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Best DVD Copy Program?

Heh, using pre-decrypted vob files, I only get 5 fps with my G4 800MHzx2! Unlike what other posts have stated, my activity monitor clearly shows handbrake is using both processors.

I highly recommend 2-pass. It is worth the time, otherwise you will get far more pixel/blocks appearing in the movie (and you only have to encode once).
 
Switzermac said:
is that not illegal
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It's not illegal to use these apps, it becomes illegal if you use them to copy material owned by someone else under the copyright laws.

This thread is a good example of people discussing the use of technology without straying into areas that would get the thread wastelanded.
 
Ok, even though theres already been several posts like this I'll still recomend what I think is best for backing up DVD's.

First download MacTheRipper (this I feel is the fastest at backing up DVD's) of Version Tracker and use it to back up your DVD.
Once backed up compress with DVD2OneX (best for compressing DVD's IMO, good GUI, pretty quick to)
Once compressed to 4.4GB burn to DVD-R with Toast Titanium.

Out of all the methods I've used to back up my DVD's this is the fastest and my personal favourite, and I've backed up about 175 DVD's in total.

Or you could always use Roxio's Popcorn , which incorporates all these steps into one program, but I've read reviews that its slower than other methods and apps.
 
gangst said:
Or you could always use Roxio's Popcorn , which incorporates all these steps into one program, but I've read reviews that its slower than other methods and apps.
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You're right, I've used both DVD2One X and Popcorn... and in my opinion DVD2One X is faster and gives slightly better quality. Not to mention that it doesnt crash as often (or ever) and is more compatible with movie-only ripped VIDEO_TS folders from MacTheRipper. I think it's cheaper too.

Anyway, I stopped doing DVD backups because now I'm getting just as good quality (or better) with the h.264 encoding and it takes up much less space. I plan on using my G5 as my entertainment center during my 4 years of college so I dont need a DVD copy anyway.

By the way, I just woke up after letting all my computers encode 2 movies each, and the dual 2ghz G5 had finished 2 movies while both 1.6ghz iMacs have about 3-4 hours left to go :eek: I didnt think there would be that much of a speed difference.

Anyway, I came up with a couple more questions :)
1. In handbrake it says that it is encoding 5.1 channel sound to AC3, but the finished file in quicktime only shows 2 channels. Is it really encoding 5.1? I dont have a surround sound setup now, but I probably will in the near future and I dont want to lose the extra sound channels.

2. Since h.264 is the basis of the HD-DVD encoding spec, would it be possible to, in theory, burn all of these h.264 rips onto one giant HD-DVD disc and play all of them on your DVD player?
 
Any ideas on the 5.1 audio channels in the h.264 encodes? I'd really like to figure this out before i spend all this time encoding my movies.
 
cwright said:
Any ideas on the 5.1 audio channels in the h.264 encodes? I'd really like to figure this out before i spend all this time encoding my movies.
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Looks like I'm back just in time :)

It is actually encoding the audio into AAC, and whilst there is a 5.1 specification for AAC, it does not support encoding into that at the moment... I believe it is something that the author of handbrake is working on (though I'm not sure). What you are seeing is that the audio that is being encoded into AAC is originally 5.1 AC3 audio.
 
cwright said:
2. Since h.264 is the basis of the HD-DVD encoding spec, would it be possible to, in theory, burn all of these h.264 rips onto one giant HD-DVD disc and play all of them on your DVD player?
Click to expand...

It will probably work the same as how some DVD players can play DivX movies now... and I've put multiple movies on on DVD and it could play them all. But there might be some players that won't support it.
 
wrc fan said:
It is actually encoding the audio into AAC, and whilst there is a 5.1 specification for AAC, it does not support encoding into that at the moment...
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Hmm, I really don't like the idea of losing the 5.1 surround sound.
Does quicktime support playing AC3 audio, or any other surround-sound capable format? I've used several programs that can decode the AC3 file from DVDs... could i use one of those and then replace the audio track in the movie with the original AC3 file using Quicktime Pro?

I have a feeling that would work, in theory... I may give it a shot tonight
 
Well I tried it with no luck so far :(
I used MPEG-Streamclip to pull out the audio files from a DVD. I extracted the soundtrack in AC3, AIFF, and MPEG-1 file formats. AC3 would not read in Quicktime, AIFF was only a stereo track, and MPEG-1 would not display which tracks it contained in Quicktime, so I don't know if it's stereo or surround sound.

Are there any good utilities availabe that I can use to mux the AC3 audio with the h.264 video?

And yes, wrc fan, I'm glad you're back. I'll probably never stop asking questions :D

Thanks for your help!
 
Haha, I just found that plugin about 10 minutes ago. I havent got it to work just yet, but this is what i've been experimenting with...

Open .mp4 file from handbrake in Quicktime Pro. Delete the audio track and re-save as .mov (won't let you use .mp4 for some reason).

Use the Tools section of FFMpegX, import both .mov file and .ac3 file into the MUX section. From here, you can MUX the two files into several formats, but .mp4 and .mov are not available. I tried the AVI option, which seemed like it should work, but it doesnt.

When I MUX the two files, I end up with a file named "Animal House.muxed.avi" and the file is about 1GB which is about where it should be when you add the file sizes of the .mov and .ac3 files. However, when I open the file in Quicktime, I don't get any audio OR video. Just a white screen. The only thing that confuses me is that when I "get info" from Quicktime, it tells me that it contains an h.264 track and a 6 channel "AC3 Decompressor" track. Appears as if it should work, but it doesnt...

Are there any other apps that might have better luck MUXing these two tracks?

I know i'm putting way too much effort into this, but I think I will appreciate it later if I can get a good worflow figured out now :D
 
I would open the ac3 audio in quicktime, select all and copy, then open the .mp4 in quicktime and do Edit -> Add to Movie. Then you can save that as a .mov and it should hopefully work. You also don't have to delete the audio track, you can just disable it... if for some reason you ever want to use the stereo audio. Oh, and I just tested it with a .mp4 and it seems to work for me.
 
I was going to do that, but for some reason Quicktime can't open the AC3 file... just decode AC3 tracks that are embedded into a video file.

So you used the FFMpegX Mux utility and it worked for you? Did you use the AVI file format?
 
cwright said:
I was going to do that, but for some reason Quicktime can't open the AC3 file... just decode AC3 tracks that are embedded into a video file.

So you used the FFMpegX Mux utility and it worked for you? Did you use the AVI file format?
Click to expand...

I meant I tried the process I recommended... well I guess I didn't fully... what I did was I had the ac3 in a avi, I then extracted it from the avi which opened it in it's own window... so that was the "open the ac3 file" that i mentioned... maybe you can try extracting it from your non-working avi and then adding it to the working mp4?
 
Ok I see what you mean. The only problem is that the AC3 decoder doesnt seem to be working at all. It will say in the "get info" window that the audio track is AC3, but it wont play any sound. I did copy the AC3 track to my h.264 track and got this:

quicktime.jpg


It appears as if it should work, but the audio still won't play. When you did the same thing, did you get both the audio and video to play?

Also I'm not sure why the Data Size in QT says 1.6 GB when it's only 1.08 GB in the Finder... but I really don't care if I can just get the audio to play :(
 
cwright said:
It appears as if it should work, but the audio still won't play. When you did the same thing, did you get both the audio and video to play?
Click to expand...

I just noticed mine was AC3 Stereo. Now I need to find another clip to test that has AC3 5.1... another suggestion you might try emailing the guy that made the AC3 codec and ask him about it.
 
I found another AC3 decoder for OS X, but it doesnt work for me either:
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Audio/A52-Codec.shtml

Here's another possibility that I'm working on right now... but it could end up taking lots more time than its worth in the long run.
Download mac3dec and use it to open the AC3 file. You can then select AIFF and Split Channels. This will give you 6 AIFF files, one for each channel. I would assume that you could then add these files to the MP4 movie and resave it as a contained movie.

I guess then if you want to spend even more time, you could go back and encode each AIFF audio channel into an AAC file before you import it into the quicktime movie to save space.

This whole process takes forever... I wonder if it's worth it? :confused:
 
I think this may be the way to go... you can do it in A.Pack (or Compressor 2).
You can import a surround sound file, where you drag each AIFF file into the correct place to make your surroud sound track. From there you can convert it to AAC audio. I'm encoding it now... hopefully the AAC file will retain the 5.1 channels and not down-mix to stereo.

I'll let you know how it goes.
 
And as a last ditch alternative, in handbrake you can save it as an avi with the codecs being AVC/H.264 Video / AC-3 Audio and play it in VLC or MPlayer. (and you should be able to open that other avi that didn't work previously and play it with one those)
 
cwright said:
I think this may be the way to go... you can do it in A.Pack (or Compressor 2).
You can import a surround sound file, where you drag each AIFF file into the correct place to make your surroud sound track. From there you can convert it to AAC audio. I'm encoding it now... hopefully the AAC file will retain the 5.1 channels and not down-mix to stereo.

I'll let you know how it goes.
Click to expand...

so did it down-mix it or what?
 
wrc fan said:
so did it down-mix it or what?
Click to expand...
Sorry I forgot to get back to this thread earlier.
Compressor didn't work either :(
It will import a surround sound file (5 aiff files) but it can only output a 5.1 track to Dolby Digital AC3 which is what we started with and defeats the purpose...
The AAC encoder does not have a 5.1 option... just stereo.

So for now I am just saving the ac3 files seperately for future use, until a good solution comes along. I'm moving out this fall for my freshmen year at college, which is why i'm ripping all my movies. But I won't ever have a 5.1 setup until after college. So for the next 4 years the h.264 movie w/stereo audio will be just fine. And by the time i have a surround sound system, I'm sure there will be a way to MUX the ac3 files to the movies.

It's a less than ideal solution, but I can't think of anything else.
 
This may be a little off-topic, but how do you add chapter markers to the quicktime movies?

I've seen this done in other QT movies, but I can't figure out how to add them. In the movie properties window, under Other Settings, there is a Chapters drop-down menu, but it's greyed out.

Is it possible to add them in Quicktime Pro or do you need to use another app?
 
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