DVD ripping Quality/Size

[barkerpa3466]

Hey Everyone,
I could use some help ripping SG-1 to my computer I downloaded all 10 seasons to save time frustration but I am not happy with the quality of the playback on my 65inch TV. So now I would like to rip them my self. I know that going with better quality means size is going to go up but right now I am taking a huge size penalty. The downloaded version of the first episode is 701MB the best I have been able to get using ByteCopy (trial version) is about 1.54GB I wouldn't mind if it was around 1GB and if the other episodes which are 350MB to be around 500MB. I don't think my idea of size is unreasonable my episodes of lets say Arrow are around 300MB and they look pretty good. So what am I missing? is there a better program that I can use? Suggested settings/codec?

Info on the downloaded copy of SG-1 episode 1: file .avi, codec: MPEG-4 v3 resolution:640X384 frame rate:23.97 Audio Codec AC3 Dolby 48000 Hz bitrate: 182kb/s

my experience is limited to AnyDVD HD for my HTPC ( I have been just ripping my entire DVD/bluray to the hard drive so I have all of the menus/special features and such.) but I don't want to do this with my TV shows.

and being that slysoft is dead does anyone have a recommendation for AnyDvD HD replacement.

Thanks for any help.

[Kerry56]

First off, AnyDVD isn't dead. The team of programmers who made it are putting together their own site, and have released a new version. If you had a license for AnyDVD it will work this new version, called Redfox AnyDVD.

Use AnyDVD in the background for decryption, then rip and convert using VidCoder to the size you want. It will allow you to set output size, unlike Handbrake.
I'd just use the High profile preset, click on Settings, then in the Video tab set it for Constant Framerate and set it for the Target Size you want in MB. By default it will convert the AC3 audio to AAC, and you'll be making MP4 files with the default settings. You can change this to AC3 pass through and MKV files if you prefer, but this would depend on what you need for playback in your particular equipment.

[october262]

are we allowed to help with content you don't own ??

[Kerry56]

So now I would like to rip them my self

He's apparently given up on the downloaded copies and is now working from his own discs. Hence the need for AnyDVD or a similar decrypter.

[hello_hello]

Hey Everyone,
I could use some help ripping SG-1 to my computer I downloaded all 10 seasons to save time frustration but I am not happy with the quality of the playback on my 65inch TV. So now I would like to rip them my self. I know that going with better quality means size is going to go up but right now I am taking a huge size penalty. The downloaded version of the first episode is 701MB the best I have been able to get using ByteCopy (trial version) is about 1.54GB

Isn't the first episode a double episode?

Part of the problem is the SG1 DVD quality isn't spectacular to begin with. At least the PAL DVDs aren't. They're somewhat noisy which makes them harder to compress, hence the copy you downloaded not looking great. Arrow was probably encoded with the x264 encoder rather than Xvid, which is more efficient, and the video itself is probably nice and clean and easy to compress. I've never seen an episode, but there's a fair chance it's shot with a digital camera (no film grain).

When I ripped the PAL SG1 DVDs I downscaled them to 704x396, applied some quite slow filtering to remove noiseand clean the picture up a bit (which is a whole other topic) and encoded them with the x264 encoder at CRF18. The file sizes vary all over the place, but not counting the double episodes they average about 345MB each.

Episode 1 - 2, 844 MB
Episode 3, 293 MB
Episode 4, 459 MB
Episode 5, 364 MB

Personally, I'd never encode to a particular size, but rather for a particular quality. It might take a bit of experimenting to find a quality and resolution that gives you an average file size you're happy with, but once you do if you encode each episode using the same settings each time the encoding quality won't vary from one episode to the next. Maybe start with a similar resolution and an RF value of 19 (higher RF values = lower quality = smaller file sizes). If you encode a few episodes and the average file size is still too large, I'd try decreasing the resolution a bit before reducing the encoding quality.