How exactly are you supposed to rip a DVD?

[me27821]

I've been trying all weekend, and searching for the past 7 hours. I cant figure this out, so I figure'd I'd come here like a Newb.

How exactly do you rip a DVD into one video file? I've tried many programs (dvd shrink, clone dvd, dvdfab, dvd decryptor, vlc media player...), and I've read many guides. Everything leaves me hanging. I rip the main movie part of a DVD to my hard drive, and the results I get are all the same. A group of files, no larger than .99GB, in a folder titled video_TS. I assume this is right so far, because it looks like the files are written to the DVD like that. This isn't what I want though. I'm trying to get what everyone else does. A single video file, roughly 1 GB, that contains the entire movie, and plays in Windows Media Player. How is this accomplished? Like I said, I've been trying, and searching, and I just cant get anywhere.

I really appreciate any help you guys can give me. I just cannot figure this one out.

[diskwatcher]

That video_TS file can be converted with HandBrake : http://handbrake.fr/

There are a number of presets, I use the iPod Hi-Res, but since I don’t use WMP for DVDs, or much of anything if I can help it, I don’t know which one will work for you.

[Kerry56]

You are actually accomplishing the task of “ripping” the dvd to the hard drive. Ripping is simply moving the video from the disk to the hard drive.

It is possible to rip to one file and just get the main movie. This can be done with DVDDecrypter in IFO mode, or in DVDShrink (in Preferences uncheck the box next to Split Vob Files into 1 GB Chunks), but the file will be considerably bigger than 1gb, and will still be one giant .vob file. You can rename the extension to .mpg and it will play as a regular mpeg file.

It is also possible to run the .vob files you have on the hard drive through Vob2MPG and get one large mpeg file. Very simple to use.

But none of that gets you to where you want to go. To reduce the size of a normal dvd down to the 1gb range, you’ll need to [B]convert[/B] the vob files to something that allows more compression. Handbrake, as mentioned by diskwatcher, will do this. You can also convert to xvid or divx using AutoGK or Xvid4PSP.

I might use H264 codec rather than xvid or divx if you are going to try to get all the way to 1gb range, but I don’t play H264 files in WMP.

[me27821]

Ok, from here I can figure out how to convert and compress the files, but I still cant rip them right. For whatever reason, when I use dvd shrink and rip to an IFO file, the sound is not in sync. Sometimes it’s as much as 2 seconds behind. I dont know why, and I cant figure out how to rip it as a vob file. What am I doing wrong here?

[Kerry56]

DVDShrink is fairly outdated as a ripping/decryption program. There are many new protection schemes it cannot cope with. I suggest using the free version of DVDFab, called DVDFab HD Decrypter.

As I mentioned before, it is possible to rip to one file, its just not necessary most of the time for conversion in the next step.

There is an option to rip just the main movie in DVD Fab HD Decrypter, so use this and rip as files, not an ISO. This will give you an Audio_TS folder which will be empty and you can ignore, plus a Video_TS folder which will contain all the .vob, .ifo and .bup files normally seen in dvd-video. Since you are just ripping, not compressing at this stage, the files will be fairly large, anywhere from 3.5gb to 6gb or so doing just the main movie.

This process works, and you can test the rip by playing the movie from the hard drive if you like using VLC or whatever dvd player you have in your computer. You will not see any audio/video sync problems at this stage. Those always come in the conversion process.

Which program are you using for conversion? There are really too many to list them all. Besides AutoGK, Handbrake is a commonly used program for converting dvd-video files into mpeg4 using xvid or H264.

[diskwatcher]

[QUOTE=me27821;2136287]Ok, from here I can figure out how to convert and compress the files, but I still cant rip them right. For whatever reason, when I use dvd shrink and rip to an IFO file, the sound is not in sync. Sometimes it’s as much as 2 seconds behind. I dont know why, and I cant figure out how to rip it as a vob file. What am I doing wrong here?[/QUOTE]

Try this for ripping instead : http://www.dvd43.com/

[7thSinger]

Try this for ripping instead : http://www.dvd43.com/

I would actually recommend DvdFab over dvd43. I’ve never had real good luck with it.

http://dvdfab.com

[redback5]

whow about WinAVI? Is ti any good?

[Kerry56]

whow about WinAVI? Is ti any good?

There are 4 or 5 different copy and transcoding programs under the WinAVI banner. I wouldn’t waste money on them seeing that there are many good alternatives that don’t cost money.

Go over to videohelp.com and look through the programs that are available…I can’t keep up with them all anymore, they just continue to appear, especially to deal with portables and H264…those have just taken off.

[redzdev]

Give anyvideoconterter a try, its a good product for ripping dvd’s to AVI or MPG. Theres various encodings to select from

[me27821]

Well I’m still having no luck. If I’m using dvd shrink, say for older dvds, my issue is that I cannot rip as files. If there is an option to rip as anything other than ISO, I cant find it. My other issue now is that I can’t rip to a single large file with DVDFAB. Maybe just another option I cant find, but going through all these different programs is confusing me. Same thing goes with CloneDVD, I cant figure out how to rip as one large file.

Kerry56… I’m not using any programs for conversion. I haven’t gotten to that point yet. Honestly though, I dont think I will. My players play the format the dvd’s are ripped in, so it’s not a requirement. Also all they do is reduce sound and image quality by compressing, and hard drive space is cheap enough these days. I have 2 1TB externals that are pretty much empty, and a TB drive goes for roughly $110 online.

So, I’m gonna skip the conversion process since it’l just complicate things, which means I still have to rip the dvd’s to a single large vob file. So it all comes down to that, and then I got it. Anyone know how to accomplish that?

[Dialysis1]

Rip the files to your HDD using DVDFab HD Decrypter. Then open DVD Shrink. Open the folder where the files are stored. Then click on re-author and drag the main movie to the window on the left. Then click on [B]Edit/Preferences[/B]. Click on the Output Files tab. [B]Uncheck Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks[/B]. Click on ok. Then click on Backup. The movie will be one VOB with one IFO and one BUP.

[Kerry56]

Ok, I’ll go through it step by step with you and see if we can get you to where you want to go.

Start DVDShrink. You are trying to get one big file as output, so we’ll go to Edit–>Preferences–>Output Files. Now uncheck the box that says Split Vobs into 1 gb chunks.

Now, put your dvd in your drive and hit Open Disc. Since you are going to one big file, you’ll want to get just the main movie, not the extras and menus, so hit ReAuthor. Now click on the Title that you want to capture…this is almost always the largest found under the Main Movie section. Drag and drop this entry over to the left hand side of the window.

At this point hit Backup. This is where you select your output—click on the Target Device tag. Under Create DVD Files, select Hard Disk Folder and set a destination on your hard drive for Shrink to target.
Hit OK and it will start the backup process.

That’s it. I’ve already told you how to convert the resulting .vob file to a mpeg2 file, so you should be set.

If you run into a dvd that Shrink can’t handle on its own, you’ll need to rip the movie to the hard drive and work from the files made by DVDFab HD Decrypter.

Edit: Dialysis beat me to it, but we’re describing the same thing here.