opinions on method to convert DVD to MPEG2 lossless

[fotty]

I have a small collection of DVDs I have bought over the past several years, and my goal is to rip these DVDs to my file server so I can watch them via my xbox 360s. I have 2 xboxes, one in the bedroom, and one in the family room, so having my movies in an instant watch anytime list is way nicer than having to go out to the shelf and find the dvd i want, and bring it to whatever xbox i want to watch it on, and play it. (yeah maybe im lazy but whatever)

I know I can rip to DIVX and various other formats using different apps, and I have had somewhat mixed success with getting videos converted at a good resolution/compression.

Since disk space is cheap, and I only want to rip the movies I actually currently own (and don't buy new DVDs really anymore), I don't really care if a single movie takes up 4-8GB of space, so long as its original quality can be maintained.

So, I have ripped a few DVDs to unencrypted ISOs using DVDshrink, and when I do it, I select no compression, so it retains the original file size, and I am assuming the original MPEG2 VOB format.

Now my question is, what method should I use to take these ISO images (once mounted to a virtual drive), and get a single MPEG2 audio/video file from them in the same uncompressed original MPEG2 format that was on the DVD?

I am only at an intermediate to slightly advanced level of understanding when it comes to all these formats and audio/video stuff, but I do have a somewhat high technical skill when it comes to computers, programming, and electronics in general.

I am willing to purchase a piece of software to complete the task, so long as it is affordable (sub 100 bucks) and will actually easily do what I am after.

So if anyone could make any recommendations as to what good, simple method can be used to do this. I am really only concerned with the main movies from these DVDs, I don't care so much about extras and multiple audio tracks and what not.


So just to be clear my goal is to find a decent method of converting DVDs to MPEG2 in a lossless manner, file size doesn't matter, and I am willing to buy software to do this if no free software out there is capable.

Thanks!

[minidv2dvd]

have shrink make folders, not iso. then use the free vob2mpeg to convert the vobs to a single mpeg-2. no loss involved, it's what is in the vob.

[jagabo]

If you already have ISO images you can mount them with Daemon Tools then use vob2mpeg.

[fotty]

Thanks guys. That is 2 suggestions to use vob2mpeg.

I will check that out and see where it takes me.

[mpiper]

I'm not an expert on XBox, so this might or might not work.
Either Shrink or DVD Decrypter can be used to make a folder with the exact contents of the DVD.

Can you make the entire folder visible to XBox? If so, then you can play the DVD using the XBox DVD player, and have the entire menu and extras, not just the main movie.

[t0nee1]

FYI, you could have used Shrink in Re-author mode, and backup to single VOB.....

[fotty]

no xbox when it comes to sharing can only play files that are shared out via windows media player or windows media center on a given computer on the network. So because of that, I need to convert these files directly to MPG in order to be able to add them to my media library and have it show up in my xbox shared videos.

I don't care so much about menus and special features, so it is really not much of a loss for me. I plan on keeping the dvds anyway, so for that rare instance, I can actually dust one off and use the DVD drive on the xbox.

@t0nee1, as far as reauthor mode, what would backing up to a single VOB get me versus just backing up the entire DVD to ISO (or folder) and then using vob2mpeg to take the main movie VOB and convert it to mpeg? I suppose I could gain time by not ripping the content I don't plan to convert, but is there anything else I would gain by this?

[qpskfec]

WMP 11 will play a vob renamed to mpg.

Rip with DVDecrypter in ifo mode, select no file splitting to get one large file, rename vob to mpg.

[fotty]

what exactly is the difference between just renmaing a VOB to MPG, versus actually running the VOB through an application like VOB2MPEG?

[minidv2dvd]

a vob can contain multiple audio and subtitle streams, an mpeg-2 should only have video and one audio stream.

[fotty]

So in theory, if a movie as VOB that contains multiple language audio and subtitle steams, would be slightly smaller after output to MPG since it would not include those extra streams?

[usually_quiet]

Since, some of the additional features in a VOB are not always available in renamed files, or not as useful without the related IFOs and menus, and VOBs are at least a little larger than an .mpg, the usual advice is to convert VOBs to .mpgs, instead of just renaming.

In addition the other features mentioned in the previous post, VOBs contain navigational information that an .mpg does not have. Even when they don't contain multiple audio tracks, or subtitles/subpictures, they are a bit larger than an mpg.

See http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/vobov.html for more complete information about VOBs.

[t0nee1]

fotty wrote,

"@t0nee1, as far as reauthor mode, what would backing up to a single VOB get me versus just backing up the entire DVD to ISO (or folder) and then using vob2mpeg to take the main movie VOB and convert it to mpeg? I suppose I could gain time by not ripping the content I don't plan to convert, but is there anything else I would gain by this?"...

Why introduce an extra step if it's not needed? You can play the single .vob, just like you would an .mpg....It's easier to edit a single vob and save as .mpg if needed...Does your player not like single a .VOB? Try it first, or rename to .mpg, if it doesn't work then, use Vob2mpg...

I stream single VOB to the PS3, and it works great...

[lordsmurf]

A VOB contains more data the audio/video, renaming is ALWAYS a mistake on anything not recorded for a standard DVD recorder, such as "bought" movies.

[AlanHK]

Standard VOB files are limited to 1 GB. Many movies span several VOB files. If properly extracted to MPEG, the video and audio are continuous. I can't think of any advantage, and several possible drawbacks, to using VOBs. Besides, it takes almost the same time to extract to MPEG as to copy a VOB.