Trying to fine ONE method that works

Movie Copy Software
#1

OK, here is the “nutshell” version of what I’m trying to do. I purchased an Iomega Screen Play Pro HD so I can have a bunch of movies at my office without having all of the DVDs here. Beyond the problems with the SPP-HD (which I’ve resolved to my satisfaction), the biggest issue I’m having is getting my DVDs ripped consistently. Here is the process I’m using:

  1. RIP DVD to hard drive with AnyDVDHD. This works fine, the files on the HDD play through windows media player just fine with no issues.

  2. Transcode ripped DVD to a file my SPP-HD can use. This is where the problems come in. I’ve tried using several different programs, and so far Nero 9 Recode has given me the best results (except for the fact that I have to convert to a different format after so it will play on the SPP). Other rippers I’ve tried seem to have problems with the audio and video getting out of sync, Recode has not done that to me.

I’m using the NERO DIGITAL profile category, HDTV profile and HIGH QUALITY (2-PASS) encoding method I’m setting each movie to a quality of 3Mbps, which is yielding movie files in the 2-3GB range. For most of my movies this has worked fine, but about 30% of them suddenly get pixelated. In almost every case, this is toward the end of the movie. I’ve deleted the files and run them through Recode again, and they still become pixelated, but not in the same place as the first time (which would suggest it’s not in the source files, which as I said are just fine when played through media player directly from .vob).

The system I’m working on is a quad core @ 3GHz with 4GB of RAM. I reboot the system and disable EVERYTHING (including antivirus and any other unimportant service) before running Recode.

Has anyone else run into this problem with Recode? Is there a known fix for this pixelation issue? Nero tech support wants me to jump through hoops without even suggesting whether they’ve seen the problem…it honestly looks like every email I get from them is a “canned” response, which is quite frustrating.

I’m not above purchasing a different software package if there is one that works consistently. I managed to get a bunch of movies done with Xilisofts DVD Ripper Ultimate (latest version), but about half of the movies I tried with that program had the audio track get off badly and some had strange video behavior. Most of the ones that DVD Ripper wouldn’t do came out OK from Recode, except the ones that got pixelated. This is an awful lot of frustration for the simple task of creating .AVI files that my stupid SPP will play. I ideally want a program that will do BATCH conversions from a directory of AnyDVD ripped folders on my HDD…so I can start a session of conversions and leave for the evening…and come back to them done in the morning.

ANY help would be greatly appreciated!!!

THANK YOU!!!

#2

Oh yea, one other thing, how do I rip the movie and KEEP non-english subtitles (like the indians talking in Hidalgo for instance) without having subtitles for the entire movie? Not every movie has this of course, but when the movie is in english and there are occasional foreign language convos that would be subtitled…I can’t seem to get just those subtitles???

Thanks Again!

#3

i use dvd fab platinum for all my movies works great.dont know if it will resolve your problems but you can try it.has a free 30 day trial as for you second question,i think i had to turn my subtitles on and off while watching that movie,during the parts where they used different language.(theres a link on this site to download dvdfab 6016 beta)

#4

I’ll download the trial and give it a whirl. Any other suggestions?

#5

No go, same result. I can play the ripped files with media player with no problem, but when I convert them to MP4 they get pixelated. It does seem like it’s “roughly” in the same place, even using the new application.

I tried to capture a screen pic of what I’m seeing, but when I ALT-PRTSCN on Windows Media Player, I get the player but not the content. If someone can tell me how to capture the content, I’ll post pictures of what it looks like right before and right after it gets pixelated.

#6

Nero tech support got back to me and said they were able to recreate the problem. They said they are working hard to resolve it in the next maintenance release of Nero 9. I just hope they don’t end up causing the audio/video sync problems I’ve had with the rippers that don’t pixelate…it seems to be a tradeoff right now of which I want.