Best DVD Copy Program?

[wrc fan]

I might've found a solution using faac and mplayer in the command line. I haven't had time to test it out, but here's what the commands are:

$ mkfifo audiodump.wav
$ faac -q 100 -I 5,6 -P -R 48000 -C 6 -X audiodump.wav -o output_audio.mp4 & mplayer dvd://title_number -dvd-device path_to_VIDEO_TS -aid 128 -vc dummy -vo null -ao pcm:nowaveheader -channels 6

edit: It's morning and I'm trying this out myself, and I noticed a couple things that need changing already.

 

[wrc fan]

Woohoo! It worked. It outputed a .mp4 file which contained a AAC 5.1 audio track, which I was able to copy and add to the original .mp4 that had the video and stereo AAC, and it played fine... well assuming the channels are all in the right place (I don't have a surround sound system to test on). Unfortunately you can't save it as a mp4, since it won't let you choose passthrough for the audio, so it'll have to be saved as a mov.

 

[wrc fan]

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?

I think to add chapters you'll have to use FCP. I dunno if it'll let you export the video without recomressing it, but you can add the markers to the video and save a copy of it, then extract the markers (it'll show up as a seperate track under movie properties) and then add it to the mp4.

Edit: and here's an MacUser article that talks about how to add them for iDVD, but the key part is how to create them in FCP.

 

[cwright]

I figured out the chapter markers, you can do it with a program call 'MetadataHootenanny' which can be found on versiontracker. I found its interface a little cumbersome but it works. It will pull chapter marker times from the DVD and save them to a text file which you then add to your quicktime movie as another track. For some reason I'm having problems with the chapter marker times not matching up how they're supposed to once added to the movie though... but i'll see if i can figure it out.
Here's a more detailed article about it:
http://www.quicktiming.org/tutorials/chapter.php
What they mention in the article about using BB Edit to type up the chapter markers is what 'MetadataHootenanny' does for you.

Anyway, can you explain again how you got your 5.1 channel AAC audio? I'm not familiar with the terminal at all, so your command line doesnt make any sense to me.

Are you saying I can use the terminal to convert my AC3 files to a single 5.1 channel AAC file and paste it onto my quicktime movie and re-save?

 

[wrc fan]

Anyway, can you explain again how you got your 5.1 channel AAC audio? I'm not familiar with the terminal at all, so your command line doesnt make any sense to me.

Are you saying I can use the terminal to convert my AC3 files to a single 5.1 channel AAC file and paste it onto my quicktime movie and re-save?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. For it to work you need two command line applications, faac and mplayer. I couldn't find any precompiled versions of faac, so I had to compile that myself, but you can download a precompiled mplayer from here (that is from the ffmpegX site).

To install mplayer for use in the command line you'll want to unzip the file, then type `cd ` in the termincal (note the space after cd) and drag and drop the resulting folder into the terminal. This will change the directory the terminal is at to the directory where the binaries are. Then type `sudo cp mplayer /usr/bin/`

To install faac, you'll need to have the developer tools installed or if you want, I can create a file that you can just type one command in the terminal to install.

 

[cwright]

To install faac, you'll need to have the developer tools installed or if you want, I can create a file that you can just type one command in the terminal to install.

Would you mind doing that? I don't have the developer tools installed...

Also, I tried what you explained in the terminal, and it's not working. Here's what I'm getting:

No such file or directory? Sorry if this is a stupid mistake, but I really don't know what i'm doing here.

 

[wrc fan]

Would you mind doing that? I don't have the developer tools installed...

Sure thing, just give me a little bit to make it.

Also, I tried what you explained in the terminal, and it's not working. Here's what I'm getting:

No such file or directory? Sorry if this is a stupid mistake, but I really don't know what i'm doing here.

Don't hit return after typing `cd `, just type that, then drag the folder, then hit return.
So it should look like `cd /Users/cwright/Desktop/ffmegXbinaries230105/` then you can do the 2nd command.

 

[wrc fan]

OK, here's what you do:

1) Download faac.zip
2) Rename it to faac.tar.bz2
3) In the terminal type `sudo tar jxf ` (note the space) drag and drop the faac.tar.bz2 file and finish typing `-C /` then hit return
4) You're done

 

[cwright]

Thanks for the help!

... but i'm still having problems
I made it through the second command line, but it won't accept the file you just gave me.

Here's what I have now:

 

[wrc fan]

I made it through the second command line, but it won't accept the file you just gave me.

try downloading the file again, I just tried it and it worked fine.

 

[cwright]

It still didn't work after I re-downloaded the file. It says it's not a bzip2 file. When I unzipped the file, I got the faac file and a 'usr' folder. What's the usr folder for?

I'll keep trying it, but what should I expect to happen? I mean, what's the next step after this?

Thanks again...

 

[live4ever]

Here's a good tutorial to follow (it uses 3ivx, but h.264 encoding could be done as another option).

http://shep.thefridgeowl.com/tutorial/files/roadmap.html

It shows how to get a 5.1 AAC, chapters, subs etc.

 

[wrc fan]

It still didn't work after I re-downloaded the file. It says it's not a bzip2 file. When I unzipped the file, I got the faac file and a 'usr' folder. What's the usr folder for?

I'll keep trying it, but what should I expect to happen? I mean, what's the next step after this?

Thanks again...

Hmm... you must be using Safari then... um... I'll send you another link that you can download it from in a PM.

 

[cwright]

Here's a good tutorial to follow (it uses 3ivx, but h.264 encoding could be done as another option).

http://shep.thefridgeowl.com/tutorial/files/roadmap.html

It shows how to get a 5.1 AAC, chapters, subs etc.

Thanks for the link, but I can't find anything on creating 5.1 AAC files. The only audio tutorial they have is using mac3dec and it only produces stereo AAC files. Are you sure you saw a tutorial on 5.1 audio?

 

[cwright]

wrc fan, I think it's working... but i'm not sure.
after I downloaded the file again from your PM, I tried the `sudo tar jxf ` command again and it didn't give me any errors.

It didnt seem to do anything either, but the error i got before didn't come up. So, what's next?

 

[wrc fan]

wrc fan, I think it's working... but i'm not sure.
after I downloaded the file again from your PM, I tried the `sudo tar jxf ` command again and it didn't give me any errors.

It didnt seem to do anything either, but the error i got before didn't come up. So, what's next?

Now it should be installed. You can type `which faac` just to make sure that it's in the terminal path (it should result in "/usr/bin/faac" being displayed)

and from that point you can do the command I posted in post 51 (and f.y.i. the things in italics are the things you need to manually change)

 

[cwright]

Thanks! Sorry i havent been around... got sidetracked with too much other work. But anyway I'll give this a shot later tonight or tomorrow.

Just one question ahead of time... in the command you gave me in post #51, you're entering the location of the DVD. Are you encoding the 5.1 AAC audio track straight from the DVD, or can it be done from an existing AC3 file on the hard drive? If so, I don't see any place in the command line where you are supposed to find the AC3 file, unless that will work in place of a Video_TS folder?

So far I've just saved the h.264 file and the ac3 audio seperately... i'd rather not re-load the audio from the DVD again if it's not necessary.

Thanks again

 

[cwright]

Ok, I just tried your command line.
For now I just imported straight from the DVD like you said before, although i'd like to try using this command to convert my ac3 files too.

Anyway the command seemed to be working, but when it finished it gave me a 3.7gb WAV file, not the .mp4 audio file I specified.... and quicktime refused to open the file.

You have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

btw, when you tried this, how big was the .mp4 audio file that you ended up with?

 

[wrc fan]

Anyway the command seemed to be working, but when it finished it gave me a 3.7gb WAV file, not the .mp4 audio file I specified.... and quicktime refused to open the file.

Sounds like it just did the first step and not the second.

You can try just doing this command `faac -q 100 -I 5,6 -P -R 48000 -C 6 -X audiodump.wav -o output_audio.mp4` again to see if it works, you can also try replacing audiodump.wav with the ac3 file to test for further reference. I just did it from a VIDEO_TS folder that was on my hard drive already, and not from a DVD.

I don't know how big the aac audio was as I've long since deleted it (like I said I don't have any surround sound equipment, so no need to keep it)

 

[mak]

using a program such as handbrake or others how long does it take on average to:

encode a movie/dvd created via dv tape or from a dvd-rom?

e.g.

dvd/movie to 700mb using h264 codec or using divx codec or mpeg4 etc for good quality.

also

raw movie footage of 11gb/1hr to a 4.7gb dvd?

can you specify time/codec/machine

thanks,

 

[cwright]

I encode my movies at 1000kbps h.264 on my dual 2ghz G5. It takes about 6 hours for a one-pass encode and about 12 hours for a 2-pass encode. MPEG-4 (not h.264) takes MUCH less time... only an hour or two, but h.264 is significantly better.

I play movies on my brand new Dell 2405FPW LCD and with h.264 there is significantly less blocky artifacts when played full screen at 1920x1200. So in my opinion, its worth the extra time to encode with h.264

 

[mak]

thanks cwright,

i am new to encoding. i bought a camcorder and have loads of home videos to encode.

"I encode my movies at 1000kbps h.264 on my dual 2ghz G5. It takes about 6 hours for a one-pass encode and about 12 hours for a 2-pass encode. MPEG-4 (not h.264) takes MUCH less time... only an hour or two, but h.264 is significantly better."

whats the difference between one-pass encode and two-pass encode?

the playback will be for my tv and pc monitor.

are the time you stated good?

i am purchasing a dual 2.0 or 2.3 in the next month or so as the mini will just collapse i think with so much encoding etc.

anything else i should be aware of. i have a mixture of things that need to be encoded - dv raw footage and normal dvd-rom size footage.

thanks,

 

[dav]

thanks cwright,

i am new to encoding. i bought a camcorder and have loads of home videos to encode.

"I encode my movies at 1000kbps h.264 on my dual 2ghz G5. It takes about 6 hours for a one-pass encode and about 12 hours for a 2-pass encode. MPEG-4 (not h.264) takes MUCH less time... only an hour or two, but h.264 is significantly better."

whats the difference between one-pass encode and two-pass encode?

the playback will be for my tv and pc monitor.

are the time you stated good?

i am purchasing a dual 2.0 or 2.3 in the next month or so as the mini will just collapse i think with so much encoding etc.

anything else i should be aware of. i have a mixture of things that need to be encoded - dv raw footage and normal dvd-rom size footage.

thanks,

If space were not an issue, I would just keep the raw DV footage... So much easier to edit and such. Then offload it to DVD with pretty chapters when I have the time

 

[cwright]

I figured it out!!

I finally figured out how to encode 5.1 AAC audio in my movies without using the Terminal! (the terminal method never really worked for me anyway... but this seems much easier)

1. Download mAC3dec
2. Add AC-3 file and decode to AIFF, splitting the channels.

3. This gives you 6 AIFF files labeleled correctly for each channel.

4. Open all 6 AIFF files into Quicktime Pro. Pick one track (in this case, the center channel) and copy all the other channels onto it. After you paste each audio channel, assign it to it's corresponding channel in the QT Properties window. It will look like this, with each of the 6 sound tracks having their seperate channel assignments.

5. Now you can delete all the other audio files except for the one that has them all pasted together. Get info on that file and it should look like this:

6. Now export the audio file to a Quicktime Movie (NOT an audio file... it must be embedded into a QT movie). Click on Options to see the sound Settings.

7. Click on the Sound Settings button and make sure the format is set to AAC and the channels set to 5.1. You can set the encoder quality options however you'd like.

8. Then save it! This will take a long time because it is converting 6 very long AIFF files into AAC format, but it's worth it! When you open the QT movie you just saved, it will look like this... AAC surround sound!

9. Now all you have to do is add your audio to the movie. First open the movie and go to the Properties window. Delete the AAC 2.1 audio track first, and then paste on your 5.1 audio track. The final result:

OK so it's a really long process, but you'll get the hang of it. When you do this and add the chapter markers, you essentially have the whole DVD-video saved into a Quicktime file!

 

[mcmadhatter]

Hi

I need to copy my holiday movie which i put on dvd last year to a divx cd for my cousin. Trouble is I have since deleted the original files that i created the dvd from so i can't remaster a new one. Does anyone know of any software that will rip a dvd to divx or a cd?