DVD Ripping the Right Way

I don't claim much of this as my own work. I learned most everything I
know through the wonderful site http://www.doom9.org. I fear for the day
that it is taken down.

DVD ripping can be broken down into 5 steps.

1. - Ripping

In this step we rip, or copy, the movie data from the dvd medium to a
hard disc. It is a little more complicated then just click and drag.
Thanks to our friend/enemey encryption, this would not yeild a usuable
product. The best program to do this is SmartRipper by Tron. ( All of
this software can be downloaded from: http://www.doom9.org ) It is farly
strait forward program.

When it first loads up it will verify the dvd and unlock it. It will
then automaticaly make its best guess at what title and track the movie
is in. It usualy works. Check and make sure the length of the track it
is recomending is the same time length. If it isn't scroll though the
list and find one that does.

The final step is to select where you want it to dump the files and
click start. This step takes about 5-10 min on your average pc. Mostly
dependent on the speed of your dvd rom and your hard drive.

When done, close SmartRipper.

2. - dvd2avi

dvd2avi, along with virtualdub, are the programs that do most of the
real work with the re-encoding. dvd2avi is writen by Loli.J.

Load up dvd2avi and click file|open. This will bring up the standard
file open dialog. Select the .vob files that you just ripped with
smartripper. dvd2avi will auto select any other .vobs in the same
numerical sequence, but it doesn't always get all of them, compare lists
and double check. Click ok.

With the exception of Anime and TV shows, almost everything is recorded
to film at 23.976 fps. To get this to play on standard NTSC TVs, the
framereate is uped to 29.97 through a process of Telecine or 3:2
Pulldown. This is not usefull for us, as the extra frames are just
interpolated data from the original 23.976 fps. So when you encode the
video at say 650 kbit/second 20% or so of that will be wasted on those
generated frames.

Since most of the movies out there are encoded at 23.976, I won't get
into the process of converting a movie from 29.97 to 23.976. This is a
process called Inverse Telecine or IVTC, and it is a total pain. If you
need help with this check out the following two websites:

http://www.doom9.org/mpg/tmpg-ivtc.htm <-- how to do it

http://www.inwards.com/~dbb/interlace_myths.html <-- why you should do it

OK back to the howto. We need to check and see what kind of framerate we
are looking at for this movie. Cross your fingers and hope it is 23.976.
In DVD2AVI, after you have opened the .vobs, click Options|Preview. This
will play back the movie and will have an info window on the side. What
we are interested in is the fields _Frame Rate_ and _Video Type_. As
long as the Video type is over 95% or so FILM type you don't need to do
IVTC.

To set up dvd2avi, Under Video|iDCT, check to make sure that 64-bit
Floating Point is selected. Video|Field Operation, make sure that Forced
Film is selected IF the preview showed 29.97 fps AND FILM at 95% or
higher.

In order to be able to process the audio seperatly, like we want to,
make sure that Audio|Dolby Digital is set to Demux. Almost always the
audio channel we want is Track one, but check with your software
dvdplayer or SmartRip to make sure. Check the audio track you want under
Audio|Track Number.

Now to create the .d2v project file. Resist the habit of clicking save
.avi, instead, click File|Save Project. This will bring up a standard
save file dialoge. Put in a filename and click save. This step will take
about 5-15 min after setup.

When done, close dvd2avi, but don't delete any files until you are totaly done with the entire
process.

3. Audio

For audio, we are going to use BeSweet and a couple related programs.
BeSweet is by DSPguru, BeSweetGUI is by DD, and I am not sure who
azid.dll and ssrc.dll are by, but lame_enc.dll is by alot of people.

Unzip/rar besweet and besweetgui into the same directory and run
besweetgui. The first time you run besweet, you will need to tell it
where besweet.exe is, do so, but don't worry about the other files, most
arn't needed as besweet can do most everything they can.

Next click on Input. Select the .ac3 that dvd2avi created in the last
step. Take note of the filename, as it will tell you how many channels
the audio is and the delay.

BeSweet has alot of options. About 9 pages worth. Just play arround with
it and see what you can do. The default options are usualy good with a
few exceptions. First on the Azid1 page, I usualy select stereo
downmixing without surround channels, this will result in a smaller,
more compatible file. Dynamic Compression should be checked and set to
normal. Back on the BeSweet page, check to make sure that Use AC3
Decoder and Compress Dynamic Range are checked, and that the output is
set to Wave-Stereo. If everything looks good, click on the AC3 to Wav
button on the right side of the window. This will bring up a dos box and
run BeSweet with all of the options you just set. The time this step
takes is hevely dependent on the audio you are converting. I usualy
expect half to two hours.

When BeSweet is finished, the dos box will close and you will now have a
.wav file primed for divx use. Close BeSweetGUI.

4. VFAPI

VFAPI is a codec and program that acts as a bridge between dvd2avi and
Virtualdub. The first time, you need to install the codec, this is in
the codec sub directory. To install, run vifpset.bat.

Next run VFAPIConv-EN.exe in the Reader directory. Very simple UI, but
that is ok. Click on the Add Job button, select YOUR .d2v file
(smartripper makes one, but it isn't the one we want to use). Now click
ok, then Convert. You will see some odd characters that look like a
scroll bar and a %. When the program is done changing those chars, it is
done. This only takes seconds. Click exit.

Now we need to verify our progress to this point. Open up the directory
you have been working in this whole time (I use C:VIDEO_TS, doesn't
matter though). There should be an file that looks like
xxxxx_d2v-vfapi.avi or whatever name you supplied VFAPI for output. Open
this in your favorite media player, mine is mplayer2.exe. It will take a
little longer to load then a normal avi, as it has to do alot of
seemless conversion from the .vob files to your video framebuffer. You
SHOULD see a slow slideshow of the video and no audio. If you don't you
probibly don't have the VFAPI codec installed, check above. Now that we
have a source .avi and .wav, we are ready for the final step.

5. Encoding

Load up the best open source video editing program out there, VirtualDub
writen by Avery Lee. File|Open the .avi file that VFAPI made for us.
Next, click Audio|Full Processing Mode, then Audio|Wav Audio.... This
will bring up an open file window, select the .wav that we made with
BeSweet a few steps back. Now we need to set the delay, this should be
in the filename of the .ac3 file that dvd2avi made for us and that we
used to make the .wav. Click Audio|Interleaving and enter this value in
the Delay audio track by field. This is often a negitive value, and so
don't forget the -. Everything else is fine by default in this window,
so click OK.

Uncompressed .wavs are fairly large, so we should compress the audio. We
could have done this back in BeSweet, but I prefer to do it at the same
time as the video compression as it helps with some lenth/sync problems.
Audio|Compression... is where we want to select MPEG Layer-3 audio at,
usualy, 128kBit/s. If it is a music ritch movie, or just a movie with
hard-to-compress sound, you might want to go at a higher bitrate, but
just remeber what you decide to go with as we need to know to calculate
the video compression rate we want to use. Close the Select audio
compression window.

Along with making sure we use 23.976fps, we can also improve video
quality by resizing the video data from 740xhight to 640xhight. It
depends on the aspect ratio the movie was filmed in, but 640x272 is what
I use for 16:9/1:235 movies. Others you might want to try are 640x352
for 1:1.85 and 640x480 for 1:1.33 ratio flicks.

To resize go to Video|Filters and click Add..., this will bring up a
list of avalible filters. The one we want is oddly enough named resize,
so click on it and hit ok. This will bring up it configuration box. This
is where you set the output resolution you want. Enter it in and MAKE
SURE the Filter mode option right below it is set to BiCubic. If you
leave it at the default you will loose alot of quality, not what we
want.

Now we need to get rid of those annoying, and ratio altering, letterbox
boarders on the top and bottom. To do this, click on the Crop button on
the filters dialoge. This will bring up a preview, move the slider on
the bottom to the left and right until you find a bright frame. We will
use this to judge how much to snip off of the top and bottom, change the
top and bottom values until you have little to no black boarders left. I
find 50-60 is the most common value for 16:9 movies. Click ok twice to
get back to the main VirtualDub window. Now move the slider around and
make sure that the aspect ratio looks right. The imput field on the left
by default is not always the best referecne to go by, as it isn't the
most accurate. Make sure that the heads are more or less round and that
is just looks right. If it isn't go back into the resize filter options
and play arround a bit in there.

Almost done with the setup here, just a few more steps.

Most people will want to fit there DVD backups onto 1 or 2 cds. To do
this, we need to find out what bitrate values to use. For this purpose
DivX4 Bitrate Calculator was coded by Spark.

It is very strait forward. Put in the lenth of the movie (remember that
an hour is 60 min not 100), how big you want your file to be in the end,
and the type of audio you are using. In big bold numbers it will tell
you what bitrate to use on the right. I find this is usualy very
accurate, but go a little lower if you realy need to stick under a
certin size.

One of the best improvments of Divx4 over Divx3.11 is the 2pass vbr
addition. I would highly recomend you use this to your advantage, as it
will leave alot more room for the high-bitrate scenes in your movie.
That and it only takes two extra steps to do it. I am going to finish
this guide assuming you want to, becuase other then time, I see no
reason not to.

Back in VirtualDub, Click Video|Compression... and select DivX Codec
4.12 or the latest version and then click Configure. Now select 2-Pass,
first pass, put in the bitrate you calculated a minute ago, and tell it
where to keep its log file. It uses this file to keep track of the
amount of bits to use on diffrent parts of the movie. This file can be
up to 50 megs, but if you are ripping a dvd this way, that won't be a
concern. Click ok twice to get back to the main VDub screen.

Click File|Save as AVI... and find a good home for your new avi. It is
very important that you check the _Add operation to job list and defer
processing_ box, and then click save. You have just queued up the first
pass of our 2 pass operation.

Now go back into the divx codec configure screen by clicking
Video|Compression...|Configure. The ONLY thing you want to change is the
very top drop down box from 2-pass, first pass to 2-pass, second pass.
LEAVE EVERYTHING ELSE THE EXACT SAME. click ok twice. Once again click
on File|Save as AVI... it should have the same filename entered by
default, that is good. DONT FORGET TO CHECK _Add operation to job list
and defer processing_.

You now just have three things left to do, Click File|Job
control...|start, wait for 8-10 HOURS for vdub to work its magic, and
enjoy your new backup.

----------------------------------------------

Once again this is highly based off of
http://www.doom9.org/divx4-main.htm Visit the zZq Website at
http://www.clan-zzq.org All programs mentioned in this guide are
available from doom9.org

[cya]

The author of this guide takes no responsibility for the actions taken
by anyone other then himself. Practice safe sex. All trademarks
mentioned are the property of there owners. Steeling Moviez is bad.
Using some programs mentioned in this guide could be considered illegal
in some jurisdictions. Breathing can be hazordus to your health. Only
use this guide in places that it is legal to run any program you want,
and you still have fair-use rights. If you enjoy a movie, support the
artists that made it, even if most of the money goes to people that
don't deserve it. Eat some pudding.

Fell free to spred this document arround, but please keep it intact and
give me credit. [/cya]