Hardcore Newbie DVD Ripping Guide...?

[Akai Rounin]

Hello, all! I have been lurking about VCDHelp for a few months now, tryng to learn as much as I could. I have been through many of the guides, and no I haven't put them all into practice. I have noticed somethng though, when looking at the various guides. Sometimes there are critical pieces of information that are just plain missing.

What I'm saying is that, the newbie guides are set up to just get someone started. They are designed so that a person will just go by the numbers, step by step and get a result. Along the way there are certain settings that are glossed over, newbies are told not to worry about them. Then there are the advanced guides, which cut to the chase, don't hold hands and expect the reader to just KNOW what is going on. Only the main points are covered with no detail whatsoever.

What I need to see is something in between the two. I am a newbie in the specific arena of converting different types of video files and burning them to disc for different uses. But I am not a computer neophyte, I don't mind having multisyllabic techno jargon thrown my way. Are there any guides out there that go into infinitesimal detail about every single feature and setting of all the best freeware tools around?

The problem for me is that, especially when it comes to the DVD Ripping guides, I am often left asking... "Why?" Why would one situation call for Flask and another for DVD2AVI? Why would one person use SmartRipper while another would choose something else instead? If I already have SmartRipper, VirtualDub and TMPGEnc, what else do I need and WHY?

I guess what I'm saying is that the Beginner guides seem fine, the Advanced guides are OK, but where are the Intermediate guides? What path can a newbie take, other than several months of trial by error and fire, to become an advanced and knowledgeable player in the field? I think I have advanced beyond a simplified 'How To' guide. I also need to know What, Where, When and Why - especially WHY - some techniques are better than others. Can anyone help?

Unta Glebin Gloutin Globin,

Akai Rounin, The Cyber Sage

[poopyhead]

prolly wanna be in the feedback forum

[Akai Rounin]

poopyhead: Good suggestion. I'll see what I can find there. I'd move this if I could though... - AR, TCS

[stanwebber]

if you try to explain everything at once you will overwhelm & confuse a rank beginner. this in itself is a consideration when setting up a method for a newbie guide....simplicity often wins out over other considerations. even the advanced guides balance acceptible quality vs time restraints. although i will agree with you that most novice guides are woefully incomplete, leaving out critical details such as field-order determination that simply cant be ignored(mpeg2 only). as to what individual settings are for the best source of information is the author's documentation or readme.txt

[Thumper]

Akai Rounin -- I completely agree. I too am about four months into this and have just recently been posting, even though I've been reading all this time. I too started out with some of the newbie guides (sefy), from there I've just kinda picked stuff up here and there. Lots of experimenting on my own, but I too have at times wished I knew why I was setting something rather than just doing it cause it works. This entire hobbie is a subculture in its own. Im not sure if it is better to just learn as you go or to look for a more precise guide. I know if I could get my hands on a book with mucho explatnation I would.

These boards are essential though. I never have really posted cause I havent had any problems. Ive only followed one recipe for my VCD's but am now more interested in the finer details to maximize the quality. Adam - Stanwebber - Poopyhead - Sefy are very informative posters. Anyway, that is my two cents, if you find a source of which you are seeking let me know or post it somewhere.

Cheers. t

[Akai Rounin]

stanwebber: Did you ever watch the animated series on FOX called The TiCK? There was a hand puppet in one episode that made a wonderful statement, "Read a BOOK!" I suppose I should follow his advice, eh? So maybe I'll do that. I'll find a nice book or two that cover the level of detail I need to know. Then perhaps I'll return to VCDHelp and provide an Intermediate guide of my own. I was just wondering if there was a source elsewhere that someone could recommend for such a guide, that was already online. That's why I posted initially.

Excelsior!

AR, TCS

[poopyhead]

stanwebber: Did you ever watch the animated series on FOX called The TiCK?

heh...they got a real life series of the tick on fox too, i believe (unless it's been canceled)

[Shabubu]

I learnt all my stuff using the guides here for basic stuff, (aswell as nicky's guides at Digital-digest, though I don't think there up anymore), and the guides at doom9.org.

I would also suggest visiting the forums every day at both here and doom9.org. You don't need to post, just read everything. The forum at doom9.org seems to be a little more in depth than here. You may seem lost at first, but if you stick withit you'll get you knowledge level up pretty quick.

And in answer to you q, dvd2avi splits out the audio stream allowing you to use better audio encoding tools (azid, and toolame, with rate conversion using SSRC), and is significantly faster and more flexible, but you need to know what your doing.

[stanwebber]

i'm not a tick fan, but i remember the show as it was my brother's favorite. not sure of the puppet's name(tiny perhaps?), but i remember the guy was the human ton(tshirt stating '1 ton'). have you looked at death by bitrate's guide yet(por2que version, http://svcdguide.animeaddiction.net/ )? it goes into a fair amount of detail. here's another detailed article on a vdub filter combination for anime sources, http://web.syr.edu/~tjmyers/animefilters.html

[Akai Rounin]

Friendly Fire...

stanwebber: Thanks for the links. I'll check them out and probably bookmark them for future reference.

One thing I had in mind is that often in the forums and sometimes in ripping guides there are references to how some DVDs are a real pain in the butt to duplicate. I don't have a comprehensive list or anything, but I think two that are mentioned from time to time are The MATRiX and The AbYsS. Since these are movies that are very popular, hence most anyone with a DVD collection will own them, it would be nice to see an in depth guide to ripping those specific titles.

The way I figure it, if a newbie could make it through the trials and tribulations brought on by the worst case scenario in ripping a disc, they would be better prepared to handle any given situation. Imagine a raw recruit returning home as a grizzled veteran after a tour of duty through the gates of hell. This way, after the boot camp of a newbie guide, a true warrior would emerge ready to take on the challenge of any new video conversion project without losing stride.

In this way a newbie could make it through the intermediate level of training in order to reach an advanced status. Having seen everything that could possibly go wrong and been guided through the experience a newbie would gain confidence in their ability to tackle anything. Even those tasks that would have seemed daunting to a beginner would rapidly become commonplace, easily completed.

So I would structure such a guide to tell everything about the duplication process. Also, I'd want the duplication process to be available for different applications if possible. So conversion of DVD to X(S)VCD, DivX or even a backup DVD would be covered. Instructions on creating motion menus and chapters would be included. An examination of the pros and cons of using each application would be made at each stage of the project.

I'm sure a lot more could be said here, but I hope I've made my point. Too many late nights of late. It's approaching midnight here in SoCal. I think I'll go to bed. Take care!

Unta Glebin Gloutin Globin,

Akai Rounin, The Cyber Sage

[Sefy]

Akai Rounin, as one of the guide writers here, i've asked users for number of times to tell me what they are looking in a guide, to tell me what they want me to change or add, till today, i've received maybe 2 or 3 people who took the time to tell me what they want to see, and that's out of over 20,000 users of this forums.

It's not easy writing a guide, and without feedback from users, a guide writer can't be expected to know what each individual wants, no matter what he does.

I've just released updated to the guides (currently on Digital-Digest), and there is the simple guide which you can see here as the Classical Guide, and there is the more Complete Guide which you can actually choose the method of backing up as you go step by step.