[mythtv-users] Does ripping DVDs preserve all the features

[Tim Harvey]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
> bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Dodd
> Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 4:33 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Does ripping DVDs preserve all the
features
> 
> Quoting "Mark B. Elrod" <elrod at shallowpool.com>:
> 
> > I would like them nicely organized in a UI like Myth. Ideally you
could
> > see them in a view that listed the movies and maybe optionally
played
> > their DVD menu's in a little window similiar to scene selection on a
DVD
> > now :)

I use MythDVD to rip my DVD's but I tell it to do a 'perfect' copy.
This creates a single file 'VOB' that plays fine with MythVideo,
although your DVD menu's are lost.  The other thing I've noticed is that
this preserves all the audio tracks (various languages, commentary, etc)
which I kind of like, although I need to figure out how to select the
audio channel in mplayer.  I've currently been using a windows system to
playback movies and MythTV recordings so I haven't worried about it.
 
> >
> > What is the format of the DVD menu stuff? You would think you could
> > leave all of that alone and the DVD player would handle it like it
does
> > now but then re-encode the main video stream to mp4. If the player
can
> > play mp4 and mp2 does it care? Is some of the DVD menu stuff is
linked
> > to the main video file - such as scene selection? If you re-encode
then
> > maybe the indexing does not work? I would think you would be able to
> > rewrite that info if you understood the format.
> DVD streams are MPEG program streams with additional navigational data
> added.
> (The VOB format), which is mainly to allow easier seeking within the
> stream.
> 
> Also, subtitles are multiplexed into the program stream.
> 

Is this to say the subtitles are in the VOB file?  I thought so, but I
haven't been able to get any player to allow me to get to them.  I do
know that most players can use a separate file that has all the
subtitles with a timecode reference.  You can download many of these
subtitle's from websites, and there is ripping software to generate them
but of course those solutions are additional steps which are a paint.
If the subtitles are in the VOB, I would love to get them out.  Anyone
know any details on this?

> So if you wanted to reencode into MPEG-4, you'd need some sort of
> container
> format that supported subtitles, etc.
> 
> It's theoretically possible, but not doable at the moment.
> 
> If you simply rip the DVD with a decrypter, it will be treated by
player
> software identically to the original DVD.
> 
> It's also possible to strip out unnecessary features and recompress
the
> DVD at a
> lower bitrate to save disk space.  You can also extract the main movie
and
> turn
> it into a standalone DVD without the menus or anything.  Under
Windows,
> DVDShrink is excellent for "movie-only" rips and recompression.

www.dvdshrink.org isn't responding... is it a stable program?  I've been
looking for something to convert DVD's to Divx on a windows platform but
there is so much crappy software out there to filter through I haven't
found anything that's very useful.

Tim

> 
> Removing some but not all features is rather time-consuming and labor-
> intensive,
> and pretty much requires a tool called IFOEdit under Windows.
> 
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