Having trouble ripping DVD to avi

[jsbenson]

I have been trying this on and off for a couple months now and am still having trouble. What I want to do is rip a DVD to DIVX and stream it to my PS3. Everytime I try this the movie either comes out looking like crap or my PS3 doesn't recognize the format.

The movies I download online are only about 700MB or so and they look great. These are AVIs. So I just tried using AutoGK and it turned out all blocky. I set it to 80% the first time and now I'm trying it at a prefered size of 2GB max. I didn't mess with the extra settings at all. I've tried using Divx 8 and didn't have much luck with that.

All I really want is to rip my DVDs to the same 700MB avi format that I download online. I download these because I haven't been able to convert mine properly yet. My ultimate goal is to have a media server and rip all my DVDs to it and then just stream them to my PS3.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[tomlee59]

First, a minor bit: "Ripping" just means "defeating copy protection." No conversion is involved in this copy operation.

AVI is a "container" format, meaning that vids encoded a great variety of ways, with a great variety of codecs, can reside within it. Divx is just one of them. H264 is another.

Quality is a function of codec type, frame dimensions ("resolution"), bitrate and various other parameters. For a given bitrate, h264 offers the best quality, generally speaking, of the lossy codecs. Divx/Xvid is also capable of high quality, but you need to crank up the bitrate. The "blocky" artifacts you mention are commonly associated with bitrates that are too low. In high-motion/high-detail parts of a scene, there aren't enough bits to get the job done.

The general rule is: If quality is too low, increase bitrate. Use two-pass encoding. Etc. If you want better results, you'll have to work harder (i.e., don't just select a default setting -- you'll have to take a more active role in driving the conversion).

[jsbenson]

Yes, you're right, I am talking about the conversion part of it. I'm playing around with the settings, but every time I want to try out a setting change it takes a few hours for the conversion. I was looking for feedback on what I may have been doing incorrectly.

So, am I using the right app for everything I'm trying to do (AutoGK)? Is this most likely the app being used to create the avi files that can be downloaded from the torrent sites? Those usually look really good and that's what I'd like to be able to do.

[tomlee59]

The first thing you're doing wrong is converting the whole thing, only to discover at the very end that you aren't happy with the result. Convert short pieces first! That way, you can quickly home in on the settings that produce what you like. Find challenging segments (scenes with lots of detail and motion) to stress the encoder. If the results look good there, they'll look good elsewhere.

Next, I haven't used AutoGK in a long while, but it's a perfectly fine tool. It's designed for ease of use, so getting direct control over certain parameters is somewhat hidden from the user, as I recall. I remember being a bit annoyed that you couldn't set bitrate directly (but maybe I'm thinking of some other tool). But in any case, a quick look at the software's documentation should tell you what you need to know.

Again, for best results, use a high enough bitrate to avoid motion artifacts. Two-pass encoding helps a lot there. And if you can keep the frame dimensions unchanged, that helps, too. And don't expect to squeeze a 3-hour epic down to a CD-compatible filesize and still have high quality -- ain't going to happen.

[Ruut]

I'm a regular user of AutoGK and very happy with the results.
For Audio I use convertion to MP-3 @ 128 k.
I'm using two-pass encoding (XviD) with a file-size which depends on the videolength: 10 MB for every 1 minute.
So a 1 hr 40 min movie gets a filesize of 10000 MB.

That way the bitrate will always be some 1200 kbps, which results in near-perfect AVI's.
Yes, the conversion takes a while, but the result is worth it!

If it doesn't work for you, maybe your AutoGK installation got messed up.
In that case remove all its components, including the XviD encoders in the Win directory and start afresh with the latest version.

Hope this helps!

[usta]

'm using two-pass encoding (XviD) with a file-size which depends on the videolength: 10 MB for every 1 minute.
So a 1 hr 40 min movie gets a filesize of 10000 MB.

You mean 1,000 MB.

I'm using mostly Xvid4PSP for this kind of job. There are more settings to chose from, so I can experiment many things to get the most satisfactory results.

[Ruut]

[quote="usta"]

'm using two-pass encoding (XviD) with a file-size which depends on the videolength: 10 MB for every 1 minute.
So a 1 hr 40 min movie gets a filesize of 10000 MB.

You mean 1,000 MB.

Yes, of course...

[minerva.thegift]

You might also read around in the "Guides" section of Video Help - I have done DVD converting but never with the intent of streaming it to a PS3 (since I don't have one.) However, you might look in to MeGUI (another major video converter.) But yeah, check out the "How To" subsection called "Convert" (should be up at the top left of this page somewhere, at least if it looks like it does for me.) There are several DVD converting tools out there, and perhaps another tool would be better suited to your goal. For that matter, you might even find a great guide about AutoGK there, too.

[manono]

So I just tried using AutoGK and it turned out all blocky. I set it to 80% the first time and now I'm trying it at a prefered size of 2GB max.

AutoGK set for a Target Quality of 80% doesn't turn out blocky. Do you have the log and perhaps a small sample to try and prove that fallacious claim? If you really did use 80% and if it really is blocky, then it's blocky in the source as well.

[lowellriggsiam]

jsbenson the most simplistic solution is dvdfabhd decrypter ->iso then load the iso file into faireusewizard.