[mythtv-users] video formats

[Nick Rout]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Tim Coote <tim+mythtv.org at coote.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, July 29, 2010 05:37:37 pm Nick Rout wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Christopher Kerr
>>>>>
>>>>> <mythtv at theseekerr.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Tim Coote <tim+mythtv.org at coote.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hullo
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've got a separated mythtv frontend/backend based on a couple of
>>>>>>> acer
>>>>>>> revo boxes + fedora 12 standard packages (mythtv 0.23). These devices
>>>>>>> don't have dvd drives, so I'm ripping on macs and pulling the files
>>>>>>> into the startup directory for mythvideo.  For some dvds I can just
>>>>>>> copy across the VIDEO_TS directory and all's well (once I installed
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> libdvdcss package, which was non-trivial to work out as a necessary
>>>>>>> component). For others this doesn't seem to work, so I'm ripping the
>>>>>>> dvds to mpeg ts encapsulated video stream using vlc, ignoring the dvd
>>>>>>> menu and just playing the video. However, when I rip like this, I get
>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>> 6GB file (clumsy to move around the house) and the forward / backward
>>>>>>> arrows just crash the internal video player.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Should I be using a different encoding and/or encapsulation?  Or is
>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> a known bug (I've seen something that may relate to left/right arrow
>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> video playback.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It would help me if I understood how to pull out small segments of a
>>>>>>> dvd, to run tests on, if that's possible, so that I don't spend a
>>>>>>> couple of hours ripping/transferring before I realise that I've got
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> wrong format. Is it possible to pull of bits of a dvd - I cannot seem
>>>>>>> to just transcode the VOB files, for instance, as these do not play
>>>>>>> back reliably.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think most of us are now using MakeMKV - just google it, it's a free
>>>>>> tool which can take a title from a DVD, ISO or VIDEO_TS folder and
>>>>>> remux it into an MKV which works perfectly in the internal player.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nice product but closed source and when they get out of beta I suspect
>>>>> you will have to pay for it. It may or may not be worth it.
>>>>>
>>>>> It must check home too as periodically I get a message "this version
>>>>> is out of date, you must update" or words to that effect.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as just ripping a dvd, try:
>>>>>
>>>>> mplayer dvd://n -dumpstream -dumpfile mydvd.vob
>>>>>
>>>>> where n is the title you want to rip.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then you can use avidemux or handbrake to transcode if desired. I
>>>>> prefer h264 in a mkv, it comes out much much smaller.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I confess I haven't been following this thread, but I just use handbrake
>>>> to rip the main title from a DVD to an h264-
>>>> encoded MKV file, it even gets the chapters right.
>>>>
>>>> Did I miss some problem with doing that?
>>>
>>> No I just didn't know it would do it straight from the dvd, having the
>>> chapters is excellent.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I looked at MakeMkv, but having to answer "yes" to something that looked
>>>> like it was written by the Microsoft Legal Dept.
>>>> just went against the grain for a Linux application. I won't use it,
>>>> especially as I have a working alternative.
>>>
>>> Yes, but useful for post dvd material (bluray etc).
>>>
>>
>> PS makedvd does not do any transcoding. It decrypts, rips and
>> repackages to mkv. Even when it rips a dvd it encapsulates the mpeg2
>> video into an mkv container. Useful for bit perfect ripping to use
>> with storage groups, which won't do iso.
>>
>
> Tyler T's point about the seektable seemed to work.
>
> Something that I probably didn't stress enough is that I've only got a dvd
> player in my mac and I'd prefer not to have to install mplayer etc on that
> platform if I can avoid it as it doesn't have good package management.
> What's a bit frustrating is the cycle time for trialling a new tool: a rip
> takes up to an hour, followed by a comparable amount of time to xfer a huge
> file, which then doesn't work.  I tried handbrake + vlc since the original
> post. I can get an h264 stream in mkv or m4v encapsulation, but neither
> plays with the internal player and transcoding seems quite slow (about 25%
> faster than real-time).
>

why not do your tests on a small title, often the trailer or out-takes
are included on the dvd.