DVD9 to DVD5 With Zero Quality Loss Minues Extra Content

[robinmthomas]

Alright, I just spent the last 3 hours viewing this website and a few others and I can't find a clear guide which describes how to take a DVD9 movie and rip just the main movies and get rid of the other stuff.

I think that I can use SmartRipper to extract just the movie, but I can't figure out SmartRipper and was hoping for a better guide.

It seems that there are a ton of guides who explain how to do:
1 - All of the movie on to 2 DVD-Rs
2 - All of the movie compressed on to 1 DVD-R.

Am I right in thinking that SmartRipper is the way to go?

So, can someone (in the simplest terms) explain the following:

1 - How can I tell what content is extra and what is the main movie?
2 - How can I tell what is the english audio track and subtitles
3 - What tools do I need?

Thanks! This site rocks and if I missed the guide that explains this please gently point me in the right direction...

[Bob W]

Most would just use the programs DVDX Copy Express or DVD2one to do that.

[robinmthomas]

I thought that DVD2One required file compression.

I have download the trial of DVDXCopy but I when I go to burn it the program freezes about 5 minutes after starting and never finishes.

Any ideas...

[Bob W]

Well DVDX Copy in most cases will split the DVD9 into two DVDR's. Some don't have a problem with this however I don't care for it thus I'm willing to have a little quality loss (not that I could see it anyway) and use programs that compress the DVD9 into one disc. Do they have a demo of DVDX Copy Express? If so thats the program for just doing "movie only" backups. Or you could just rip the DVD then use DVD2one to do movie only backups. Actually using the free program DVDshrink it's possible to reduce all the extras and menu to still pictures thus resulting in a movie only copy.

Maybe you need to install "ForceASPI" to get DVDX Copy to run. You may get that here for free.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/cdr_software/cdr_tools/frcaspi.cfm

Also I would run "dxdiag" from windows start/run then test all the DX components you have installed to make sure that's good to go.

[Bob W]

Here is a link to get a trial version of DVDX Copy Express if you want to give that a try. I have used it about five times and the quality is good IMO.
http://www.321studios.com/TrialForm.htm

[Renegade6]

Some trial version only will allow around 30minutes of download time. You have to purchase the full version in order to do what you need to do. Read Baldrick's "How to Burn any Dvd to Dvd". It is so easy and user friendly, you can get lost. Though Dvd2Dvd trial version will only allow 30minutes of free download. I bought the full version at 39.99Euro or around 45.00US

[felix]

Try dvdshrink a very impressive freeware program!

http://www.dvdshring.org

I found a good manual by doing a google search.

This prog wil let you just strip some streams or if that's not enough will propose different compression levels for the video.

[xistan]

It seems that there are a ton of guides who explain how to do:
1 - All of the movie on to 2 DVD-Rs
2 - All of the movie compressed on to 1 DVD-R.

Yepp, The reason for this is that many (if not most) of the movies on DVD today are simply too large to fit on one DVDR. That's why the 2 options above are frequent in the guides.

Am I right in thinking that SmartRipper is the way to go?

No. This won't solve anything except for the very few movies where the main title VTS files is small enough.

1 - How can I tell what content is extra and what is the main movie?
2 - How can I tell what is the english audio track and subtitles
3 - What tools do I need?

The answer to all three questions is IfoEdit. If you don't want to torture yourself with this fabulous tool there are alternatives:

DVDToolBox - Shareware program that requires registration. Does exactly the same thing as IfoEdit but in a neater interface to the user.

DVDShrink - A neat little program that you can use for stripping as long as you stick to the 'no compression' options or never use the re-encoding features. (There are much better alternatives for reencoding video than DVDShrink, but they are not Freeware.)

Good luck
/C

[thxkid]

1st of all if a DVD movie itself is over 4.4 gigs even after you strip everything but the english audio gonna get it on 1 DVDR and most movies today are like that, I do every once in a while find a DVD less than 4.4 gigs but its never a new release DVD, oh maybe a new re-release of an older movie but never a new movie, plus most of these programs out there now does a great job in transcoding DVD's now, I can't tell the difference on a DVD that was shrank from 5.8 gigs down to 4.4, when you do get into the 7 lus gigs ones you can , but thats when you start to strip stuff off, like subs, 2.0 dolby french, audio commintary, trailers, etc...
Thats part of the fun is seeing if you can do it and end up with a great looking backup.

[tjtoed]

The best way I have found to backup movie only is to follow this guide:
http://encodinginfo.org.uk/guides/docs/hqbackupguide.php

If the movie-only you get from DVD Toolbox is less than 4.4 GB you can just burn it with no quality loss, but if not by running it through IC it is very hard to tell the difference...

Give it a try, you won't be dissapointed.

[Mad101Dan]

Thx guys this is just the info I have been looking for.

Cheers

Dan