Let 'er Rip--DVD ripping (Mac & PC)

[Wild Roses]

I've been driven to the chocolate. That's how stressed out technology makes me. Okay, I'll keep trying and open up the rest. But it didn't give that many .vob files on the disk. But it is taking 10 or so minutes to decrypt the movie and I'm getting the fun! happy! music when it done decrypting. I have been clicking that (paraphrase) 'fix broken links' or whatever the words are exactly.

Although I'm on the verge of tears. I shall be writing back if all of them give me that parental warning thing. (I've opened up 3 clips so far.)

[Elvira]

Yep, the tutorial for DV (MPEG Streamclip) links to this page, which shows you how to get around MPEG Streamclip a little better: www.foolishpassion.org/vidding-tips/Vidding-101-2.html

They all aren't going to give you the parental warning! There are quite a few nonsense or useless files on a DVD rip, you have to search for the larger ones--that's where the feature is!

[Wild Roses]

And I noticed that even before I hit 'convert to AVI' it says in MPEG that 'this movie will not play due to the parental setting of the player.'

HELP!

Does dvd shrink require an MPEG or another program to extract and convert clips to avi? Because at this point, I'm ready to uninstall, uninstall, uninstall. I will use any program that doesn't cost me such a goodness-to-knows hassle and such unwarranted stress. And, right now, the dvd decypter, the MPEG streamclip, and the quicktime alternative are making me want to scream and curse. I frankly don't care if I have poor video cilps if it means I don't have to up with those horrid programs that aren't working. (Because if they were, I wouldn't be getting a damn parental setting message in the MPEG clips! It would just give the extracted clips.)

[Elvira]

Dec 10, 2008 0:05:35 GMT -5 Wild Roses said:

And I noticed that even before I hit 'convert to AVI' it says in MPEG that 'this movie will not play due to the parental setting of the player.'

I did a search on this error, and it looks like it's probably due to some third-party software you have installed, or software that came with your PC. Here's one link I found:

www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=843054

This doesn't have anything to do with MPEG Streamclip or DVD Decrypter, I don't think. What you should do is copy down the exact error message you're getting, word-for-word, and do a search in Google and I'll bet you'll find some solutions.

I've used Vista with these programs and have gotten no such errors, so I'm thinking that this is unique to your system.

[Wild Roses]

And, these are for you .

It worked! I don't know if 3rd time the charm or if I clicked on the right file in the .vob section, but I have now ripped my first ever movie!!!!!! (The G. Paltrow version of Emma.)

You are simply the best, Elvira!

I can rip my dvds now!

I this board!

(The decrypter/MPEG thing might be a simple thing, but you have no idea how big a hurdle it was for me to be able to accomplish it. It makes me a little less scared of the other tutorials.)

[Elvira]

I am so glad! YAY! I'm so proud of you!

Well, the other error message still may pose a problem later. If it does (let's hope it doesn't! ) then do a search on Google, by copying the exact wording of the error, and see if you find any solutions from other sites/message boards.

[Wild Roses]

Update: I called Dell and they reinstalled the proper codec that I accidentally uninstalled.

I'm on my second movie rip right now. Titanic!

And, I haven't been getting any more parental control notifications on the MPEG thingie.

Gosh, I'm overwhelmed! I have a teeny-tiny dvd collection--but that that is so many more movie options I have to make movies too!

What is more, my fanvids will look so much better because the proper aspect ratio is there! (My Titanic download fills up my entire widescreen---vs the make-it-count and back-to-Titanic clip links which don't & have those funky letterboxing bars on the left and right.)

[debsd]

Just a little question. I've already searched the software thread to see everyone's programmes of choice and I notice that no one's using ImTOO's DVD ripper. However that's what I have and am most familiar with. I have the horrible feeling that I've ripped everything over the years as DivX files and by now having read a few threads understand Elvira's thoughts on the matter.
While the quality looks pretty great to me on YouTube I want to make things look as good as I can (if it doesn't use up too much space on the computer) so was wondering if anyone could let me know the ImTOO settings to aim for...

[Elvira]

Hi depsd!

I can't check out ImTOO's DVD ripper at the moment (can't switch over to Windows at the moment) but I've tested out a number of these DVD converters, and some are okay, some aren't. See if you can find anything in your DVD ripper for the codec "Motion JPEG A" "Motion JPEG" or MJPEG." Or, look for DV codec. These would be fine for editing. If you have followed zetaminor's VirtualDubMod tutorial, you might have the Lagarith codec installed, and if you do, then Lagarith or HuffYUV might show up as one of the codecs available in ImTOO. That would also be excellent.

Barring using any of those codecs, I'm afraid there's not much advice I can give you about ImTOO. (Well, not until I can test it out. ) As I often say here, I can't recommend "good" settings for DivX or XviD. It's just not a viable editing codec. At any time it might to start to give you crashing, black screens in your editor, and bad quality, regardless of the settings you use with it.

Most editing codecs are going to be larger in size, and that's just the reality. I guess one way of explaining it is, "You can't have your cake and eat it too." (You can't have great quality without using more disk space.) However, one workaround that will give you pretty good quality is editing with MJPEG with the quality/compression settings tweaked. This tutorial will explain more about that: fpvideos.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=tutorials2&action=display&thread=1118

What I recommend is that you do some testing with ImTOO and see if it has the codecs that I recommend, and do some tests with that. Or, you can try one of our other tutorials and use different software (like VirtualDubMod or MPEG Streamclip—MPEG Streamclip in particular is pretty easy to learn). The benefits of using these other programs is that you can trim down to just the scene you need, instead of ripping/converting the entire movie over (like these DVD converters often have you do). So while the codecs you use might take up more disk space, you'll also save space by not having to convert the entire DVD over unless you need to.

In the past, because YouTube compressed everything so horribly, you could have a pretty mediocre source for your editing footage and you couldn't really tell the difference after YouTube was done with the video. But now that has changed because of YouTube's new "faux" HD settings. (Tutorial on that will be coming soon, applicable for all editing software.) Your standard rip settings for DivX/XviD will not look as good in YouTube's HD setting. (Well, it'll look better than YT's standard quality, but you'll be missing out in the opportunity to really squeeze out some more detail in the HD version.) Here's a little HD test I did on YouTube. Be sure to click on the "watch in HD" option.

Anyway, it's a good time to learn some new encoding/ripping techniques, to take advantage of YouTube's new HD feature. And also to make your downloadable files as sharp as possible! Let us know if you have any questions.

[debsd]

Thanks for the detailed answer Elvira - that's awesome. And to clarify, I totally want to leave DivX behind, just wondering what the best codec was.
I've tried a few options in the meantime.
There is a 'dvvideo' codec which I'm guessing is the one I should aim for. And it shows up with sound and visual on vegas. The 'huffyuv' file only plays the sound for some odd reason.
My other question was what settings to pick under 'Profile' (I've always selected DivX Movie -*.avi) but should I select the 'AVI - Audio-Video Interleaved?
There's also a 'Zoom' category where I've generally picked 'letterbox' The other options are 'medium', 'pan and scan' and 'full (keep aspect ratio) I'm guessing 'full' is the one to go for?
I generally work with PAL 4:3 clips.
So sorry to bother you with these details.

[Elvira]

That's great, debsd! DVvideo sounds fine. I can't say about the rest (other than I doubt you should use zoom) until I can play around with the program!

[debsd]

Wow, you're quick.
I edited my post just before you answered so the 'zoom' was a different issue. LOL
I'm such a tech newbie. I've always been drawn to the artistic aspects of editing but have decided I must really embrace the whole kit and caboodle.
And please don't bother with trying the programme on my account. I think I'll get it sorted.

[vigorlilover]

I haven't been able to do much on the internet because I lost my internet service and just got it back. but why when I try to import a video use with dvd dec into I get an error message saying can't import .VOB files?

[Elvira]

You're not trying to import VOB files directly into WMM, are you? If so, no, that won't work.

The tutorial explains (second paragraph of tutorial) that VOB files are then meant to be imported into another video encoder (MPEG Streamclip, VirtualDubMod, etc) to be converted to a format suitable for editing. Our tutorials here will show you how to do that. Here's probably the easiest one, but there are several others in the tutorial section as well.

[vigorlilover]

ok I downloaded mpeg streamclip but where is the file suppose to show up at when I extract it?