[olug] DVD Ripping

[John Hobbs]

H.264 is pretty great, but can be slow to encode.  Most, uh, shared
copies, of DVD's out there are going to be XVID/DIVX because they are
pretty good and don't take forever to encode.  There are different
"best" settings on those for different movie types, i.e. anime has
different needs (more solid color swatches) then an action movie, so
you might want to do things a genre at a time.

As for applications, dvd::rip [0] is my favorite Linux app. and you
can use it in a cluster to do your processing even faster.  Don't know
how simple it would be to just "put in and rip" though, at the very
least you'll need to change settings for different aspect ratios.

[0] http://www2.exit1.org/dvdrip/

- John Hobbs

john at velvetcache.org

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 9:07 AM, T. J. Brumfield <enderandrew at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have about 400 or so DVDs sitting on shelves behind me.  A long time
> ago I ripped all my music and just got rid of all my CDs.  Given that
> I can stream video wirelessly from my PC to either my hacked XBox, or
> even better my PS3 and watch them on my big screen, do I need my DVD
> collection anymore?  When I'm less broke (perhaps in the spring with
> my tax rebate helping) I want to build a new gaming PC, but throw in
> as many 1.5 TB (or 2 TB disks if they have them by then) disks as I
> can afford, and my case/power supply can handle into a RAID.  After
> than I'd like to rip all my DVDs to that RAID.  I currently dual-boot
> on my gaming rig (for gaming obviously) so I can do this in Windows or
> Linux.  Since I have to rip about 400 movies, and several TV sets, it
> would be nice if I can make this fairly simple.  I don't want to have
> to change codec settings with each disc, ripping each disc repeatedly
> to try and get a decent rip.
>
> I'd like the rips to be smaller than the 4.7 GB your average DVD is
> sitting at, barely crossing the single/dual layer line.  However, at
> the same time I want the quality to be pretty decent, so I don't
> regret getting rid of the physical discs.  With a decent sized TV
> (56") flaws are more apparent.  Obviously, quality is somewhat a
> matter of taste, but I'm looking for recommendations on what programs
> to use, which codecs to use, and which settings.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -- T. J. Brumfield
> "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
> people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
> --Douglas Adams
> "Nihilism makes me smile."
> --Christopher Quick
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