DVD to DivX?

[Kappo]

In an attempt to streamline my media room, I built a little NAS and mounted my GX745 under my media cabinet on the bottom of the cable box.

The only thing that remains before I can start building integrated shelving in this room is the gazillion DVDs I have laying around and cramed into every crevice near the TV.

So.. I decide that if I can get ultra-high quality DivX files and stick them on the NAS, I can play them either off the PC, the XBOX or the PS3. Would be kinda nice to not have to search for a DVD I want to play anyhow!

Currently, I have a 50" Samsung plasma TV on the wall (with plans for a 62" one once I get my bonus for the year), and I want my files to be at least really close to the same quality as watching the DVD. I had started ripping the DVDs to ISO and just mounting them and playing them that way, but when I figured out the only way to get 100% quality like that was to rip them as dual layer, my 4 gig files went to about 8. So, I have nowhere near the space.

I tried the xillisoft DVD-ripper platinum (in trial mode it only lets me do 5 minutes), and it's max resolution is like 720x480 or something really crappy like that. Needless to say, it looks like crap.

Then I tried the DivX converter trial. Well, I cant figure out how to rip a DVD (although all of my regular media files convert just fine, which is a complete waste to me).

Anyone have any suggestions on a really good DVD to DivX converter that will let me get the resolution my TV supports? I think it is like 1440x1080 or something similar like that.

Any help would be great and thank you in advance!

 

[MustISO]

Just strip out everything but the film and keep them in the native DVD format. Disk space is dirt cheap.

 

[mundane]

AutoGK
Fair Use Wizard 2

I've used Fair Use; they limit file size to 700 MB, so if you're looking for higher quality you might have to purchase the full edition (~$20).

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
AutoGK
Fair Use Wizard 2

I've used Fair Use; they limit file size to 700 MB, so if you're looking for higher quality you might have to purchase the full edition (~$20).

Fair Use rocks. It's worth the $20. Ripping a DVD to DivX could NOT be easier.

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: MustISO
Just strip out everything but the film and keep them in the native DVD format. Disk space is dirt cheap.

That can get me to 7ish gigs per DVD (@ full quality), I have nearly 400. 400x7=2800 gigs. My NAS is only 2 TB and I have used about 400 gigs for my music (incidentally, does ANYONE KNOW HOW LONG THAT TOOK? ).

If I can get these to 1.5ish gigs per movie, life would be great

diegoalcatraz : I tried the AutoGK one and it doesnt support ripping the whole movie right from the DVD (you have to select the individual files), but FU Wizard is looking promising! Im trying it out now! Thank you!

 

[Slick5150]

You need to use DVD Decrypter to rip the disc before AutoGK can load it.

Another option would be to use DVD Shrink to leave the movie in DVD format, but shrink it down to a max of 4.8gb

 

[Kappo]

Ok I tried FairUse Wizard, but I think Im going to have to buy it just to see if it will do a decent resolution. If anyone has anything that will do this as a trial (maybe a 5 minute limit or something?) at full quality so I can see how it will look on my TV that would be great!

FU Wizard ripped the movie perfect (with like 3 clicks no less), but since it will only do 700 megs at a time it was pretty small resolution

 

[Kappo]

For anyone who is looking : AOA dvd ripper seems to have filled the shoes nicely 1.4 GB and I have a near perfect quality move I can play from a playlist!

Thank you guys for your input!

 

[microAmp]

What was wrong with Fair Use one?

 

[Kappo]

There was nothing wrong, per se, but it wouldnt allow me to rip/encode at full 1920x1280 resolution so it doesnt look bad on my big TV I did get it to rip at that size, but it never quite looked as good nor was it as easy as getting the AOA one to do it. The FairUse one is a good product though.

 

[andy04]

Originally posted by: Kappo

Originally posted by: MustISO
Just strip out everything but the film and keep them in the native DVD format. Disk space is dirt cheap.

That can get me to 7ish gigs per DVD (@ full quality), I have nearly 400. 400x7=2800 gigs. My NAS is only 2 TB and I have used about 400 gigs for my music (incidentally, does ANYONE KNOW HOW LONG THAT TOOK? ).

If I can get these to 1.5ish gigs per movie, life would be great

diegoalcatraz : I tried the AutoGK one and it doesnt support ripping the whole movie right from the DVD (you have to select the individual files), but FU Wizard is looking promising! Im trying it out now! Thank you!

Believe me dude, you are better off adding more storage... I have done what you are trying to do... and you can't imagine all the issues you are going to face. To begin with its gonna take heck lot of your time, Quality will suffer, aspect Ratio, Audio quality, and most of all you will BADLY miss the chapters and menus once alls setup and you are ready to start watching... You are better off copying few favourites to begin with, then add more storage, dont RIP...

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: andy04

Originally posted by: Kappo

Originally posted by: MustISO
Just strip out everything but the film and keep them in the native DVD format. Disk space is dirt cheap.

That can get me to 7ish gigs per DVD (@ full quality), I have nearly 400. 400x7=2800 gigs. My NAS is only 2 TB and I have used about 400 gigs for my music (incidentally, does ANYONE KNOW HOW LONG THAT TOOK? ).

If I can get these to 1.5ish gigs per movie, life would be great

diegoalcatraz : I tried the AutoGK one and it doesnt support ripping the whole movie right from the DVD (you have to select the individual files), but FU Wizard is looking promising! Im trying it out now! Thank you!

Believe me dude, you are better off adding more storage... I have done what you are trying to do... and you can't imagine all the issues you are going to face. To begin with its gonna take heck lot of your time, Quality will suffer, aspect Ratio, Audio quality, and most of all you will BADLY miss the chapters and menus once alls setup and you are ready to start watching... You are better off copying few favourites to begin with, then add more storage, dont RIP...

Well, adding more storage would solve the problem, but even a 2TB NAS wouldnt hold everything I currently have, much less what Ill be adding Im sure.

Initally, the chapters were what I was worried about. But all of my seasons are ripped per episode, and since I own the DivX Pro package thing, I can make the menus, if I really want them (Ill go ahead and admit Im far to lazy).

99% of the time I either want to just watch the movie, or I want to show someone a scene from a movie. Im looking into a remote that I could program into my universal that I can use to stop/play/FF/RW so I dont have to pull out the tray for my mouse and keyboard. Maybe Ill use the media center remote and install MCE or something.

Sure would be nice if the PS3 or 360 could play DivX over a network, but I think Im going to have to stick to having my crappy GX745 down there until I can come up with a purely digital solution.

Since it plays on a PC, I could care less what format it is, to be honest. If anyone knows how to rip the DVD with the same quality as I can get from DivX, either in ISO or any other format, Im up to exploring it before I chunk down a few hours converting these things Anything under 2 gigs serves my needs perfect

 

[andy04]

One option could be using DVD shrink, it will get rid of all the extras that you dont need from a DVD like Bonus Features and Other language tracks and also shrink the main movie, you can even get rid of the Dolby Track and keep the smaller lower quality AC3 audio. There will be some loss in picture quality and audio but size will be much smaller. This one will take less than a hour for each DVD.

-- I am assuming that when you are thinking of using Divx then obviously you are not thinking of keeping the bonus tracks, otherwise the ripping time will be double. --

With Divx if you are planning to get the exact picture quality then each DVD will take atleast 6 hours starting with copying... so with 400 DVD... well... u do the math. (unless ofcource you outsource the work to india )

 

[Kappo]

The time isnt really so important, moreso than coming up with a good system for being able to watch these in my living room without having to find the DVD. I will physically only spend about 15 seconds per disk, and just change it out as I feel the need.

My previous idea was to rip them to an ISO, mount them with daemon tools or in linux, and I get perfect quality. I set up a daemon script in an html document that automatically mounts it from the storage server and plays it. Works great except for the space.

If there was even a quasi-affordable version of a powervault or an 8 bay NAS I could buy, that would solve it for me. Having them split up on seperate servers would get annoying. Maybe I should quit buying DVDs....

 

[Homerboy]

FairUse is the only thing you should be using.
I used to rip DVDs to HDD in 1:1 (or strip additional language etc to same a few MB here and there) directly onto my file server at home for the exact reason the OP is doing. 1 server, multiple viewing locations throughout the house (this is the way it SHOULD be done).
Regardless, I got sick of the continuous HDD additions and upgrades, not to mention the PIA of DVDs and their menus and such. I use FairUse to rip to high quality XViD with 5.1 and the difference in quality is negligible to say the least. If I want to watch the "Extras" then I will pull out the DVD. But when I want to watch a movie, I just want to watch the movie and not go through annoying menus and splash screens etc. Jsut click on the .avi and go. You will NEVER go back.

 

[Slick5150]

Been a longtime Fairuse user as well, but I gave that AOA DVD Ripper that's mentioned here a try, but it doesn't look like it will allow you to keep the original audio (DD or DTS). It only asks which audio track you want, but I don't see any options as to what you want it to do with that, and my output became an MP3 file which doesn't cut it for my purposes. Otherwise, it seemed to work quite well, but without that feature (or lack of a feature, just don't do anything with my audio!) it comes up lacking

 

[andy04]

Fairuse seems to be a nice option for .avi. For ISO - DVD shrink can give u ISOs