DivX Convertor - Should it take this long?

[Dos_Box]

As I purchased the in-car DVD system for the kids from Aldi last weekend on the feature that it took SD cards, I thought I'd rip a few of the kids DVD's to mpg on my hard drive then convert them to DivX so I could fit about 4 or 5 films to a 4GB SD card. This way I could take a couple of cards on holiday to keep the kids entertained throughout.

I downloaded the trial of DivX convertor and dragged a file into the conversion screen. Once done, a box appears with a percentage bar and the message 'Analyzing: movie.mpg'

The problem I have is that it simply hangs there. There is disk activity, but yesterday I had it runnign for over 3 hours with the percentage bar never going above 0% analized. Should it take this long, or has something gone wrong?

[skell]

Having no experience with the DivX encoder, I couldn't tell you how long it should take. However, just had a look on the Aldi website and the specs say it plays MPEG4. I would use HandBrake to encode the DVD and see if it plays. I would select to encode it with MPEG-4 (FFmpeg) (under the video tab) which uses the older part 2 codec.

[Arthur]

I would try either AutoGK or AVIRecomp since they both have standalone DVD player compatibility modes (which ensures the videos aren't encoded with GMC and Qpel). If you only have a few to do, you could also use the trial version of CloneDVD Mobile which is pretty much fool-proof.

 

The latest version of Handbrake can't create AVIs, so unless the DVD player supports MP4s (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) this won't work.

[SpuffMonkey]

With my (middling spec) PC - I reckon that conversion takes about half the play time - so a 90 minute film takes around 45-50 minutes. Use DVD DEcryptor to grab the vob files then AviDemux or Super or similar to convert.

[ZeroHour]

The divx encoder has a few issues, I have used it pretty extensively myself and have had this 0% problem. It works with some files and doesnt with others really.

I would def try out handbrake as I have used that quite a bit myself as a replacement.

[Dos_Box]

Having no experience with the DivX encoder, I couldn't tell you how long it should take. However, just had a look on the Aldi website and the specs say it plays MPEG4. I would use HandBrake to encode the DVD and see if it plays. I would select to encode it with MPEG-4 (FFmpeg) (under the video tab) which uses the older part 2 codec.

 

Didn't work. I was using Handbrake and H264 (didn't work either). It needs to be .AVI t be detected. I shall try Super Convertor.

[ZeroHour]

Didn't work. I was using Handbrake and H264 (didn't work either). It needs to be .AVI t be detected. I shall try Super Convertor.

 

Rename to .avi? what codecs does the car system support?

[mattx]

AVI.net is my choice - much more control over the quality etc.....

 

clone.AD

[Dos_Box]

Super Convertor looks like it's doing the job and it also allows you to recode to a specific resolution. Looking good so far.

[Dos_Box]

Thanks Matt. Thats a cracking little utility and does just the job

[Arthur]

Thanks Matt. Thats a cracking little utility and does just the job

If you have problems fast forwarding or rewinding the videos created by AVI.net on your in-car DVD system you will need to use MPEG-4 Modifier to "unpack" the bitstream.

[mattx]

Thanks Matt. Thats a cracking little utility and does just the job

 

No probs - it's what I use to convert stuff for our video playout content - all sitting on a FreeNAS box.....

[techtopia]

As I purchased the in-car DVD system for the kids from Aldi last weekend on the feature that it took SD cards, I thought I'd rip a few of the kids DVD's

 

What are you using to rip please? I have quite a collection of DVD's with which I would like to be able to do the same thing.

[Arthur]

I reckon it must be either AnyDVD, DVDFab HD Decrypter or DVDFab Passkey, especially if Dos_Box has any Disney DVDs. These programs are the only ones which will remove the latest copy protections.

[Dos_Box]

I already have AnyDVD HDwith lifetime upgrades (from when Vista Media Centre wouldn't route HDCP signals via an AV amp as it thought it was a pireting device!!). It's DivX I wanted and MattX's solution fitted the bill perfectly. And it's very fast to boot!

[techtopia]

I already have AnyDVD HDwith lifetime upgrades (from when Vista Media Centre wouldn't route HDCP signals via an AV amp as it thought it was a pireting device!!). It's DivX I wanted and MattX's solution fitted the bill perfectly. And it's very fast to boot!

 

Sorry to be a numpty, but not bothered with this sort of thing before - can I ask how this all works? You 'rip' the DVD which leaves VOB files (plus a few others AIUI) on your hard drive, and then use something like MattX suggested to convert it to something your media player will recognise? This would be a brilliant solution for me much like your own setup, if I can get it to work.

Edited August 9, 2010 by techtopia

[Dos_Box]

No. You rip the files into either an MPEG or AVI format and then convert them. The initial convertor software will convert the VOB to MPEG or AVI. What you then you take the DVD quality ripped footage and then downscale it to whatever format you require. Which is where DivX comes in. Edited August 9, 2010 by Dos_Box

[Nemesis]

Hi All

 

Thanks for the advice on this thread - really helpful and a couple of software programs that I wasn't aware of the I'm looking forward to trying out.

 

Thanks again.

[Arthur]

Sorry to be a numpty, but not bothered with this sort of thing before - can I ask how this all works?

It's worth mentioning that the method you use depends entirely upon what you want to do with the videos. In almost all cases you would first strip the CSS encryption, region code restrictions and any copy protection used on the disc (such as ARccOS, RipGuard, SafeDisc etc.). The best software for doing this is AnyDVD or DVDFab since they are constantly updated and the decryption is done on-the-fly. This means you don't have to copy the files on the DVD to your hard drive first, although most people do in order to reduce the amount of time it takes to convert the videos and reduce wear and tear on the DVD drive.

 

VOBs are already MPEG-2 files, so you don't necessarily have to convert them twice as DosBox mentioned above. A program like Handbrake can read the structure of the disc directly via the IFO files. This allows you to easily select any title on the disc (e.g. the main movie) and convert that into a single MP4 or MKV file using the H.264 codec. Obviously, if you have a playback device which can't read these formats you wouldn't use this method. However, if you wanted to watch a DVD on a portable device such as an iPod/iPad/iPhone or laptop this would probably be the best program to use for the job. A couple of other really good programs are StaxRip and Xvid4PSP.

 

If you have lots and lots of disk space you could simply rip each DVD as an ISO image file using the "Rip to Image" feature in AnyDVD or ImgBurn; or even just copy the whole VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD to your hard drive using Explorer in Windows. This would be a good method to use if you had a HTPC (XBMC / Windows Media Center with the MyMovies plug-in) or a networked media player (WDTV / Popcorn Hour) and wanted to keep all of the menus and extra features intact without losing any quality in the process. If on the other-hand you didn't care about the menus or features, you could rip the video using MakeMKV or DVD Decrypter - the latter can create single VOB file if you turn off the file-splitting option in the settings.

[Arthur]

DivX used to be the bees knees years ago

x264 is the new bee nees, especially when it comes to ripping and converting Blu-Ray discs. The difference in quality between MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid etc.) and MPEG-4 AVC (a.k.a. H.264) is very noticeable.

 

RipBot264 seems to be one of the best programs to use for converting the huge M2TS files once they are on your HDD. BluRip is good too.

[techtopia]

Downloaded the trial of AnyDVD and have ripped a 2 hour film (first one that came to hand off the shelf, should've hand-picked 'Fireman Sam' or something!) and thus far it has taken circa 30 minutes to rip the DVD to 90%. This is a fairly poky machine so there are no issues with CPU or memory that I can think of. Is that sort of time usual? Is there something I need to set in the software which will reduce that time? I did take out an option about adverts and set it to go to main title, so don't know if that increases the time? I presume that children's titles which are much shorter in length will take proportionally less time to rip? I have a number of home made DVD's (family holidays/Christmas and some children's programmes) which were copied from original VHS which I want to put onto SD/HDD so I'm hoping to speed the process up where I can.

[techtopia]

No. You rip the files into either an MPEG or AVI format and then convert them. The initial convertor software will convert the VOB to MPEG or AVI. What you then you take the DVD quality ripped footage and then downscale it to whatever format you require. Which is where DivX comes in.

 

I must be doing something wrong as AnyDVD has ripped the DVD to my hard drive and I now have a whole load of .VOB files, .IFO and a couple of .BUP!

[Arthur]

thus far it has taken circa 30 minutes to rip the DVD to 90%.

It shouldn't take that long. On my computer it takes an average of around 6-7 minutes to rip a dual layer DVD like The Matrix (~7.5GB).

 

What make/model is your DVD drive and are you using a laptop? Laptop DVD drives are usually a bit slower. Many drives also have a riplock which slows down the transfer speed to 2-4x. Depending upon which drive you have it may be possible to update the firmware to remove this speed limit. Another thing it could be is if you have AnyDVDs "Speed Control" feature enabled (this is located under Settings > Drives). Scratches and fingerprints on the disc itself can also slow down the ripping process.

Edited August 11, 2010 by Arthur

[Arthur]

I must be doing something wrong as AnyDVD has ripped the DVD to my hard drive and I now have a whole load of .VOB files, .IFO and a couple of .BUP!

That's normal. Which device(s) do you want to play the DVD on as this will determine what you do next.

[techtopia]

That's normal. Which device(s) do you want to play the DVD on as this will determine what you do next.

 

Ah right, I misunderstood an earlier reply.

 

I will want to play on a Mede8er (yet to be purchased) and also a car DVD player. The former will apparently play anything thrown at it but I am as yet unsure what format the DVD player supports, it is a Nextbase Click 10.

 

However, I would like to convert to a popular format for future proofing, as I don't want to rip to a format that is useless in a few years time. Appreciate formats/codecs are changing with different technological advances, so what would be a safe bet? Not too worried about file sizes as I will just increase storage capacity as needed, but don't want to have to repeat this process any time soon!

 

I guess a converter which gives me a choice of formats would be good - I can bang out some quick DVD's for the car player, but be a bit more selective for the longer term rips.

 

EDIT : Found this about the DVD player, but not entirely sure I fully understand it.

Edited August 11, 2010 by techtopia