No big update today, just a bit of a tidbit that I should have realized going in. (and thus avoiding the need to re-do all my School House Rock vingettes). Turn on deinterlacing for anything on their DVD.
*sigh*
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Episodic DVDs - Use WinX DVD Ripper Platinum
I know it has been a while since I last posted, but I haven't run into anything new in a while to cause me to post something worthwhile.
That said, a few months back I had to rebuild my PC and lost my installation of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. Fortunately, I was only dealing with Blu-Ray's for a good length of time, so I wasn't really feeling the pain of that loss.
But THEN I decided I wanted to rip my copy of School House Rock DVD's, and do it in such a way that each of the ~3minute songs were each their own individual movie files, so that I could access them randomly through my Media Center extender.
It was then, I decided I needed WinX DVD Ripper back, and pronto. I love RipBot264, it does a great job of even ripping whole-movie DVD's, but for this purpose, it sucks. For DVD's (at least by default with the UI), RipBot is only going to convert the longest track on the DVD.
On the other hand, doing this with WinX DVD Ripper was a breeze, I just had to select all the little titles in their nice new UI and off I go.
They are now at version 6.8, which is -many- upgrades from when I last used it, so I haven't looked to see if they solved the subtitle problem that I was experiencing before. Next time I need to convert a subtitled DVD, I shall check this.
For now, I am just happy I got all my School House Rock songs available for my 5 year old to listen to!
That said, a few months back I had to rebuild my PC and lost my installation of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. Fortunately, I was only dealing with Blu-Ray's for a good length of time, so I wasn't really feeling the pain of that loss.
But THEN I decided I wanted to rip my copy of School House Rock DVD's, and do it in such a way that each of the ~3minute songs were each their own individual movie files, so that I could access them randomly through my Media Center extender.
It was then, I decided I needed WinX DVD Ripper back, and pronto. I love RipBot264, it does a great job of even ripping whole-movie DVD's, but for this purpose, it sucks. For DVD's (at least by default with the UI), RipBot is only going to convert the longest track on the DVD.
On the other hand, doing this with WinX DVD Ripper was a breeze, I just had to select all the little titles in their nice new UI and off I go.
They are now at version 6.8, which is -many- upgrades from when I last used it, so I haven't looked to see if they solved the subtitle problem that I was experiencing before. Next time I need to convert a subtitled DVD, I shall check this.
For now, I am just happy I got all my School House Rock songs available for my 5 year old to listen to!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Nine Queens Frustration: Decimate + Subtitles = Bad
I have been trying to get a good backup of "Nine Queens" for the last 5 days with nothing but bad results. Something odd is going on when RipBot264 is actually Muxing the movie vs what you can see in its Preview when you configure it.
I have to use RipBot264 because this is a foreign film, so I need to the subtitles. And Win X DVD ripper will not place subtitles correctly for viewing on an HD TV. Even with their new cropping feature. (but that is a different frustration.. so I'll drop it for now)
The SRT that I burned of Nine Queens with SubRip matches in the preview, but not after the burn. I did a prior backup, that synced up correctly, but I forgot to deinterlace, so the movie looks.. combed. I suspect it may be related to the 'Decimate' option that turns on automatically when you turn on deinterlace.
And in fact, it was. Apparently, decimate does a great job handling the video and audio and keeping them in sync. And does a terrible job with the SRT files in the subtitles. They don't mix.
Fortunately, the M2TS file looks great, I don't see any problem with it now. Deinterlaced but not Decimated.
I have to use RipBot264 because this is a foreign film, so I need to the subtitles. And Win X DVD ripper will not place subtitles correctly for viewing on an HD TV. Even with their new cropping feature. (but that is a different frustration.. so I'll drop it for now)
The SRT that I burned of Nine Queens with SubRip matches in the preview, but not after the burn. I did a prior backup, that synced up correctly, but I forgot to deinterlace, so the movie looks.. combed. I suspect it may be related to the 'Decimate' option that turns on automatically when you turn on deinterlace.
And in fact, it was. Apparently, decimate does a great job handling the video and audio and keeping them in sync. And does a terrible job with the SRT files in the subtitles. They don't mix.
Fortunately, the M2TS file looks great, I don't see any problem with it now. Deinterlaced but not Decimated.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Phantom Forced Subtitles
I finally got around to re-doing my Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace DVD this weekend. I had to fix the forced subtitles. And unfortunately, I discovered that for some reason SubRip was unable to read the subtitles off the 'forced' track that is on the DVD.
As I've noted in earlier posts, on the Star Wars DVDs, the forced subtitles tend to be on the second 'English' subtitle track on the DVD.
I haven't had any problems with the other Star Wars DVD's, so I was rather annoyed that it wasn't working for The Phantom Menace. I never figured it out either.
I managed to find a copy of a good SRT for the forced subs, and I've put it on my blog for anyone else that is interested.
So, with SRT in hand, I used RipBot264 as described in my 'Complicated' instructions and managed to get a good backup of the movie.
As I've noted in earlier posts, on the Star Wars DVDs, the forced subtitles tend to be on the second 'English' subtitle track on the DVD.
I haven't had any problems with the other Star Wars DVD's, so I was rather annoyed that it wasn't working for The Phantom Menace. I never figured it out either.
I managed to find a copy of a good SRT for the forced subs, and I've put it on my blog for anyone else that is interested.
So, with SRT in hand, I used RipBot264 as described in my 'Complicated' instructions and managed to get a good backup of the movie.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
WinX DVD Ripper Platinum for the win!
When you just need to rip a normal DVD (no subtitles, maybe some episodes, nothing fancy), then WinX DVD Ripper is your best friend.
It makes a great WMV file with its default settings, and lets you easily pick out the movies or playlists that you want to burn. I had the easiest time backing up some old Magic School Bus DVD's for my daughter. For the simple jobs, it is an excellent tool!
It makes a great WMV file with its default settings, and lets you easily pick out the movies or playlists that you want to burn. I had the easiest time backing up some old Magic School Bus DVD's for my daughter. For the simple jobs, it is an excellent tool!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
RipBot264 doesn't always like DVD angles
While re-doing Star Wars 2 - Attack of the Clones, RipBot264 kept erroring out on me when trying to run an index against the DVD itself or my initial file-based rip.
Turns out, it didn't have any problem after I used DVD Decrypter to strip away all the extra angles used in the initial text scrolling. I can only assume that sometimes, RipBot264 can't handle multiple angle streams very well.
Anyway, after decrypting and getting my subtitles, the backup worked beautifully. Notably, Episode 2 did not require any deinterlacing.
Turns out, it didn't have any problem after I used DVD Decrypter to strip away all the extra angles used in the initial text scrolling. I can only assume that sometimes, RipBot264 can't handle multiple angle streams very well.
Anyway, after decrypting and getting my subtitles, the backup worked beautifully. Notably, Episode 2 did not require any deinterlacing.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
New Tool - TxMuxer
I used a new tool last night to finally accomplish a task that has been bugging me for almost a year. I've been trying to use free tools to combine the 2 halves of the extended edition Lord of the Rings movies into one long movie to play on my Windows Media Center.
I finally found the last tool that let me finish doing this. TsMuxer.
Of course, I needed to figure out the deinterlacing thing first, in RipBot264 in order accomplish this. Once I got that part figured out, TsMuxer easily, and quickly, joined the two .m2ts files created when I backed up each DVD.
Lovely.
I'm created a set of instructions for all the steps to convert the 2 DVD movies into one large AVCHD (.m2ts) movie. I've posted it here, under examples.
I finally found the last tool that let me finish doing this. TsMuxer.
Of course, I needed to figure out the deinterlacing thing first, in RipBot264 in order accomplish this. Once I got that part figured out, TsMuxer easily, and quickly, joined the two .m2ts files created when I backed up each DVD.
Lovely.
I'm created a set of instructions for all the steps to convert the 2 DVD movies into one large AVCHD (.m2ts) movie. I've posted it here, under examples.
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