossal pain in the&%&%&!! It appears that the .srt file is not being copied over by the software (DVDFAB) and I have to go online and search for the subtitles and add that to my hard drive folders so the player can find it and add it to the movie.

Am I making a mistake choosing "main movie only" and that's why I'm not getting the .srt file? Choose I choose "entire disk" in order for the .srt file to be included automatically?

Thanks

[tinker]

I am not sure about DVDFAB, I do not use it, but you will not see ".srt" file in your rip. Subtitles are part of the movie and they will be part of VOB.
Get DVD Shrink (free) and open your copy in it, you will see if subs are there.

[hello_hello]

Yes, as tinker said, there's no srt subtitles on DVDs. Srt subtitles are created (usually) by extracting the subtitles from the vob files (sub format) and then converting them to srt files, which are pretty much text files with a .srt extension. You'll need a specific program to do that (DVD subtitles are images, not text), it requires the use of optical character recognition, and it can be a painstaking process checking the OCR is getting it right, which is why so many of srt subtitles found on the internet are full of OCR and spelling errors.

If you try playing the ripped files with a player such as MPC-HC as I suggested, it should display the DVD subtitles correctly.

[postalmarke]

Yes, as tinker said, there's no srt subtitles on DVDs. Srt subtitles are created (usually) by extracting the subtitles from the vob files (sub format) and then converting them to srt files, which are pretty much text files with a .srt extension. You'll need a specific program to do that (DVD subtitles are images, not text), it requires the use of optical character recognition, and it can be a painstaking process checking the OCR is getting it right, which is why so many of srt subtitles found on the internet are full of OCR and spelling errors.

If you try playing the ripped files with a player such as MPC-HC as I suggested, it should display the DVD subtitles correctly.

Okay, so I downloaded the MPC-HC player but its looking for "FLV" files (whatever they are) to play and I only have vob or ifo files (I think?); in any event that player is finding nothing in the dvds folders I've copied so far bc its looking for FLV files....

[hello_hello]

I don't know what "looking for flv files" could mean, as MPC-HC will open a wide variety of video types. The only time it should look for just flv files is if you've used the File/Open menu and changed the bottom drop down box from "all types" to "flash video". It can open and play vob files directly, however.....

If you use MPC-HC's "File/Open DVD/BD" menu it won't look for files of any kind. It'll only let you select a folder. If you select the folder which contains your ripped DVD files and the DVD was ripped correctly, then MPC-HC will open the folder as though it's opening the original DVD. From there you can use the "Navigate" menu to access DVD options such as enabling subtitles, or navigate your way around the DVD menu using the mouse.

If you use MPC-HC's "File/Open DVD/BD" menu and select a folder which doesn't contain files which make up a standard DVD structure, it'll simply show an error in the status bar.

[postalmarke]

Finally have this all straightened out and have been copying (backing up) by DVDs like crazy...however, I do own a couple of Blue Rays and for some reason DVD Fab is not recognizing my BR when I put it in my laptop. I think the problem is that my DVD player in my laptop doesn't "read"? Blu-Rays? Could that be the reason why DVD Fab isn't working on my Blu-Rays? I have checked and there is no update for my driver so I guess there is no way around this besides installing a new DVD drive in my laptop? My laptop is more than 2 yrs old so that's prob not worth it.

[tinker]

If the drive is not BD, than any update will not do. Blue Ray has different type laser. You will need a new drive and posibly a different video.