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Does anyone keep menu's & features when ripping and encoding?

R

rawdawg

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 7, 2009
550
111
Brooklyn
I have a DVD collection of about 200 DVDs that I spent months backing up 5 years ago. I ripped using MacTheRipper and compressed using DVD2OneX onto single layer DVDs. Now I want to put on my films on a hard drive and get rid of the DVDs.

I would like to compress to a high quality standard to reduce file size. Although I rarely watch anything but the actual movie, I do sometimes appreciate the menu and special features. If it's not worth it I can do without but does anyone have a workflow that preserves these features? I've looked around and tried searching but haven't found anything.

I'm assuming the reason I haven't found anything is because if you compress you are left simply with the single file of the one title you extracted and nothing else. I 'could' delete the original .vob files of the main title afterward preserving the menu and features in the VIDEO_TS folder (for later playback) and I could place the compressed movie within the main title folder for playback itself (next to VIDEO_TS) but is there a more elegant solution? Would .mp4, h.264 in .mov wrapper, or mkv be the most current standard (or any other)?

Or is this not worth it, and should I just save my already backed up and compressed (inefficiently with mpeg-2 by DVD2OneX) 4.7Gb DVDs onto the hard drive without further compression?

I've read the lengthy sticky on which is an amazing write up but it intimidates me greatly and doesn't address this! Is it easier than the tutorial makes it out to be?
 
You will have plenty to worry about just keeping consistent naming, chapter markers (and names if so inclined), necessary subtitles, etc.

It's possible that you could archive the extra features, but if you standardize the movies into a file you'll lose the menus. Good riddance I say, but to each his own.

Personally I'd let all that go and focus on getting nice clean H.264 encodes from your original media. I wouldn't work from your previously compressed DVDs.

You also might want to think about whether you're going to replace any of these with Blu-rays before you go through the effort.
 
by deleting the vob files of only the original movie the idea was to retain the other "goodies" as is. I wouldn't try to play the movie or use chapters through the DVD menu. In the past when I didn't want to reduce image quality I would rip the movie then use DVD2OneX to only compress and encode the main title. I would then delete the vob files of the main movie and usually the resulting folder would fit on a DVD so I could still have the special features.....

So yeah, I wouldn't bother with assigning chapter markers or anything...
As for thinking about about Blu-Ray, I hear you.

Just wondering if I should forget about the goodies on the DVD and only rip the main title if I want them on a HDD. Was wondering if others have decided to keep the goodies and what they did to do so.
 
I'm doing this (sort of). The extras I want I rip to separate files and am waiting for an easy-to-use app to combine them into an itunes extras file. I don't keep the original menus, but do you really care about that?
 
I rip all my DVDs with RipIt.

I want all my DVD extras, menus, subtitles, quality, etc that came with the original discs. RipIt preserves all these features.

Although the ripped files are kind of big(5-7 gigs) I don't see that as much of a problem since memory is getting cheaper every year.

I have about 200 DVDs ripped and stored on a WD My Book Studio II external HD plugged into my Mac Mini HTPC running Plex. I must say I am really happy with my setup. Everything works great.
 
tommylotto said:
Unless you are in film school, forget the goodies.
Click to expand...
As a matter of fact I did go to film school. Graduated from NYU 10 years ago. I never heard of iTunes extras!--looks cool but I'm sure it would make this a nightmare.
kiranmk2 said:
I'm doing this (sort of). The extras I want I rip to separate files and am waiting for an easy-to-use app to combine them into an itunes extras file. I don't keep the original menus, but do you really care about that?
Click to expand...
Maybe I'll go this route in the future....

GSX said:
I rip all my DVDs with RipIt.

I want all my DVD extras, menus, subtitles, quality, etc that came with the original discs. RipIt preserves all these features.
Click to expand...
.....but for now maybe I'll do as GSX does. I've already compressed so many with DVD2OneX (which preserves the DVD just compressing the main title) I may as well forgo the ripping process and just ingest the already smaller >4.7Gb DVDs.

Just wanted to hear if *everyone* is trashing the goodies.. I didn't want to be the only one concerned about keeping them (as little as I watch them)
 
Movie-only here. I don't even have enough time to watch all the movies I want to watch as it is.
 
rawdawg said:
As a matter of fact I did go to film school.
Click to expand...

Me too. But I was before your time. I learned to edit film strip on one of these. Once kids came into the picture, I was lucky to find the time to watch any movies -- let alone the extras that come with them.
 
The visual quality of a lot of extras is pretty shocking, so I compress the hell out of them with Handbreak which keeps the filesize right down and doesn't deteriorate the quality any further. Plus, a lot of the features are junk - I only rip the ones I'm even remotely likely to watch in future.
 
tommylotto said:
Me too. ... I learned to edit film strip on one of these.....
Click to expand...
Oh yes, my class was one of the last to do it the old way, digital was just entering the picture but it was really crappy (XL1). We cut on a steinbeck.

Interesting feedback everyone, thank you. So I'm guessing a good quality mepg-4 rip would shrink a standard def DVD main title to 2-3Gb? (Is this correct?) My current system using DVD2OneX shrinks to a standard 4.7GB DVD size so it's not a *too* much bigger.
 
rawdawg said:
Oh yes, my class was one of the last to do it the old way, digital was just entering the picture but it was really crappy (XL1). We cut on a steinbeck.

Interesting feedback everyone, thank you. So I'm guessing a good quality mepg-4 rip would shrink a standard def DVD main title to 2-3Gb? (Is this correct?) My current system using DVD2OneX shrinks to a standard 4.7GB DVD size so it's not a *too* much bigger.
Click to expand...

You can get a pretty nice h264 version of a <2hr movie under 1gb, keeping the 5.1 sound, plus a stereo DPL track and subs. MOST movies are in the 1-2gb range, but many are <1gb. It's pretty impressive. You can get better quality with the associated larger file, or often times in the same size file if you are willing to deal reduced device compatibility by using some of h264s "advanced features".

I rip some of my extras, btw. Never done menus, but you can rip extras from a disk and then use one of "Doug's iTunes Scripts" to assign the group of files a "show" name (like you would a TV show) but also ID it as a movie, that way when using an AppleTV at least, you'll see the movie listed on the appropriate places, but it'll have an arrow next to it and when you select it you'll get a second listing of all the titles you ripped from the disc.
 
mrgreen4242 said:
I rip some of my extras, btw. Never done menus, but you can rip extras from a disk and then use one of "Doug's iTunes Scripts" to assign the group of files a "show" name (like you would a TV show) but also ID it as a movie, that way when using an AppleTV at least, you'll see the movie listed on the appropriate places, but it'll have an arrow next to it and when you select it you'll get a second listing of all the titles you ripped from the disc.
Click to expand...

Do you know the name of the script? And will it organize files inside iTunes, as well? I've been looking for something like this, where iTunes just shows the movies, but I can click something inside iTunes, or even right-click and select "Show in Finder," and see all the special features for that movie.

I don't have an AppleTV, so it's all about organizing in iTunes on the computer. If there was a simple way to sync the extras to an iPhone/iPod, that would be awesome.
 
I started off doing this (populating the Show tag) and it does work on the ATV, but it doesn't in iTunes which bloats out the iTunes library.
 
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