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iPod Ripping DVDs to 5G iPod (iPod Video): Steps That Work!

since i just found it and havnt tried it myself, i can only go by the somewhat limited postings involving the new binary.
it appears that rosetta on a 2.33ghz iMac is about as slow as a 1.7Ghz G4.
someone did post about a Quad 2.5 G5 and its speeds sounded more normal, but still slower than they were in the past. but thats to be expected since its a more intense encoding at the higher resolution.
i did point out also that this was a PPC binary, so of course running it on Intel macs will be slow. the developers are looking for people with Intel skills if you check the other forum threads.

iSquint was updated to support the new H.264? i never saw an update get posted. i know they updated Virtual Hub, but never saw the iSquint update. (edit: ok thats why. just looked it up. update was posted last night)
but, i thought iSquint can only do stand alone media files or individual VOBs. can it encode a full movie off the main track of a video_ts folder? also, iSquint in the past was a very fast encoder. what are its speeds like on the new H.264 compared to Quicktime and the new handbrake?
i used Quicktime to do a 30 minute TV episode into the new H.264 and it was actually pretty fast on my Dual 2ghz G5.
 
dwishbone said:
since i just found it and havnt tried it myself, i can only go by the somewhat limited postings involving the new binary.
it appears that rosetta on a 2.33ghz iMac is about as slow as a 1.7Ghz G4.
someone did post about a Quad 2.5 G5 and its speeds sounded more normal, but still slower than they were in the past. but thats to be expected since its a more intense encoding at the higher resolution.
i did point out also that this was a PPC binary, so of course running it on Intel macs will be slow. the developers are looking for people with Intel skills if you check the other forum threads.

iSquint was updated to support the new H.264? i never saw an update get posted. i know they updated Virtual Hub, but never saw the iSquint update. (edit: ok thats why. just looked it up. update was posted last night)
but, i thought iSquint can only do stand alone media files or individual VOBs. can it encode a full movie off the main track of a video_ts folder? also, iSquint in the past was a very fast encoder. what are its speeds like on the new H.264 compared to Quicktime and the new handbrake?
i used Quicktime to do a 30 minute TV episode into the new H.264 and it was actually pretty fast on my Dual 2ghz G5.
Click to expand...

iSquint can't encode a main track from VIDEO_TS. The "pro" version, VisualHub, can.

I use VisualHub and it's quite a bit faster than QT or Compressor. It appears though, that iSquint/VisualHub encodings darken the image... Gotta look into that a bit further.

Joshua.
 
i encoded my first movie using the new alpha of handbrake last night.
i used the new Baseline 3.0, 1500kbps, 128k audio, and its native resolution (700x384 or something like that), dual pass encoding, deinterlaced.
i didnt have time to see if i could get it on my iPod this morning, but i will do that when i get home.
i did get to do a few observations.
the encoding was slower than real time, but not by that much. the movie was about 1:40 minutes and took somewhere around 4 (2 for each pass) hours to finish on a dual 2ghz G5 on what is pretty much the maximum settings the iPod can support. i thought considering the settings that have been used in the past that the much increased quality and not alot of extra time is pretty good.

the picture is great. however, compared to a MPEG4 i did at the same bit rate and settings it wasnt THAT much better. also the movie was bigger. MUCH bigger. a MPEG4 i did at the same settings and same move length was around 750MB. this H.264 video was about 1.2GB. the H.264 is noticeably sharper when blown up, but at their native resolutions the difference is hardly noticeable. the MPEG4 is just a tad more blurry/muddy looking. color seems to be a tad better on H.264 as well. i will try and use them both on a TV and see which one looks better. if the H.264 doesnt look noticeably better on a TV then ill probably just stick with MPEG4. the H.264 also seemed to have fragmentation of the video a tad more often than MPEG4, but again i had a very limited time to check it this morning.

when i get home this afternoon i will try another movie, and also try and get the video i made last night onto the iPod.
i will also try and do a rip directly from a DVD this time, instead of a preripped Video_TS folder. i want to verify if the ripping/decss portion of handbrake is in fact non functional.

i really want to get all this stuff worked out. i have alot of movies to convert before iTV comes out :)
completely medialess on-demand home entertainment system. its a dream come true.
 
dwishbone said:
i encoded my first movie using the new alpha of handbrake last night.
i used the new Baseline 3.0, 1500kbps, 128k audio, and its native resolution (700x384 or something like that), dual pass encoding, deinterlaced.
i didnt have time to see if i could get it on my iPod this morning, but i will do that when i get home.
i did get to do a few observations.
the encoding was slower than real time, but not by that much. the movie was about 1:40 minutes and took somewhere around 4 (2 for each pass) hours to finish on a dual 2ghz G5 on what is pretty much the maximum settings the iPod can support. i thought considering the settings that have been used in the past that the much increased quality and not alot of extra time is pretty good.

the picture is great. however, compared to a MPEG4 i did at the same bit rate and settings it wasnt THAT much better. also the movie was bigger. MUCH bigger. a MPEG4 i did at the same settings and same move length was around 750MB. this H.264 video was about 1.2GB. the H.264 is noticeably sharper when blown up, but at their native resolutions the difference is hardly noticeable. the MPEG4 is just a tad more blurry/muddy looking. color seems to be a tad better on H.264 as well. i will try and use them both on a TV and see which one looks better. if the H.264 doesnt look noticeably better on a TV then ill probably just stick with MPEG4. the H.264 also seemed to have fragmentation of the video a tad more often than MPEG4, but again i had a very limited time to check it this morning.

when i get home this afternoon i will try another movie, and also try and get the video i made last night onto the iPod.
i will also try and do a rip directly from a DVD this time, instead of a preripped Video_TS folder. i want to verify if the ripping/decss portion of handbrake is in fact non functional.

i really want to get all this stuff worked out. i have alot of movies to convert before iTV comes out :)
completely medialess on-demand home entertainment system. its a dream come true.
Click to expand...

I highly doubt that you'll get the encoded video to work on the iPod. I haven't had any luck encoding iPod-compatible H.264 *beyond* 640x*** and I've tried with several programs including the latest build of HB.

There is no way that a MPEG-4 file is bigger than a H.264 file with the same bitrate. There must be some mistake there. A 60 second video clip at 1000kbps takes up 60000kb or 7.324MB of space regardless of whether its MPEG-4, H.264 or WMV.

BTW, DVD native resolution is 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) but since it's anamorphic (squashed @ 4:3 resolutions mentioned earlier), DVDs are essentially 1024x576 (PAL) or 852x480 (NTSC) when stretched out. The highest resolution that HB allows me to do is 720x400 (16:9) and 720x304 (2.35:1) and these are in no way native resolutions.

Joshua.
 
MacinJosh said:
I highly doubt that you'll get the encoded video to work on the iPod. I haven't had any luck encoding iPod-compatible H.264 *beyond* 640x*** and I've tried with several programs including the latest build of HB.

There is no way that a MPEG-4 file is bigger than a H.264 file with the same bitrate. There must be some mistake there. A 60 second video clip at 1000kbps takes up 60000kb or 58.6MB of space regardless of whether its MPEG-4, H.264 or WMV.

BTW, DVD native resolution is 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) but since it's anamorphic (squashed @ 4:3 resolutions mentioned earlier), DVDs are essentially 1024x576 (PAL) or 852x480 (NTSC) when stretched out. The highest resolution that HB allows me to do is 720x400 (16:9) and 720x304 (2.35:1) and these are in no way native resolutions.

Joshua.
Click to expand...


you may have read my post wrong. i said the H.264 was much bigger than the MPEG4. not the other way around. i made sure all of my settings were exactly the same as the last MPEG4 that i did. they were different movies, but they were roughly the same length, dimensions were very close, same encoding bit rate, audio rate, etc. all that was changed was the video codec. and codec does change file sizes due to the fact certain ones are much better at compression than others. we deal with WMV (god help the video department) and ive taken their raw video and exported them to quicktime formats at the same rates, and the files are different in size.
i dont remember the exact resolution i ripped it at, but it was in the 700 x 300 range. dont remember the exact rez. i didnt adjust anything, so whatever it was it was the native rez of the DVD.i can always put that DVD in again and find out. but i dont believe it was the 720x304, as i have made movies with that rez before. the total number of pixels were significantly less than 640x480 though.
as far as will it copy to my iPod or not? ill find out in a few hours when i get home. if it doesnt work ill scale it back to 640x*** and try again.
 
dwishbone said:
you may have read my post wrong. i said the H.264 was much bigger than the MPEG4. not the other way around. i made sure all of my settings were exactly the same as the last MPEG4 that i did. they were different movies, but they were roughly the same length, dimensions were very close, same encoding bit rate, audio rate, etc. all that was changed was the video codec. and codec does change file sizes due to the fact certain ones are much better at compression than others. we deal with WMV (god help the video department) and ive taken their raw video and exported them to quicktime formats at the same rates, and the files are different in size.
Click to expand...

I just told you that any video file of the same length and bitrate is the same size no matter if it's H.264, MPEG4, WMV, DivX, or anything. Bitrate has nothing to do with codecs or resolution. Please don't argue about stuff you don't understand. You'll just make a fool of yourself in public. So the fact that your H.264 file was bigger than the MPEG-4 is either:

1. They're significantly different in lenght
2. HB screwed up
3. You remember incorrectly or goofed up with the settings

As for an explanation on why different codecs of the same movie are the same size with the same bitrate. I'll try explain the best I can (I know someone can do it a lot better). What a lot of people get confused with is this:

A movie that has been encoded in both MPEG-4 and H.264 at the same bitrate have the same filesize. However, the H.264 version looks a lot better. Why? Because it is a superior codec. To have the same quality the bitrate of the H.264 version would have to be lowered resulting in a smaller filesize. That's why H.264 is prefered because it achieves an excellent quality at a lower bitrate than MPEG-4.

EDIT: You can easily determine the bitrate of any video clip. All you need to know is the size of the file and its duration. Let's take my earlier example (I had put 58.6MB earlier which is incorrect, its 58.6Mb, or 7.324MB):

Video size is 7.324MB and duration is 1 minute

= 7.324MB x 8 = 58.6Mbits, 58.6Mb x 1024 = 60000kbits
=60000kb / 60seconds = 1000kbps

Now don't go and expect that when you put 1000kbps in HB that it will be exactly 1000kbps. It's an average bitrate and it can vary but not by much. Some program's add the audio's bitrate on that as well. Also allow a small margin of difference with different encoders in HB. If you get a 20MB difference in an MPEG-4 and H.264 file of a long movie, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong.

If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.


dwishbone said:
i dont remember the exact resolution i ripped it at, but it was in the 700 x 300 range. dont remember the exact rez. i didnt adjust anything, so whatever it was it was the native rez of the DVD.i can always put that DVD in again and find out. but i dont believe it was the 720x304, as i have made movies with that rez before. the total number of pixels were significantly less than 640x480 though.
as far as will it copy to my iPod or not? ill find out in a few hours when i get home. if it doesnt work ill scale it back to 640x*** and try again.
Click to expand...

Again, I just told you what the native rez of the DVD is. You didn't encode with the native rez. You're just throwing other people off with your mumbo jumbo.

As for the iPod playing resolutions higher than 640x480, you'd think that it would play 720x400 or 720x304 as they fall whithin the maximum macroblock range. Total pixel count is not an accurate enough method of determining if a video will play on the iPod or not. Anyway, according to my tests the iPod does not play them. It does play 720x400 MPEG-4 files though.

Joshua.
 
ok im home. i double checked the latest MPEG4 and H.264 file i did.
they are the same length (by a minute or two), the MPEG 4 is 720x304 and the H.264 is 720x400. i already said i didnt remember exactly what it was and i was posting it out of memory (and would correct myself when i got where i could see it again). no reason to act prickish/elitist about it (such as the mumbo jumbo comment and a few other things). anyway, the bit rates, audio rates, etc all match up. when i get info in quicktime the only difference is the codec. the mpeg4 is mpeg4 and the H.264 is showing as H.264 low complexity.
the file sizes are still vastly different. so im not sure why that is since you say it shouldnt. but it is what it is. would the extra pixels make it THAT much bigger?
the file didnt transfer to the iPod as you predicted. thats why its a test.
i am reencoding the movie again at the 640x*** resolution and see if that works.
it is possible, as you said, that handbrake could have screwed up on the encoding (it is alpha afterall), but when as i said before when the info is gotten in quicktime everything matches with the files except their codecs and the resolution.
again, i am trying to post here to help others with my experience in getting H.264 to work. if its not wanted then i wont post here any further on the subject and leave everyone to their own devices.
right now im trying to decide which codec i should use overall. on the iPod it wont make much of a difference. im more aiming for the top quality for iTV. right now im looking at either MPEG4 1500 at 720x*** or H.264 1500 at 640x***.
the H.264 looks better, but not by much and takes much longer time to encode (and file size is still puzzling). im just trying to figure out if the extra time is worth it.
 
ok. the reconvert is finished.
i used the same settings as before, but i scaled it back to 640x368 from the 720x400 from the original.
the file loaded and played fine on the iPod using the new Handbrake Alpha.
Handbrake Settings
H.264 Baseline 3.0
Resolution 640x368
Bitrate 1500
Audio 128/44/2channel stereo
Deinterlace
Runtime 1:44
Size 1.14GB

i noticed this encode was a tad slower than yesterday. im not sure why. yesterday it took about 2 hours per pass on the video. today it took a little over 2 1/2 hours per pass. im ripping an MPEG4 of the same movie right now with the same settings as a comparison. with the same settings it looks like it is going to take about 50 minutes.
 
dwishbone said:
ok im home. i double checked the latest MPEG4 and H.264 file i did.
they are the same length (by a minute or two), the MPEG 4 is 720x304 and the H.264 is 720x400. i already said i didnt remember exactly what it was and i was posting it out of memory (and would correct myself when i got where i could see it again). no reason to act prickish/elitist about it (such as the mumbo jumbo comment and a few other things). anyway, the bit rates, audio rates, etc all match up. when i get info in quicktime the only difference is the codec. the mpeg4 is mpeg4 and the H.264 is showing as H.264 low complexity.
the file sizes are still vastly different. so im not sure why that is since you say it shouldnt. but it is what it is. would the extra pixels make it THAT much bigger?
the file didnt transfer to the iPod as you predicted. thats why its a test.
i am reencoding the movie again at the 640x*** resolution and see if that works.
it is possible, as you said, that handbrake could have screwed up on the encoding (it is alpha afterall), but when as i said before when the info is gotten in quicktime everything matches with the files except their codecs and the resolution.
again, i am trying to post here to help others with my experience in getting H.264 to work. if its not wanted then i wont post here any further on the subject and leave everyone to their own devices.
right now im trying to decide which codec i should use overall. on the iPod it wont make much of a difference. im more aiming for the top quality for iTV. right now im looking at either MPEG4 1500 at 720x*** or H.264 1500 at 640x***.
the H.264 looks better, but not by much and takes much longer time to encode (and file size is still puzzling). im just trying to figure out if the extra time is worth it.
Click to expand...

I don't want to be a prick and I apologize for that. I just get worked up when people start talking about stuff that they don't understand.

Might I suggest that you encode a single chapter in HB instead of the whole movie for test purposes. It's a lot quicker that way. Try different codecs and choose which one suits you best.

Joshua.

PS. I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate a few capital letters here and there. Makes your text much more readable.
 
ok i reconverted the same movie in MPEG4 with the same settings as the H.264 i did.
Handbrake Settings
MPEG4/FFMEG
Resolution 640x368
Bitrate 1500
Audio 128/44/2channel stereo
Deinterlace
Runtime 1:44
Size 1.11GB

side by side at that high bitrate i cant tell much of a difference in quality.
would lowering the bit rate to like 1000 still keep pretty much the same quality as 1500 in H.264? id expect H.264 to hold up better at the lower rates than MPEG4 would. right now though with the much longer encoding times, at that bit rate i dont see the reason to use H.264 and not MPEG4. 2 1/2 hours per pass compared to a 50 min pass for the same 1:44 movie with no real visible difference.

but still the point of this thread is that H.264 DVD rips are now easy again with the new handbrake. joy
 
Cool. What I like to do is:

1h 30min - 2h movies = 700MB H.264
2h or greater = 1.07GB H.264 (That way you can backup 4 files into one DVD)
TV-Shows = 350MB H.264

But that's just me. This gives me decent and consistent file sizes while maintaining a good picture quality.

Joshua.
 
so you use the file size contraint instead of manually doing the bit rate then.
do you think that H.264 is worth the extra encoding time? it seems to take much longer and its not nearly as noticeable as id have expected. but, it is probably more noticeable at the lower sizes.
thats not a bad size scheme for movies and shows.
my goal is to reach the best happy medium between size/quality that both suits the iTV and the iPod the best overall way.
what pains me is i have about 30 of my DVDs ripped in the old formats H.264 and MPEG4 formats. most of them ill need to go rerip/reencode at the new specs. im taking a long vacation in november, maybe it will give me something to do.
 
dwishbone said:
so you use the file size contraint instead of manually doing the bit rate then.
do you think that H.264 is worth the extra encoding time? it seems to take much longer and its not nearly as noticeable as id have expected. but, it is probably more noticeable at the lower sizes.
thats not a bad size scheme for movies and shows.
my goal is to reach the best happy medium between size/quality that both suits the iTV and the iPod the best overall way.
what pains me is i have about 30 of my DVDs ripped in the old formats H.264 and MPEG4 formats. most of them ill need to go rerip/reencode at the new specs. im taking a long vacation in november, maybe it will give me something to do.
Click to expand...

H.264 is definately worth the extra encoding time and it doesn't take that long on my intel iMac. I usually leave all the encodings running through the night and while I'm at work so I get 2 DVDs encoded to H.264 (2-pass) in a day if I want. I just don't know why we can't get higher resolutions of H.264 than 640x***. Maybe someone will figure a workaround.

Joshua.
 
Can someone open up a movie purchased from the iTunes store in Quicktime and take a screen shot of the "Movie Info" pane?
 
where is everyone getting this new handbrake? I still have 0.7.1 which looks like it was updated ages ago, and I'm not able to successfully play a movie ripped with the new higher resolution.
 
scroll up. i posted the link in this thread.
but here it is again http://www.evolutionkakumei.com/HandBrake0.7.1a1PPC.zip
its alpha quality, but it works. it is recommended use the new handbrake only for the new H.264 format. use the current official handbrake release for everything else. also, things such as ripping from encryped DVDs are currently not fuctional. you must first run it though a DeCSS ripper such as MactheRipper and then convert from that.
i would post a screenshot of a movie from iTunes, but i wont buy one EVER until they let me burn it to a DVD. sorry...just not going to to Apple.
ive heard they use 1500kpbs h.264 baseline 3 (LC)/128 stereo for the movie encoding though.
 
another interesting method was posted at the handbrake forums.
From a post there:

"The easiest way to go from DVD to iPod with VisualHub would be with the OSEx ripper (available on macupdate.com). You can select the main title from the DVD, choose the language you want and have it ripped to a single .VOB file (choose 'prog. streams' in the 'Fmt' button). No need for stitching or whatever. For multiple DVDs you can create a queue of .vob's in VisualHub then and batch process one after the other. Main drawback is that OSEx is an older program, so new methods of encrypting won't be dealt with (but for most DVDs it will work fine). Hopefully, a new MacTheRipper will solve this soon."

and a followup:

"Dudes, this method rocks! Next best thing to handbrake...

So I've done this using isquint (free unlike visual hub, although VH is an awesome program) and OSEx for five movies now (braveheart, point break, training day, pirates of the caribbean and good will hunting) and it works fine. In OSEx I just uncheck the languages I don't want (thus leaving only "en" (english) and extract. Then drag the .vob to iSquint and convert away! It takes a few hours but it does h.264, 640x width and a little over 1500 kbps... man the movies look very good on my imac and iPod"



I may try this. If i can rip a DVD into single a single VOB and then q then up into iSquint for the conversion, that might save alot of time and will give me a native way to do it on my Macbook Pro and not be limited to my Dual G5.
 
dwishbone said:
another interesting method was posted at the handbrake forums.
From a post there:

"The easiest way to go from DVD to iPod with VisualHub would be with the OSEx ripper (available on macupdate.com). You can select the main title from the DVD, choose the language you want and have it ripped to a single .VOB file (choose 'prog. streams' in the 'Fmt' button). No need for stitching or whatever. For multiple DVDs you can create a queue of .vob's in VisualHub then and batch process one after the other. Main drawback is that OSEx is an older program, so new methods of encrypting won't be dealt with (but for most DVDs it will work fine). Hopefully, a new MacTheRipper will solve this soon."

and a followup:

"Dudes, this method rocks! Next best thing to handbrake...

So I've done this using isquint (free unlike visual hub, although VH is an awesome program) and OSEx for five movies now (braveheart, point break, training day, pirates of the caribbean and good will hunting) and it works fine. In OSEx I just uncheck the languages I don't want (thus leaving only "en" (english) and extract. Then drag the .vob to iSquint and convert away! It takes a few hours but it does h.264, 640x width and a little over 1500 kbps... man the movies look very good on my imac and iPod"



I may try this. If i can rip a DVD into single a single VOB and then q then up into iSquint for the conversion, that might save alot of time and will give me a native way to do it on my Macbook Pro and not be limited to my Dual G5.
Click to expand...

I've done DVD-to-iPod conversions in VisualHub for a month now. Works great. VisualHub can convert the main feature directly from the VIDEO_TS folder.

Joshua.
 
Is there any way that I can only rip the Music from a DVD. What I want to do is rip the music from my U2 live DVD so I can listen to the music without the pictures therefore not draining the battery?
 
im sure there are other ways, but MactheRipper can rip out the elementary streams of a DVD. you can rip the AC3 audio off the DVD and then use an AC3 converter to convert that audio to MP3,AAC, or whatever you'd like.

and just an update. that alpha for Handbrake is really working great for DVD conversions.
the H.264 files it churns out, even at the 700MB - 1000MB file sizes im using looks excellent, but does take quite awhile to create.
and of course i use iSquint for normal file conversions.
I have yet to try the OSex/iSquint combination yet.
 
IJC said:
Is there any way that I can only rip the Music from a DVD. What I want to do is rip the music from my U2 live DVD so I can listen to the music without the pictures therefore not draining the battery?
Click to expand...

I use Handbrake to rip the individual songs (often they're the chapters on the DVD) and then use Quicktime Pro to export the audio.
 
iPod Movie

Dont know if this is the correct forum for my question, but here it is any way.
I used Handbrake to rip a movie from my DVD it worked great it shows up in my iTunes movie folder, but when I try to sync my iPod 80gig
Video to get the movie to it nothing happens what might I be doing wrong.
My iPod was recently synced with my Windows computer, could this be a problem.
Thanks for any help
Racerdog55
 
did it say that the video wasnt compatible or anything?
are you using sync automatically or manually?
also check your sync settings. i had the problem yesterday with a few of my movies, but i found for some reason the sync had been set to a strange setting. i changed it and it worked fine.
also, if they are movies/shows make sure they show up in the sync list. hope that points you in the right direction.
 
dwishbone said:
im sure there are other ways, but MactheRipper can rip out the elementary streams of a DVD. you can rip the AC3 audio off the DVD and then use an AC3 converter to convert that audio to MP3,AAC, or whatever you'd like.

and just an update. that alpha for Handbrake is really working great for DVD conversions.
the H.264 files it churns out, even at the 700MB - 1000MB file sizes im using looks excellent, but does take quite awhile to create.
and of course i use iSquint for normal file conversions.
I have yet to try the OSex/iSquint combination yet.
Click to expand...

MactheRipper is highly recommended. I have no trouble with it extracting DVD content and then use Popcorn to write to another DVD.
 
Pardon me if I'm repeating, but my method is thus:

Rip to MP4 in Handbrake at 100% quality. I cranked the sound quality up too on the off chance it might help. Then I re-encode in iSquint (optimize for tv and H.264 and "go nuts" quality). I've been very pleased.

Just another method others might want to try. In fact, lemme know if other ways work better. :)

Beer :)
 
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