Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Anyone here doing a DVD jukebox on a PC or Mac?

I'm trying to figure out the SIMPLEST way to rip my own DVDs to AVI or MOV for use on Macs and PCs. Most of the s/w packages I've seen require several steps, including using VOB to AVI conversions. I'm trying to find the simplest ones. I know about dvdxdv for OSX, looking for other options too. I don't mind paying, as long as it's a good program. The output doesn't have to be stunning, just as long as video and audio are synced.

I was looking at doing this too a while back. I have got the ripping/encoding process down to a science and get awesome results for all but the most "difficult" movies (dark ones like Harry Potter are tricky) which still show some pixelation.

Problem is that it is, for me, a 2 program, about 5 step process that runs for about 4 hours on my fairly fast (3.0GHz 1GB PC3200 RAM) PC. I end up with what looks like an original DVD quality .AVI of about 1.4GB in size for a 2 hour movie. Not bad, but not as simple as you are looking for. I tried a lot of "one button" solutions, but they never seem to get the settings right and I ended up redoing all of them with my other, multi-step process.

One nice solution that I have found to be successful for some people is to use DVD Shrink (freely available on the net) and make a duplicate of the original DVD, but reduced to about 4.7GB (designed to burn full movies on to single layer DVDs that are fully playable in a regular DVD player). This program seems to be more for people wanting to make a copy of movies from the rental store or borrowed ones from friends, but the reduced movie could be saved as an .ISO image and loaded with a simulated DVD drive, or saved as the DVD files into a folder (renamed to match the movie title so that it is easy to find) and then you could select that folder and open with your favorite Windows DVD application. With DVD Shrink, you deselect the options you don't want (I drop all but English for sound/subtitles for example, and sometimes kill off "extras" like director commentaries, etc). This means more space for the movie itself, and a better end picture. It is pretty much 1 button, but some "stuborn" DVD protections require a seperate rip from the DVD using something like DVD Decryptor.

Hope that this helps. Of course, this is for legal use only, if you use this information to make illegal copies of movies, it is your own fault, and I am not responsible for your actions!

Thanks. My PCs are MAYBE 2 GHz so the process would be slow. I'm not looking for full DVD quality, since the vid would be downconverted to play on my Gameboy Movie Player anyways. I'm more inclined to rip on my Mac Mini, granted it's still not the fastest.

Most of the things I've found are multi-step, probably more work than I'm up for. Strange how hard it is to get the file small. I've had some friends find me HD quality .AVI files of a full episode of '24' and it's maybe 350 MB. That's my ideal sizing.

I use Mac the Ripper and ffmpegX. Free and easy. The first does the ripping, the second does the avi/mov conversion.

OK, now you did it to yourself and went ahead and mentioned ffmpegX. I've been banging my head trying to get it to work.

I had the install problem where it couldn't find mpeg2enc, mplayer and mencoder. First I downloaded them and pointed to them. Didn't work. Then I manually created the ffmpegX folder under Application Support/ffmpegX and moved them there. Still didn't work. Then I tried to just run DVD Player and it broke. Uninstalled ffmpegX and now DVD Player works. Reinstalled ffmpegX and still have the problem w/ those 3 files. But DVD players works. I tried to post on ffmpegx forum but I have to wait 2 days after registering...

I'm completely guessing here, but it might require either(and?) Developer Tools/Xcode or X11 support installed. Both of those should be with (or on) your original installer discs or in the OS X box.

Like I said, just a guess. I don't know anything about the software.

Good guess, Ken. Mine works like a charm, but I've got XCode tools installed.

What is the xcode you speak of?

OK, how do I go about installing it? The only thing I've installed from the original CDs is OS9/Classic.

Is the install procedure the same for X11?

Aha... OK to install Xcode, first, do you have OS boxes (in other words, did you run out and buy Tiger) or do you just have the discs that came with your machine? If the former, then you have a disc that says Xcode on it; put that in and run the installer by double clicking. If the latter, there will be a disc with Additional Software (where the Classic stuff is, likely) or it may be on the main install DVD in an Additional Instals folder. Again, double click the package. In either case, X11 will be on one of the system install discs as part of the installer packages. That one will be buried, but again just double clicking the package ought to do it.

Cool. My Mac Mini came w/ Tiger so I just used the install CDs for Classic. I'll assume the same process for xcode and x11.

Yeah, just do a search on the CD for that stuff.

XCode 2 is an optional install located on the Tiger DVD. Just do a default installation. It will install various BSD tools/compilers and also put a /Developer directory onto your HD with lots of goodies in it. You'll rarely need to directly use anything it installs, but some apps -- especially those that install command-line tools like ffmpegX -- look for things that XCode provides.