Transcoding like crazy! VOB->{M4V/DPG/GBM}... Thx.

[Dan.]

OK.. For Christmas I got a 120 gig iPod and a 1TB USB drive. I'd been ripping DVDs for quite a while but now things (I saw) would get serious. At the same time I got the iPod, my kids got a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo Game Boy Advanced.

So now I started ripping our DVDs and putting them in every viewable format I could think of.

ToRip: AnyDVD lifetime subscription (I like to have a copy of the VOBs on disk)
DVD->M4V: DVDFab 5 Mobile Option (For iPod, better than Handbrake because of some video shudder)
FLV->M4V: Handbrake (For iPod, love handbrake but only useful on non-VOB material)
ToTag: MetaX (I tag all my M4V files before dropping them into iTunes and the iPod)
VOB->DPG: SUPER (.DPG files are playable on the Nintendo DS)
M4V->DPG: SUPER (.DPG files are playable on the Nintendo DS)
VOB->GBM: Crystal DVD_Converter 1.21 Beta (.GBM files are playable on the Nintendo Game Boy Advanced)

So now all the PG-13 and R rated movies go to my iPod. All the G and PG movies go to the kids "mobile media unit". The playback on all of them is VERY watchable and the iPod can produce TV-OUT at 780p.

Things I'd like to see is:

1. Handbrake and SUPER to fix their shudder problem. I suspect x264.exe as the culprit.
2. ffdshow to be recognized by SUPER, right now I can't use "use DirectShow" for VOB even though ffdshow is installed
3. SUPER to add support for GBM creation similar to what they do for DPG creation today.

All in all it all has come together nicely and I'm really happy with the results. I do wish I could script all this stuff better but I don't mind using the GUIs since there is a manual process inherent in all of this (picking chapters and stuff). Hats off to all the guys here at VH for all the good info posted on the forums. I was surprised there wasn't more info on DPG or GBM media, since it is so wild to see one of these little game consoles play a full length movie.

-Dan

[Dan.]

A bit of an update...

I've given deep links to the utilities used and I've mentioned above and added the tools to the VH tools repository.

Those not familiar with the Nintendo video formats ".DPG" for the Nintendo DS and the ".GBM/.GBS" file pairs playable on the Gamboy Advanced. The files sizes for the .DPG files generally run about 80 MiB / Hour and the ".GBM/.GBS" pair render out to about 250 MiB / Hour. The tools generally encode about about 1x speed. So a 1 hour film will take about 1 hour to encode.

All in all, pretty cool considering that you can get a 3 year old GBA for $40 and the Movie Player on eBay for about $30. That would give you a fairly useful portable movie player for under $80. That's about on par for a movie player, but the GBA will also play Donkey Kong , not to mention that it will fit in your coat pocket.

-Dan