daamon's tests

[daamon]

Instructions for Simon:

General Info:

A) Most commercial DVDs use an audio format called AC3 - this is basically a way of compressing audio from large files to much smaller files without any noticeable loss in quality. You'll probably need the AC3-ACM Decompressor to playback the AC3 audio that's going to be in your finished files. If you're not gonna use / want audio, then don't worry about this.

B) There's four main steps to the process you want to achieve:

1) Breaking the encryption (if any) on the DVD's which then allows...
2) ...(what's called) "ripping" the required video file to your hard drive (HDD).
3) You then need to isolate the segment you want...
4) ...and encode (convert) it to a usable file size but with enough quality to still be watchable.

Detailed Instructions:

Breaking encryption and ripping to HDD:

Pretty much all commercial DVDs are encrypted - if not, just drag and drop the VOB files from the disc to your HDD. However, for encrypted discs you're likely to need different software, depending on the encryption used.

Most DVDs can be decrypted and ripped using DVDDecrypter. If this doesn't work, use DVD Fab Decrypter - this latter one addresses the newer encryption methods on some DVDs.

DVDDecrypter can rip specific chapters or episodes from a disc - very handy.

DVD Fab Decrypter (the free version) will only rip the whole movie - a pain in the arse. You'll have to find where the clip is - i.e. in which VOB file. VOBs contain the video and audio files, as well as a few other bits and pieces, like subtitles etc.

Ripping:

Using DVDDecrypter v3.5.4.0:

1) Place DVD in your DVD rom drive - cancel any windows or disk playing software that pops up.
2) Launch DVDDecrypter. Set the source and destination.
3) Click: Mode -> IFO I. On the right side, there'll be two tabs: "Input" and "Stream Processing".
4) Click: Tools -> Settings... -> "IFO Mode" tab. Roughly in the middle, on the left in "Options", set "File Splitting" = "None".
5) Right click on the window in the "Input" tab with the "VTS_xx" entries in and "Expand All" - each VTS contains things like the main movie / episodes, trailers, intro clips, special features etc. The running times are a good guide here...
6) Select a PGC in a VTS that looks like it's what you want. You may need trial and error to get the right one.
7) A load of chapters for that PGC will now be displayed. Right click on these and "Select None".
8) Select (tick) the relevant chapter to be ripped. This is best got by playing the DVD beforehand and noting it down from the display. You may need trial and error to get the right one.
9) Select the "Stream Processing" tab.
10) If not ticked already, "Enable Stream Processing" (tick).
11) Untick any unwanted items like subtitles, directors commentary (usually the second audio) etc. Given what you're doing, you may only want the video. The less there is, the quicker it'll be to rip.
12) Make sure "Direct Stream Copy" is selected.
13) Click the big button "DVD > HDD" (symbols). Ripping will begin.

Using DVD Fab Decrypter v3.0.0.1:

1) Disc in drive, cancel any pop up applications and launch ripping tool.
2) Set source and target (some thing as destination, above).
3) For "Common Settings", click the icon in the top-right that looks like a cog. It's the one on the far left of the four. Under "DVD \ Protection" set "4 - Australia, etc."
4) Click "Start" button at bottom left. All files will be ripped. You'll have to preview them in your PC DVD player to find which VOB the clip that you want is in. Or you can preview them in VirtualDubMod - you'll figure out how from the next lot of info.

Isolating the segment and encrypting:

Download and install the following:

VirtualDubMod - has a batch function for more than one file to be handled rather than doing them seperately.
XviD Codec - filename XviD-1.1.0-30122005.exe from the download page linked to from VideoHelp.

1) Open VirtualDubMod.
2) Click: File -> Open video file... and select your required VOB file. The VOB file will be briefly processed.
3) Right click on each image in turn and select 50% - this makes them easier to view at the same time. This may not be required for subsequent VOB files.
4) Drag the slider (at the bottom) left and right to find the desired start point in the segment. The cursor arrow keys can be used to refine the start point.
5) Press "Home" to set the start point, and "End" to set the finish point. This will define the required segment within the loaded VOB file. For PAL DVDs (i.e. ones from Aus), there's 25 frames per second of video - there's a counter to show you which frame you're on.
6) Click: Video -> Full processing mode
7) Click: Video -> Compression. Scroll down the options to find and select the Xvid Codec. If there's more than one, select the one that displays a "FourCC Code" of "xvid" on the right of the window.
8) Click "Configure" (at the bottom right of the pop up). In the "Xvid Configuration" window, select a "Profile @ Level" of "Portable PAL". Set the "Target Quantizer" to 10.00 (you can type in the field).
9) Click OK twice to close both pop-ups. You should be back at the main VirtualDubMod window.
10) Click: File -> Save as... Choose a folder and file name. MAKE SURE you tick the "Don't run this job now" tick box - this will add it to the batch job list. Click "Save".
11) Repeat steps 2 to 10 for each VOB file to be processed. I don't know what the maximum number of entries for a batch job is. Also, steps 6 to 9 may not be required for subsequent VOB files, I'm not sure.
12) When done loading the batch job list, press F4 to bring up the batch job list and reorder, delete etc. as required before clicking "Start". This will (should) produce a load of AVI files in your chosen folder(s) that aren't too big and can then be loaded into PowerPoint.

Final notes:

1) If you want the filesizes to be smaller, you'll sacrifice quality. If you want better quality, the filesizes will be bigger - that's life and an inescapable fact of video.
2) You can adjust quality vs filesize by adjusting the "Target Quantizer" in step 8. Bigger number = lower quality = lower filesizes.
3) I chose the Xvid codec coz it gives good compression for decent quality and is quite quick to process.
4) A 10 second segment, encoded at 10.00 takes around 25 seconds (on my PC) and produces a filesize of 1.1Mb with fairly decent quality at full screen resolution. Results may differ with different segments.

[Baldrick]

 DVDshrink (release 3.0 beta 5)
 Subtitle workshop (to synchronise subtitles and convert them to SupRip *.srt format)
 Srt2sup (to convert *.srt files to *.sup subtitle streams)
 VobEdit 0.6b (to demux DVD *.vob files to movie and audio streams)
 IFOEdit (to put video, audio, and subtitles back together again)
 Optionally TMPGEnc and BeSweet (the first to demultiplex an avi-file to MPEG-2 m2v and mp2, the second to convert the audio from 44.1 to 48kHz sampling frequency)
 DVD burning software
 At least 9Gb available on your HD

[daamon]

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