Problem ripping Spirited Away

[impmon2]

I'm trying to make a backup copy of this great movie because I've already had to return it for an exchange after it started developing nasty problem with playback. Only a week old too :P I guess running it 20 or so times in a week would overtax typical DVD

Anyway I tried to rip it using Smartripper, then DVD2VCD, using VOBSUB (in VirtuaDub) to grab the subtitle as I'm hard of hearing and use it. The problem is the video seems to be endoded in a odd manner. It's almost as if both original Japanese version and English dub were interlaced and changes view every second. It appears that the video hiccups and goes back a short time. I can't just snip out one part and combine the rest to form a single segment because it appears a little too tightly interlaced for that to work.

I've created a small 23 seconds 1.5MB sample of it (no audio, video only, low quality setting to conserve space) so you could see for yourself. (http://personalpages.tds.net/~wilykat/sample.avi) The sound also flips during the video changes and being hard of hearing, I'd have a hard time separating the sound and keeping the right part. :P Maybe I should forget about the sound altogether as seeing I could live without it.

I could hook up my DVD player to my video card (cheap TV Wonder VE) and capture the video but I'd rather have a 720x480 master copy on my computer (for when I get a DVD burner), my PC can barely handle 640x480@30 (1 dropped frame per 30 sec average) and I only have composite and RF input so the quality wouldn't be good anyway.

Any idea how to properly separate Japanes and English version?

PS if you like Japanese animie, you really should check out Spirited Away. It's a 5-stars masterpiece and no Japanese anime fan would be caught dead without that video It's directed by Hayao Miyazaki and it's even better than Princess Mononoke. If this sounds like a plug, sorry but I'm not getting anything for promoting Spirited Away.

[EddyH]

Far be it from me to promote warez on here, but.....

If the sound means little to you, there's some stunning quality 2-CD divx rips out there in cyberspace, with the japanese audio and nice large, clear english subs... course this means having broadband and/or (mostly "and") a large dose of patience and contempt for The Man.
But then.. you've already bought the film, haven't you, so you're not exactly stealing

Best yet, if medical science improves and remedies your condition, or you have relatives/friends that get picky, it's fairly easy to mix the english soundtrack back in from the dvd..