dvd backup coasters

[OU812]

Hello.

Some discs in our DVD collection have been mishandled over the years. We have also purchased a few used DVD's that were not in mint condition. So a few years ago I started backing them up. I've had great success using tools such as lxdvdrip, lxdvdshrink, gdvdshrink, dvd95, qvamps, and k9copy. I've used several apps such as bashburn, k3b, xfburn, and gnomebaker to burn the rips.

Everything was working great until a few months ago. I've been trying to use lxdvdshrink to rip a few DVDs and cdw to burn them. However, the dvd playback is very choppy and the audio and video aren't always in sync (this happens on the computer and dvd player). I've used 3 different computers (one even has video and audio cards making me think that it's not a hardware issue) with 3 different distributions (antix, arch, and salix). I don't think lxdvdshrink is to blame as gnome-mplayer plays the ripped files flawlessly. I don't think cdw is to blame as tkdvd also produced non-perfect dvds. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it's been driving me nuts for months. I've tried googling, but can't find an answer. I'm kinda freaking out because some of our discs are now out of print. Any ideas?

Thanks.

john

[thenktor]

All I can say about this is that I would not recommend to shrink DVDs anymore. As TV screens are getting bigger and bigger you can see the quality loss. I'd recommend to just rip whole ISOs and use a network capable player to view them on your TV. Save your money for DVD-R and use a HD to store your backups

[OU812]

I'm going to cling to the old technology until it quits working.

Here's what I've been working on...

1. Installed bashburn and used it make a data dvd disc. The quality was marginally better than the disc created with cdw. I then tried to create and burn an iso of the ripped dvd files using bashburn, but it failed while creating the iso.

2. Installed xcdroast. Xcdroast failed while creating the data dvd disc. However, it was able to create and burn an iso of the dvd files. The quality of the disc was on par with bashburn.

3. Installed a script called undvd - sort of a cli version of acidrip. I failed with the following message:

/usr/bin/mencoder -v -ss 0 -alang en -slang off -vf scale=720:480,harddup -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3:abr=160:q=3 -ovc x264 -x264encopts subq=5:frameref=2:partitions=all:weight_b:bitrate=1972:threads=auto -of avi -dvd-device /dev/dvd -o 01.avi.partial dvd://01
MEncoder 20100218-4.4.3 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
MPlayer was compiled without libmp3lame support.
-lameopts is not an MEncoder option

Exiting... (error parsing command line)

4. Installed dvd::rip (most depends I installed from the salix repos and the rest from slackbuilds). I can rip dvds, but I can't transcode them. No matter which codecs and options I chose in the transcode tab, I couldn't get the transcode button to activate. When I click the logging tab, all of the errors are along the lines of this option is not supported by the codec. dvd::rip seems to find all the installed depends that it requires.

5. Installed acidrip (from linuxpackages.net). It failed immediately with a message along the lines of "the user stopped mencoder". This makes sense because acidrip and undvd both rely on mencoder, which is causing problems in both apps.

I've done as much as I can do. dvd::rip and undvd are wonderful apps. I'd be happy using those instead of the dvdshrink type apps. I just wish I could them to work!

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

john

[gapan]

Use HandBrake. Transcode your video to H264 with the quality setting to ~20, keep the original AC3 audio (pass through) and put them in a matroska container.

[OU812]

Thanks for the tip.

I tried using both availble containers from handbrake. My dvd failed to recognize both of them.

Next I tried using acidrip and dvd::rip on my arch linux install. They suddenly had the same issues as salix: dvdrip fails to completely rip a title because of a problem with transcode, and acidrip fails because of a problem with mencoder.

Then I tried using some cli apps, both of which were working under arch. First I tried undvd. My dvd player recognized the .avi container, but not the x264 codec. So I started thinking about using a divx codec since my player is divx compatible. I read the undvd help file and did some research. It was suggested in an Ubuntu forum to use xvid for dvix compatiblilty, but the undvd help file stated that xvid was suitable for tv shows and not movies. Ultimately I settled on divxenc (from sourceforge) - a terrific cli app. It took some trial and error to get the settings and quality just right, but a very nice app.

Now I'm trying acidrip and dvdrip on a pclinuxos install. They're having trouble reading the dvd structure. Not surprising since they're not proper dvds, but rather a few tv episodes I ripped using lxdvdshrink. I don't think I'll be able to work with them, so I'll try a proper dvd soon.

Not sure what the problem is with acidrip and dvdrip under both distros. However, I think I know why I was having trouble to begin with. I did some research in the ubuntu forums and found a similar problem, only the author had strange lines on the screen when played on a dvd player. The cause was too big of a frame size. So I checked my disc. There was slightly more area being shown on the computer than on the tv.

In summary, the divx disc I created works perfectly and the quality is almost indistinguishable from the original (I set the target size to 4380, but the .avi file was around half that using 2 passes). So I'm happy with divxenc since I can shrink the dvds even further than dvd95-type apps and fit more on a disc. So this problem is solved, but not solved.

john

[gapan]

Ah, so you have a DVD player that does not support H264. It's really hard to find one of those these days, but you probably have a slightly older model.

In your case, you need an "MPEG-4 part 2" codec, such as DivX or XviD. I don't know where you got that quote that XviD is not suitable for movies, but it's certainly false. XviD is by far the best MPEG-4 part 2 codec, all movie releases from underground groups were made using XviD, before H264 (or "MPEG-4 AVC") improved to become better. So, if you can select XviD instead of DivX with whatever tool you're using, you'd be better off with it. You should also get very good results with the MPEG-4 FFMPEG implementation that HandBrake includes, which is also probably the faster of all. With MPEG4 codecs, make sure you use 2-pass encoding ("Turbo" 1st pass is OK) and you can set whatever target size you like. 1-pass encodings with QP=3 or 2 should give a very good quality result and would be faster that 2-pass, but you won't have any control on the target size.

[OU812]

I've been working with dvdrip and acidrip in other distros with mixed results. Dvdrip usually crashes with a transcode error, so perhaps it's a problem with the dvds rather than the software. With acidrip there are 2 problems. One problem is that it is buggy in some distros. The other problem is that the default settings seem to be too conservative for playback on TV screens - they are really meant to be played on a computer. So I think my best bets so far are xvidenc and divxenc. Both work wonderfully well and give me many options for the encoding quality.

However, acidrip, xvidenc, and divxenc (and even undvd) all seem to rely on mencoder. It seems that in Salix mencoder wasn't built with liblame3 support (at least according to acidrip). So I was wondering if mencoder be repacked with liblame3 support? If not, how can I get a package that is or install it from source with libmp3 support?

Thanks.

john

EDIT: Edited so I don't sound like a schmuck.

[OU812]

I decided to try installing devede from the repos. Since it relies on mencoder, I was curious to know whether or not it would work with mencoder (both are Salix packages). Next I installed vobcopy to copy the dvd to my hard drive. Unfortunately, vobcopy crashed because of a "segmentation fault." So I installed dvdbackup from Slackbuilds. It worked wonderfully.

Now it was time to try devede. Unfortunately, like acidrip, it crashed because mencoder wasn't built with libmp3lame support. So I changed the options to use ac3 audio instead (and I also used the divx option). The quality was excellent and the .avi files were about half the size of .vob files.

Burning was another adventure. Cdw had major problems burning the 6 .avi files. Only the last 2 files played (curiously the file sizes were the same as on the hdd, but looking at the dvd I could tell that not all the files were burned). So I installed recorder from slackbuilds and it did a great job.

Here are a couple of things I'm working on:
1. I want to try winff (slackbuilds) as it relies on ffmpeg and has some excellent preconfigured options.
2. I want to try handbrake-cli as it looks like I have far more options than the gui. And some of those options look like they're what I'm looking for to create a divx compatible format with a container that my player will recognize. And I may not need a separate ripping app such as dvdbackup.

john

[OU812]

Unfortunately I just can't seem to get handbrake to produce a file playable on my dvd player. I've even tried hanbrake cli and a gtkdialog script I found at puppylinux. The only extension my player seems to recognize is .avi. Oh well.

ffmpeg and winff seemed promising. However, when I tried encoding a movie (both gui and cli), the second .vob file kept being encoded with the spanish audio track. Oh well.

So devede works best for me on my netbook (I'm using a liteon external dvd burner). But now burning is an issue. Cdw, tkdvd, and recorder all seem to fail at some point with input/output errors. If I'm lucky, one of them works by the 3rd try. I've been unlucky recently. So I installed graveman from slackbuilds and it failed as well. Maybe it's just not meant to be.

When the next salix fluxbox becomes available, I'll install it on my desktop. Hopefully dvdbackup + devede + graveman will work on that setup. For now, salix fluxbox is overall an excellent os for my netbook.

john