Little advice please. Am i doing this right?! DVDFAB9

[prezzacc]

Hi All,

I have been lurking on the site a while and got some great tips, so a while ago tried my first bit of DVD backup? I have TV Boxsets on DVD, i wish to convert to an MP4 so i can watch on a portable projecter. After reading around i came up with the folowing:

Use DVDfab (downloaded 9) hit dvd copy, and then i assume ripped the DVD to my HDD. I think i was using an old guide so kind of guessed a bit.

Got the files, then used Handbrake to turn into a MP4 file. Both parts took a while, i used the "normal" profile on Handbrake and it came out good, although didnt look DVD quality? Then Tried High, and looked a little better but was double size. The episodes are only 20minutes and it came out around 400mb on high. Is this right?

I just wonder if there is a higher quality option? Or am i doing the best? Its by no means bad, infact its good, im just checking this is right, it took a while from both programs but i think i got the result i wanted.

Am now worried about DVDfab9 reading that it might expire after 30days?!

Any advice?

Many thanks in advance for your time

[prezzacc]

Sorry forgot to add....can i adjust the filesize output??

Thanks

[manono]

Use DVDFab HD Decrypter only for decrypting the DVD files to the hard drive. The VOB files you get should be the same size as on the DVD disc. And the decrypting part of DVDFab doesn't expire, only the other crap. And since the other things it can do it doesn't do as well as other programs, then it's no loss when that expires.

As for doing the conversions as good as possible, someone else can advise. I don't use Handbrake.

Sorry forgot to add....can i adjust the filesize output??

If you're talking about the conversion to MP4, then in most programs you have the choice of either a 1-pass quality encode (CRF) or a 2-pass encode for a fixed file size. Your best bet is to use CRF 18 or some such to get a very good quality encode, no matter the size.

[prezzacc]

That was a quick reply thanks manono.

Great news on the DVDfab front, i can keep using it to just rip the files, and then convert with Handbrake. Thank you for your help, im a little lost with 1-pass CRF18 etc etc . I will do a bit more research and hope a fellow handbrake user will assist.

I only used handbrake and it seemed straightforward and had fair few good reviews.

[prezzacc]

Anyone else use Handbrake to offer Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

[roma_turok]

Try VidCoder more option based on Handbrake
if you don't have problem playing ac3 Dolby sound,
in audio tab set Auto Passthrough, to copy audio stream directly from DVD, without re-encoding,
Use Preview to encode only 10-30sec video, to view quality of the video on final file

[Kerry56]

Handbrake is pretty simple to use. For conversion of dvds to an mp4 that isn't going to be played on a portable player (like an iPad or other tablet or phone), using the High Profile preset should be fine. This will give you a 4.1 H264 level video, which should be good for your purposes. The only things I change are Constant Framerate instead of Variable Framerate, and I move the x264 preset from Medium to Slow speed. I generally use Constant Quality encodes, with a CRF set at 20. Higher quality can be had by moving that to 19 or 18, but it slows things down even more and the file sizes increase. All of these controls can be found within the Video tab.

For audio, I generally let AC3 audio pass through unchanged. You can find this control in the Audio tab.

[prezzacc]

Thanks both for your responses.

roma_turok i may try vidcoder i have heard good things but i will try Handbrake first to see how i get on.

Kerry56 thanks for the advice there. I never thought to try a small section and test. I must admit i just clicked it all thought. Is there somewhere you know i can get more info. IE you say change framerate etc but i don't really understand why. I like to try and understand what Im doing.

Why would ipad be no good? I actually want it to put onto a mini projecter with built in mp4 player. Would be good to just watch on PC also. When i get a new cd drive as mine just died ill try some more experiments!

[Kerry56]

I change from variable frame rate to constant just because some players have issues with it, and if I ever need to work with the video again, VFR can be a royal pain in the ass. You should leave the drop down box next to Framerate (FPS) set as "Same as Source", unless there is some real need to change it, but I have no idea why VFR is the default setting for the High Profile preset. I made my own preset so I wouldn't have to remember to go back and change that setting all the time.

Handbrake has a guide (bit out of date, but still something to start with): https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/HandBrakeGuide

And there is a wiki for X264 settings: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

Some of the settings in the preset High Profile may not be compatible with all portable devices. This is why the Handbrake coders go to a lot of trouble to make so many presets for those types of devices.

[steptoe]

If you are trying to rip/copy your TV boxsets with the highest possible quality, these two pieces of FREE sofware will do what you are looking for

If you can play MKV files without having to convert them to MP4 its just a one step process

Download and install MakeMKV, its IS free but he updates it every so often so you then have to download the newer version. But its still FREE

Both are free 100% working, not trial software that will expire after 30 days or put a watermark across your video forcing you to buy it then find out it doesn't suit your needs

Run the file through the MP4 converter and you will get an MP4 video file with zero quality loss as it is a straight rip of the original with no compression at all. Snag is though the file size is exactly the same as what you ripped. If you want to compress the video to save space I found VidCoder to be the easiest and you can choose the filesize so VidCoder then tries to get the video to almost that size. Its not exact but close. But the smaller you want the video size the quality will start suffering as it has to compress it more. 20 minute episodes shouldn't see to much quality loss though and you can choose to convert it to MP4 as well


http://www.makemkv.com/
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/MkvToMp4

[Hoser Rob]

Makemkv ... or anything that doesn't compress/reencode the video ... is the best best IMO if you don't mind the cost of that much HDd space. Actually you don't really even need makemkv for that. Just use dvdfab hd decrypter (as mentioned the free and good part) to rip the part(s) you want into VIDEO_TS folders. Then pay those in software. If your playing software can't do that you shouldn't use it anyway.

Handbrake (or vidcoder which uses the same encoder with different gui) is the best encoder I've seen re power/ease of use. There are a number of others you'll find here recommended by some real video geeks. But they are not beginner friendly. At all.

Unfortunately video encoders are complicated. There is no way around this. Digital video is just too hardware dependent. Handbrake will let you ease into it a bit more gently but you can use advanced h.264 options as well. Just make sure you use the high profile unless you're encoding for a device that doesn't support it. That's probably the most important quality parameter.

I like vidcoder fine but I don't see that many reasons to prefer it over handbrake. Making it look easy isn't the same as making it easy. It does still have target bit rate/floe size but that's overrated. One pass quality based encoding is better even though you can't control file size exactly.

Go to kerry56's links for sure. And like he said, don't use vfr. There are tons of handbrake guides out there. Search.

[prezzacc]

Kerry56 : THank u for the info again, that makes more sense, i have a bit of reading to do.Thanks for your time helping

Steptoe, thanks for your advice, i havent looked into makemkv but if i get problems with dvdfab i may have a look although it seems it does a very similar thing to me?

Hoser Rob: Thanks also, i agree things are complicated! But if thats the way it is i will need to learn a bit more to make it easier. I would love to be able to play straight from the rip but size and player could be an issue there. Intersting to read vidcoder is almost the same as handbrake, if file size isnt an issue ill stick to handbrake and learn it.

Thanks all!

[Steve(MS)]

Vidcoder uses handbrake's engine...it is only a frontend for it.

[Hoser Rob]

[QUOTE=prezzacc;2257082... I would love to be able to play straight from the rip but size and player could be an issue there...[/QUOTE]

I agree size is an issue. That's why I've encoded my dvd's ... at least the ones I still may want to watch.

The player shouldn't be an issue. Many of them don't have good menu support, but I just rip the main movie or episodes and maybe the extras so I don't care. But loading the VIDEO_TS folder should be no problem.

[prezzacc]

Newbie here...Encoding means to shrink and turn into one file ie an MP4?

Hmmm its not a standard player, its a projecter with a built in player, ie i stick a memory card in with my mp4 and it plays from there. Although i am yet to try so i cant say for sure how it works.

Thanks again for the time