Does DVD copy protection affect ripping to mpg??

[Bruce Kuhn]

I have recently discovered the joys of ripping DVD's to mpg files, storing them on a network PC, then viewing them on my TV though my Tivo box. This has worked well for my wife, who likes shows with Tivo, but does not like my DVD system. I have several old TV show DVD's (like Quantum Leap, and BattleStar Galactica) that I have stored on computer, and can now view through my Tivo. I have ripped over 100 episodes using DVD Decrypter, and have had no issues.

So, I decided I wanted to try this with some of my favorite movies as well. Last night, I ripped Star Wars Episode I to the computer, and then started to watch it with the Tivo. It seemed to work fine, until about 5 minutes into it. At that time, there was a slight 'pause' in the video, and then it continued on. It was like if you had a scratch on the DVD while watching in the player. So, that made me wonder if copy protection could cause this to happen.

I have read through several threads, and there is talk about using DVDfab instead of the older (now non-supported) DVD Decrypter, because it can handle some of the later copy protection. But, all those threads were talking about ways to actually make a COPY of a DVD, and that is not what I want.

So, I wanted to know if copy protection has any affect on just ripping to mpg???? I thought that copy protection would NOT affect just ripping to mpg, because it was just reading the file from the DVD, right?? If copy protection does affect ripping to mpg, then I will need to try other programs to rip to mpg. If it does not, then I will proceed with other methods to find out why I had this issue. It is not a streaming issue, because the Tivo has the whole mpg, and is playing it from the internal HD.

[redwudz]

The purpose of 'ripping' is to get rid of copy protection. Otherwise you would just 'copy' the disc directly.

DVD Decrypter works well for most DVDs, some new ones require DVDFab Decrypter or other programs to bypass the protections when you are backing up your videos to the computer.

If you want just a single MPEG file, DVD Decrypter works better, if it can handle the protection.

[Bruce Kuhn]

I understand that ripping is removing copy protection. But, to me, the "tough" copy protection is what makes it hard to make a exact copy of a DVD with menus, chapters, etc. I'm not looking for all that.

Here is what I "thought". I figure that DVD software has to be able to read this DVD to play it. It checks region code, and structure, and eventually has to pull off the mpg stream. Once it has read that mpg stream from the DVD, it has to send that stream to the mpg encoder for you to watch it. That mpg encoder can be a software encoder that plays to your monitor, or a hardware encoder with a TV output or whatever. The harware/software that gets the mpg stream from the DVD does not have to be the same hardware/software that decodes it. So, all I want to do is SAVE this mpg stream to my Hard Drive. Then, I can send that stream to any encoder when I want to.

That means I am looking for a ripper that can save a SINGLE stream to a Hard Drive. I don't want DVD to AVI, or divx, or mpg-1. I don't want to change the bit rate of the mpg-2 so it fits on a DVD-5, and I don't want to change the audio from ac-3 to anything else. My intent is NEVER to put this stream back onto a DVD, so I don't need chapter points, menus, etc. I am looking for a ripper that will just give me the mpg stream that it normally feeds to a hardware encoder. I can then build a video library on computer, and can play from there. I can then put the output of my video card to TV, and watch any DVD without putting it in my DVD player.

I like DVD Decrypter, because it will take the DVD, and give me 1 VOB that I can rename to a mpg. But, I have used Decrypter on movies like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and it would not play. However, if I rip it with Magic DVD, it would play, so there must be some other type of protection Magic DVD is removing, that Decrypter is not. I have tried DVD fab, DVD shrink, and Magic DVD ripper. They removed the copy protection better than DVD Decrypter did (pirates would play), but gave me multiple VOB's, because they are geared for writing back to DVD, or to be played from the HD with a DVD player program. I want the single mpg that can be played from a HD, or through a network attached media player (like D-link media lounge).

So, I am looking for a good ripper that gives me the native mpg stream. I don't care about EVER putting this back onto a DVD-5, or PSP, or iPod, or anything else. I am just looking to keep these move all my DVD's to a media center computer, and play all the mpgs on that. I just want a the mpg stream and audio off the DVD, and I want it in 1 file (like decrypter gave me in IFO mode). Is there a program out there that will do this??? I have searched for weeks, and have found nothing. But, I know it has to be out there somewhere...............

[jagabo]

VOB2MPG

[Bruce Kuhn]

Okay, I will give that a try (VOB2MPG).

But, I have read on other forums that it also has problems with some of the newer copy protection. That is why I did not give it a try yet. Is that true for the case of what I want to do?? Or, is that only when you want the menus and chapters??

I hope that others will reply with other suggestions, in case this has issues with some protection schemes. I will try, and welcome, any and all suggestions.

[whitejremiah]

in theory, (although i havent messed around with vob2mpg myself...i personally have no need to) you should be able to take the program dvdfab decrypter and rip the entire disc, delete out the smaller vob/ifo/bup filesets and be left with the chunk of movie you want to convert to mpeg...just take that and run it through vob2mpg and you should have yourself exactly what your looking for....

[Bruce Kuhn]

One problem with DVDfab Decrypter..............It just takes the entire disk to multiple VOB's. That is a real pain on episode DVD's. With DVD Decrypter, it let me rip just a single episode out. DVDfab Decrypter will not.

Is DVDfab Decrypter different than DVDfab?? Will DVDfab let me break out a single episode??

[whitejremiah]

didn't read that you were doing a multi episode disc, for that, ive been using smartripper (i know, its REALLY old,but it gets the job done pretty well in most situations....) since smartripper cant directly access the files after ripped to the harddrive by say dvdfab decrypter, the best way i could think of to do this was the following.....take the entire disc, rip it to the harddrive with dvdfab decrypter, open nero up, burn it to a disc IMAGE...mount the image in say daemon tools, then rip each episode back to the harddrive with smartripper sourcing from the virtualdrive...i havent actually had to do this yet, but it SEEMS to be a pretty foolproof way... (mind you this will also take up about a TON of temperary harddrive space to go this route.....)

[Bruce Kuhn]

That is how I started (multi episode), and I mention that in my first post. So far, I have not had a issue with multi episode, using DVD Decrypter. I have done the different TV shows I have DVD's of, and have ripped over 200 shows so far, with no issues. But, the episode disks were so nice to watch this way, I wanted to do it with movies. 'Pirates' and 'Star Wars' were the first two I tried, and had issues with both.

So yes, I was looking for a better way to do the single movie DVD's. But, I figure I will eventually hit a episode DVD that DVD Decrypter can't handle, and I will need a solution for that as well. That is why I was looking for something that can do both. For now, I will continue with DVD Decrypter for the episode disks, until I find one that won't work.

Sorry for the confusion.

[whitejremiah]

Yea, im definately NOT looking foreward to the day i buy a boxset and i have to use that type of roundabout method to go after it.........im personally a bit short on the harddrive space (as you can see if you look at my computer specs!!) and going that route would take up a SIGNIFICANT chunk of my total space...im hoping though, within the next few months to at least upgrade if nothing else, my harddrive space...

[Bruce Kuhn]

I have 1 TB with 300 Gig free right now. I just picked up a new 250 Gig drive for $70. With drive space that cheap, I figure I can store DVD's for less than $2 each, and have a easy way to view them through my computer, or Tivo.

[guns1inger]

AnyDVD would alow you to use VOB2Mpge or anything else to pick and choose. Even DVD Shrink. It will decrypt the CSS protection in the background so you see an unprotected DVD.

[LloydAZ]

Another workaround would be:

Use DVDFab Decrypter to rip the DVD to the hard.

Use DVD Shrink on the directory where the DVD was ripped to. Select Remaster disc and choose only the movie. Set the compression to 100% so that it does not recompress it (you can also strip out the other languages and commentary if you don't want them). Back-up to the hard drive.

Use VOB2MPG on the newly remastered disc to pull the VOB's into a single MPG file.

[lordsmurf]

Why not just rip the DVD to an ISO, load the ISO in Daemon Tools as a drive, and let your wife play it like a DVD? Or better yet, why not just play the DVD itself?

[Bruce Kuhn]

Lord Smurf,

Daemon Tools would be a good way to do this if it was always going to be played back on a PC. But, these will mostly be played back using a Tivo. The Tivo can play a mpg file from a network PC, and then it is viewed on the TV, as though is it was a recorded program.

My wife likes to watch TV in bed. And she watches the shows I don't like (like Sex and the City). We have those on DVD, but she does not want to get out of bed to change the DVD's out when she watches multiple episodes. She also likes the Tivo control, that lets you jump back 7 seconds if you miss something, and she just feels it is "easy" to watch stuff on Tivo.

Since that worked so well, I decided I wanted to do that with my movies. Why?? Because of my kids. Last night, I went to watch a movie. I pulled out the DVD case, and it was empty. Picked a second movie, it's case was empty. My kids took them, and I have no clue where they are. On top of that, there we 10 disks in the drawer that were out of the case, and there cases were not there. So they are open to scratches. My kids are hard on my DVD's. So, I thought I could put them on a network drive as well, then put away the originals. Then, when anyone wanted to watch them, they would be available on a network drive, through my Tivo's throughout the house. No more lost, or scratched, DVD's.

I had no problems with the TV episode disks I did for my wife, so I thought doing movies would be just as easy. But, the first two movies I tried had issues. I wanted to solve the issues with those two movies, so I could feel confident I could do the rest of my collection.

[LloydAZ]

So, I decided I wanted to try this with some of my favorite movies as well. Last night, I ripped Star Wars Episode I to the computer, and then started to watch it with the Tivo. It seemed to work fine, until about 5 minutes into it. At that time, there was a slight 'pause' in the video, and then it continued on. It was like if you had a scratch on the DVD while watching in the player. So, that made me wonder if copy protection could cause this to happen.

I just thought of something when it comes to the Star Wars movies. The scenes with Greedo and Jabba. The subtitles that were originally on the film were converted to DVD subtitles. If you have the widescreen version of the film and watch on a 4:3 TV, the subtitles appear in the black bars, while on a 16:9 screen they are over top of the video.

Converting them to an MPG, I believe, would also remove the subtitles for these scenes. I also noticed this with Star Trek the Motion Picture. A friend had it encoded in an AVI file and the captions where the Klingons speak, and where Spok is talking in Vulcan were gone.

This may not matter to you, but I thought I should bring it up.

[allbouthepot]

I have recently discovered the joys of ripping DVD's to mpg files, storing them on a network PC, then viewing them on my TV though my Tivo box.

Im not sure if this belongs in a differnet forum, but how is this done?
Does the Tivo box need to be modified?

[Bruce Kuhn]

Im not sure if this belongs in a differnet forum, but how is this done?
Does the Tivo box need to be modified?

No modifications are needed if you have a Tivo Series 2 box. It also needs to be a stand-alone box, and not a Direct TV Tivo, because Direct TV had Tivo remove the networking function.

The Tivo Series 2 box has built in networking via a USB port. You can hook it up to your computer network wired, or wireless. Then, you install free software from Tivo called Tivo Desktop 2.2. Once installed, you can transfer your Tivo recordings to your PC, and they can be viewed or burned to TV. And, you can play mpgs that are on your computer through your Tivo. The file must be mpeg-2, and in any of these sizes 720 x 480, 704 x 480 (D1), 544 x 480 (3/4 D1), 480 x 480 (2/3 D1), and 352 x 480 (1/2 D1), with a data rate between 1 and 8 Meg.

So, this would be the same as the mpg file on a DVD. That is why I am just ripping from DVD, and playing on Tivo.