Newbie Questions DVD to ????

[swezey]

OK, fair warning, newbie here. I know, I know, it seems like there is a never ending stream of us. Anyway, for the easily frustrated, please move on. I'm trying to get a handle on all of this as fast as I can, OK?

Now, I am TOTALLY new to DV, but, as my wife can attest, when I get into something I totally absorb it. We just got FiOs installed the day before Thanksgiving and got their multi-room DVR (first DVR for us). I know this isn't a DVR forum, but just trying to give you some background. Anyway, after filling the thing up in 3 days and ultimately learning it can't be (easily) expanded, I've already chucked it for a TiVo which is on the way which I will expand to 2TB. This got me interested in DVD ripping and streaming video around the house.

So, I've spent the last 4 days straight downloading and reading everything I can find on this subject. I have played with the following SW:

DVD Decrypter
DVD Shrink
DVD Fab5
Clone DVD2
Virtual Clone Drive
ffdshow
HandBrake
ImgBurn
K-Lite Codec Pack
AnyDVD
Tivo Desktop
(maybe others which I don't remember right now....)

Now... I have a pretty good handle on what all this stuff does. I'm actually ripping a DVD now! I've reauthored some titles, compressed them, etc. My ultimate goal is to rip the DVD's, get rid of the physical media and stream them around the house either to my TiVo at each TV or using Slingbox or some Media server (still researching that... ) Now here's my question:

I am getting SICK compression using the H.264 codec in Handbrake. I'm talking like 600MB for one of the kids 90 minute animated movies!! I can EASILY stream this over my wireless! BUT.... and here's the question (OK FINALLY!!)... Is there any way to use the H.264 codec and get the ridiculous kind of compression and yet still keep the whole DVD intact? In other words, keep the menus, the extras etc? I could make an ISO and mount it using Virtual Clone Drive for playback but I just can't seem to figure out how to do this and it's making me bonkers!! I have used DVD Shrink and DVD Clone 2 to reauthor, removing foreign audio, subtitles, previews etc. but keeping the main menu and extras but their temporal based compression just is NOWHERE NEAR what you get with H.264. I mean the 600MB movie above I tried to force to 1GB and DVD Clone 2 wouldn't even do it!! When I got to 2GB it worked but looked like S**T! Not that my kids would know, but I would. Plus, with about 500 DVD's, the difference in storage space starts to add up as well. AND streaming is MUCH slower... well we all know smaller is better.

Oh, one more thing. I'm doing all this on my POS laptop right now, Acer Aspire with Intel T2310 CPU and 1 GB RAM. I'm think of getting a dedicated video machine for doing all this conversion. Any suggestions?? I was thinking an Intel Core i7 CPU with 64 bit Vista? Anyone used any of this SW on 64 bit Vista? Any problems with any of them? Any smoking HW recommendations? I can't spend 2 - 3 hours per DVD ripping... I'll never finish! According to CPU Benchmark (http://www.cpubenchmark.net) my T2310 running at 1.46GHz has a CPU Mark of 782 (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_look...10+%40+1.46GHz) while the Core i7 920 is 6248 (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_look...20+%40+2.67GHz) - about 9 TIMES faster. Of course, not sure how this will directly translate into encoding speed but it can't hurt... "Mime is money!" (Name the actor and movie this quote is from and win a prize!).

Anyway, thanks for helping a newbie out - can't wait to read all your great suggestions! Thanks again!
swezey is offline Show the link to this post

[Baldrick]

Nope, you can't keep the menus,extras easily if you want h264 video.

The old and no longer updated ratdvd could make one compressed file with menus, extras but as it no longer developed I wouldn't touch it...

[guns1inger]

The short answer is no. You cannot compress using H264 down to a small size and keep all the menus, extras etc. The closest to your dream is Divx ultra, which does support menus, chapters and subtitles while using Divx compression (not as good as H264, but if you are looking for 600MB file sizes then the difference isn't that great). The catch is the lack of playback support for all the Ultra features.

If you want to keep the lot, just get shed loads of disk, and rip the DVDs to the HDD for storage and playback as is.

[Krispy Kritter]

Personally I wouldn't waste the time, effort, and storage space to preserve menus and extras. Most of the time you are only interested in the watching the movie anyway. The times that you aren't, you can simply use the actual DVD.

Also note that animated video compresses better than standard movies.

[swezey]

Nope, you can't keep the menus,extras easily if you want h264 video.

The old and no longer updated ratdvd could make one compressed file with menus, extras but as it no longer developed I wouldn't touch it...

This is the same conclusion I was slowly coming to myself, but you probably saved me another week of googling and playing with software every night till 4 in the morning. Thanks! RatDVD looks as though it was promising if it had been kept up to date and implemented newer codecs. Maybe someone will pick up this gauntlet. I agree about avoiding it at this point...

The short answer is no. You cannot compress using H264 down to a small size and keep all the menus, extras etc. The closest to your dream is Divx ultra, which does support menus, chapters and subtitles while using Divx compression (not as good as H264, but if you are looking for 600MB file sizes then the difference isn't that great). The catch is the lack of playback support for all the Ultra features.

If you want to keep the lot, just get shed loads of disk, and rip the DVDs to the HDD for storage and playback as is.

Hmmmm... I'd be interested in trying out Divx ultra. How/where do I get it / use it? I don't think I've seen that in my "travels". I haven't really done any compression comparisons between Divx and H264, but I'd be willing to try and go a little bit bigger file size it if it gives me what I'm looking for. Please advise....

Personally I wouldn't waste the time, effort, and storage space to preserve menus and extras. Most of the time you are only interested in the watching the movie anyway. The times that you aren't, you can simply use the actual DVD.

Also note that animated video compresses better than standard movies.

Yes, agreed that the animated stuff squashes down better - just was using that as an example. But the kids have about 100 of those damn animated movies so the thought of putting them on a 64GB USB thumb drive is awesome. For the kids stuff, they don't care about the extras so I'll probably go straight H264 and be done with it. But for my music DVD's with lots of "bonus" material I'd like to keep that. I thought about doing a straight rip - Id need about 3+ TB for my collection which isnt bad but I'm worried about wireless streaming performance. How fast does your wireless need to be to stream a SD DVD? But then when I get to BD I'm probably sunk without some major compression so I was trying to get a solution out of the box for SD DVD that I could use also with Blue Ray. Additional thoughts are appreciated.....

[Krispy Kritter]

For best results when streaming you will want to avoid wireless. Results will vary, but it basically all boils down to the hardware you are using.

You also need to consider the safety factor. HDD prices are getting cheaper, and 3-4TB doesn't sound like that big of a deal as it's only 3-4 drives. But you will need 6-8 drives as you will also want to have a backup of all your work. Kind of pointless to spend hours upon hours getting your collection all converted and saved on your PC only to have a HDD fail...and they will all fail sooner or later...and then not have a backup to restore your files.

[redwudz]

You could just convert the 'bonus' material to H.264 and put it the same folder as the main movie. No menus, but unless a disc has a lot of bonus video, doesn't seem to be a big problem.

And I would strongly advise against using any codec packs, especially K-Lite. Most of us have learned long ago about the damage they can cause to existing codecs and computer systems. You can install ffdshow, which is not a codec pack, and play back most formats. Or for just general playback, VLC Media Player will play most any format without any system codecs being installed.

And welcome to our forums.

EDIT: For encoding to H.264, a i7 would be a good choice. I don't know that I would recommend Vista 64 as many of the programs you listed will run on V64, but in 32bit mode, so no real improvement. And some may not run at all, except in compatibility mode. At least at this time, 32bit OS's are still a better choice, IMO. Mainly you need a fast CPU for fast encoding. RAM is not much of a factor, but Vista runs better on 2GB. Lots of hard drive space is good, along with separate drives.

[swezey]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone! Agreed that having a backup is essential, thus the drive to higher compression. 6 - 8 TB's starts to add up! I never thought about ripping the extras also and just putting them in the same folder - great idea! I'm still torn on the 64 bit VS 32 bit. I'd like to have the extra RAM for other stuff as well. Something drove me to get the codec pack - something wouldn't play - I didn't go looking for it - but maybe I'll hold off installing it on the new CPU unless something really doesn't seem to work. BTW, I ordered a Mediagate MG-800 HD (http://www.xpcgear.com/mg800hd.html) - I'm trying my best to keep the economy going! So I'll be using this to stream/host my vids... Thanks again and I'll post my progress when everything comes in...

[Krispy Kritter]

4GB is plenty of RAM. With a few exceptions, most programs don't use large amounts of RAM anyway...certainly none of the apps listed above will take advantage of it.

[swezey]

4GB is plenty of RAM. With a few exceptions, most programs don't use large amounts of RAM anyway...certainly none of the apps listed above will take advantage of it.

Krispy,

Yeah 4GB woudl surely be a MAJOR improvement over the puny 1GB I am trying to run Vista on right now. I can't believe we have 100X more RAM in a PC than we had hard drive space the first PC I ever bought myself back in college! Progress marches on... Anyway, still up in the air over the 32 vs 64 bit issue. I found a link on Microsoft's web site where you can order 64 bit media for any Vista OS presumambly for the cost of the shipping (valid COA required on your existing OS obviously). So I might start 32 and order the 64 bit media but I almost want to just start with something and stick with it. I'm also positive I'd like to overclock the i7 - the overclocking results they are getting are just STUNNING! I figure I can maybe almost cut my encoding time IN HALF with a good overclock. For 500 DVD's, it's worth trying to spped up the process! Have a great holiday!!

[Krispy Kritter]

Unless you insist on running a large amount of RAM, there isn't any other benefit of going the 64bit route. If anything it's more of a hassle as most apps are 32bit and not all of them run properly.