DVD > DivX AutoGK by chapters, is this a bug?

[dez93_2000]

Hi all, coming back to DVD Decrypter & AutoGK after many many years to rip a load of Laurel & Hardy DVDs I got as a gift. Most of the discs have a number of movies or shorts on them. Having ripped the whole disc in Dvddecrypter, I can load it into autogk by selecting the correct IFO file, which then gives me a selection of titles to choose from. From here I should be able to select one, choose my settings (20% quality, audio passthrough) and queue/start the job. And then repeat this for other titles on the same IFO. However, regardless of which of the (e.g.) 6 titles I choose, autogk always converts the whole disc as a single Avi. I've tried autogk 2.48 & 2.55. i know this feature used to work... Is this a big with these versions of autoGK?

Failing that, is there a different tool I could/should be using? I guess a decade has passed, but DVDs haven't changed...!

Cheers!

[hech54]

You could rip "by chapter" in DVDDecrypter.....it's in the settings. That may get you closer to your desired end result.

[dez93_2000]

Cheers bud, I'll give that a whirl instead then. Seems nuts that AUtoGK has the ability to select chapters within an IFO but then converts the whole thing but maybe I'm missing something. Cheers for the quick reply!

[manono]

You could decrypt by titles to begin with.

Also, 20% quality is godawful. Maybe it was a mistake. Decent quality might begin at 50-60%

[hello_hello]

The AutoGK help file says this:

IFO file is used when you have a DVD like directory that contains IFO file and corresponding VOB files. IFO file is parsed and choice of audio streams and subtitles is presented to the user. If IFO file contains multiple PGCs (program chains) or angles then user will be asked to confirm which ones contained in the vobset (unless the name of VOB file contain this information already). Note that AutoGK cannot work properly on a vobset that still has multiple angles/program chains, so make sure to use appropriate tools to prepare the vobset.

I use DVD Shrink in re-author mode to prepare them for encoding. Open the ripped files, click the re-author button and drag each title you wan to encode from the right pane to the left. You can also drag titles across more than once if need be and edit them down to chapters etc. Use the backup function and the new files while have an IFO and a set of vob files for each title, which you can encode individually with AutoGK. Make sure DVD Shrink's compression is disabled or set the default output size to something huge in preferences so it won't try to "shrink" anything.

[dez93_2000]

Thanks all.
DVDDecrypter has file/IFO/ISO modes so I tried IFO which requires me to select chapters manually which is sensible/logical but therefore means I need to rip each DVD a number of times, one per chapter I want (having pre-checked the DVD to see the length of each chapter to find out which I want & which I don't). So it seems that this won't be saving much, if any, time compared to file-ripping the whole thing, autoGK converting the whole thing, then using virtualdub to cut out the bits I want. Unless there's a way to have DVDDecrypter rip all chapters to separate folders or something? @manono I presume this is what you mean when you say rip by titles?

20% is the breakpoint below which I notice the jpeg compression boxes. Bear in mind this is Laurel & Hardy though - potato quality to begin with!

@hello_hello: AutoGK help file seems a bit confusing there, viz "asked to confirm which PGC of multiple; cannot work properly if it still has multiple". I'm positive that I've previously loaded an IFO, selected a PGC from the list, and it's converted only that PGC. Otherwise what's the point of the 'select PGC' feature? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the help text.
Possibly I'll give DVD Shrink a go, though again I'm wondering if it'll end up being quicker and/or less work than having autogk just convert everything (which takes longer but requires no input from me so can be done in the background) then I'll snip the sections out in virtualdub...

Cheers for the thoughts all.

[hech54]

DEEP in the settings is an option "By Chapter".....it will give you ALL of the chapters on the DVD at one time.
I don't even know how to get DVDDecrypter to take one chapter at a time.

[hech54]

Screenshot:

[dez93_2000]

Top man, thank you, I'll give that a go. Cheers!

[manono]

@manono I presume this is what you mean when you say rip by titles?

Not at all. hech54 showed how to get all the chapters at once. I expect that at least the longer titles will consist of more than a single chapter. If so, you might also investigate "By Vob ID" to see if that gets you all the different and complete shorts and films. Since you discovered IFO Mode, if you're not being shown a bunch of different titles then they must be all in a single title (very poor way of doing it). And for the longer titles, anyway, the ones consisting of multiple chapters, you can rejoin them into a single complete video using MPEG2Cut2, if it comes to that.

These must be the crappy Hallmark DVDs of those great Laurel and Hardy shorts and films. Fans have been cursing those fools for years now, for the horrible job they did with them.

L&H deserve better than 20%.

[dez93_2000]

By VOB ID worked like a charm, thanks manono. Long delay because I realised the cause of intermittent DVD Decrypter hangs was that my hard drive was on its last legs. Got a new 3TB beast and subsequently will be giving L&H a few more percentage points of encoding quality to celebrate. Cheers all!