Good Video-to-iPod/iPhone Software????

[JediKnightButler]

Be sure to check out this message board discussion that I had earlier today about decrypting/converting movies: http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8548

DVD Decrypter gives you the option of selecting only the main program on the DVD (which, in nearly every case that I can think of, should be the desired movie) using the Edit menu button. Keep in mind per the above discussion that Handbrake should convert all of the necessary files into the single movie/program as long as all of the necessary .IFO and .VOB files are present in the decrypted folder. I didn't think about this when I posted last night since I was just converting a single TV episode.

 

[Rincewiend]

The people who have problems, do you have auto-play on on the PC?!?
That might be the problem...

And about Handbrake on Vista:

How do I get Handbrake working on Windows Vista? ¶
Handbrake will run on vista however it sometimes requires to be run in administrator mode. To do this: 1. Right click your Handbrake Icon
2. Click "Properties"
3. Click the "Compatibility" Tab
4. check "Run this program as an Administrator"
5. Press Apply / OK
6. Your done! The Handbrake GUI should now run. Note this is not required for the CLI executable.

 

[JediKnightButler]

Does anybody know of any good software that allows you to find out what is in .VOB files before decrypting/converting them? I'm finding that finding and decrypting the proper .VOB files that I want is still a bit of a trial and error effort. Thanks!

 

[BigFoot]

^ Well, what I do is use DVD Decryptor to copy the whole DVD to my PC, and then use handbrake to convert the video(s) to mp4. Handbrake is pretty good at showing you what's what. It's not a perfect solution though.

 

[Colin Xavier]

Here's a solid all-in-one program to rip and convert the video straight from the DVD. Download it here. Here's the guide if you need it. It used to cost earlier but the author is now giving it away for free.

Try it out, I think it might be faster than your current method.

EDIT: Use this to rip your DVDs to iPhone format.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I ended up buying a program call ImTOODVD or something like that. Seemed pretty easy to use, it wasn't free but I didn't mind paying if worked properly and it was easy to use for the non-technically inclined people like myself.

I got it downloaded and ripped a bunch of 1/2 episodes from disc 4 of Get Smart season 1 and I thought everything was okay. Until I got into the playback and found out that the sound track didn't match the video. (It was like watching one of those cheesy dubbed Kung Fu movies.)

So I e-mail the company for support. They tell me to do something about unchecking a box. Did that, still didn't work. Then I get this e-mail back that says something about changing the frame rate. Basically the guy said if the audio is ahead of the video, I needed to speed up the video. So he told me what to do to change the frame rate and I did that and lo and behold it seemed to work.

But I got to thinking afterwards, even though that seemed to work, the solution didn't seem to make sense to me. I'll be the first to say that I don't understand all this stuff including what is probably meant by "frame rate." But it seems to me, if I'm speeding up the video, if I'm watching a long enough video, eventually the audio will start lagging behind and they'll be out of sync again.

What say the great technophiles of Trek BBS?

 

[gh4chiefs]

Be sure to check out this message board discussion that I had earlier today about decrypting/converting movies: http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8548

DVD Decrypter gives you the option of selecting only the main program on the DVD (which, in nearly every case that I can think of, should be the desired movie) using the Edit menu button. Keep in mind per the above discussion that Handbrake should convert all of the necessary files into the single movie/program as long as all of the necessary .IFO and .VOB files are present in the decrypted folder. I didn't think about this when I posted last night since I was just converting a single TV episode.

Well I guess I'm just a dipshit because I just can't get this to work right. I gave up on ImToo and none of the 'one click' programs that you buy seem to work right. They all have issues wth audio and video syncing.

So I went back to this two step approach with DVD crypter and Handbrake. I'm getting closer, but it's still not right. When I decrypt a single TV show on the disc, it cuts off about the first 3 or 4 minutes of the episode and adds the first 3 or 4 minutes of the next episode at the end.

Color me frustrated with all this stuff.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I ended up buying a program call ImTOODVD or something like that. Seemed pretty easy to use, it wasn't free but I didn't mind paying if worked properly and it was easy to use for the non-technically inclined people like myself.

I got it downloaded and ripped a bunch of 1/2 episodes from disc 4 of Get Smart season 1 and I thought everything was okay. Until I got into the playback and found out that the sound track didn't match the video. (It was like watching one of those cheesy dubbed Kung Fu movies.)

So I e-mail the company for support. They tell me to do something about unchecking a box. Did that, still didn't work. Then I get this e-mail back that says something about changing the frame rate. Basically the guy said if the audio is ahead of the video, I needed to speed up the video. So he told me what to do to change the frame rate and I did that and lo and behold it seemed to work.

But I got to thinking afterwards, even though that seemed to work, the solution didn't seem to make sense to me. I'll be the first to say that I don't understand all this stuff including what is probably meant by "frame rate." But it seems to me, if I'm speeding up the video, if I'm watching a long enough video, eventually the audio will start lagging behind and they'll be out of sync again.

What say the great technophiles of Trek BBS?

I think the problem is... the source audio is tuned to say... 29 frames per second (just an example i dunno what frame rate its set to)... and you rip it to 24 frames per seconds (another random number i'm using for example).

That means, that for EVERY SECOND, there will be a 5 frame differential between the video and the audio. The longer you play the movie, the differential builds up... 5 frames, then 10 frames, 15 frames, 20 frames, etc.

So I think, he means speading up the video so it catches up with the original audio speed. In my example, it means speeding up the 24 fps video to match the length of, say, 29 fps. Over the course of a whole tv episode, those 5 frames per second will accrue and eventually fall whole seconds behind.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Well I tried speeding up the frame rate and it seemed to work on one episode and not the next so I finally gave up on it. I've since gone back to the DVDcyrpter and Handbrake method, but as you can see that's not working out the best either.

 

[BigFoot]

So I went back to this two step approach with DVD crypter and Handbrake. I'm getting closer, but it's still not right. When I decrypt a single TV show on the disc, it cuts off about the first 3 or 4 minutes of the episode and adds the first 3 or 4 minutes of the next episode at the end.

Get DVD Decrypter to transfer the whole DVD to your hard drive. Then tell Handbrake to open that folder (as a DVD/VIDEO_TS folder). This should allow you to rip individual titles (instead of files). I did this with a couple of DS9 episodes and it worked perfectly. I even trimmed the vids so they were exactly 480x320 pixels.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Well I'll try that on the next disc. I copied the episodes I needed and I'll just have to kind of manually start and stop the episodes at the actual break. Kind of a pain but it will work, at least for this one disc.

Still it struck me as odd since the disc itself plays fine in the DVD player, and I was actually able to rip individual episodes with those "one-click" software programs that I was trying. They actually were quicker and easier, but unfortunately they just had problems getting the audio and video snyc'ed.