Encoding to x264

[Narynan]

As it is right now I am using DVD shrink and cutting the single VOB's to a total less 4gb. I am encodng with ac3 audio. I am using less than 4gb because basically I am throwing the files on my external HDD and watching them on my PS3.

Compression? Settings? HA! I alugh at these things. What I have been doing so far is just changing the .vob format to .mpg and putting them directly on the HDD. This is directly after the rip from DVD shrink.

So basically right now I have about 80 movies ripped at 4gb, and all I have is the renamed vob/mpg files.

What I want to do is encode things to x264 and still have my PS3 use them. Is this possible? Do I have to start using something else to encode? Where do I start?

What I would like is something where I can burn the movies to either DVD, and still use them from the external HDD for my PS3 to read. I am pretty much up to using any programs, but less steps is always good. I am looking for multi channel support, and as good of video as possible.

Where do I start? Are there any guides that you would reccomend? Like I said, at this point, all I have been doing is ripping and moving them. Its worked, but the files size is big. And I need to keep it under 4gb because of the fat32 files that the ps3 can read.

Thanks for the help. I know its complicated, but.... if I can get the answer anywhere, I know its here.

 

[mc866]

Check out Fairuse Wizard for encoding to x264, depending on the quality of the video you would like to keep you should be able to keep the AC3 audio and still compress the size down significantly smaller than 4GB. There are guides out there on using fairuse, just google for it.

I'm not exactly sure how you would like to do it but I like to burn a copy of the DVD to disc and encode to avi so I have both. So here are the steps I take, I rip the DVD to an ISO using Imgburn, because I like to batch encode and don't want to have to pull out the DVD every time. From there I mount the ISO using Alcohol 52% and use CloneDVD to copy and burn to DVD, you could still use DVD shrink here.

Next I use fairuse to convert the ISO to an avi. So I end up with both a DVD and a video file that will play on my PC and 360. If you have the ISO images Fairuse will allow you to batch encode a bunch of movies at once so you can set it up to run overnight, which is nice because the process takes a while and maxes out both my processors, C2D e6600. Hope that makes some sense. All of the programs I mentioned except CloneDVD are free. :beer:

 

[Narynan]

Fantastic, thanks! Love the idea of being able to use batch encoding.

 

[Narynan]

Ok, also, what if I want to use H264?

 

[mc866]

Take a look at this guide, x264 is an option you should be given during the process, make sure you select AC3 for the audio also if you are looking to retain 5.1

Guide

 

[boomhower]

Handbrake is a good option that also supports batch encoding. I use it to encode TV series into h.264.

 

[DukeFan21]

I'm in the process of doing the same thing - encoding my DVDs to H264 to view through my PS3 via an external HDD. I used Fairuse at first but the PS3 could not read them, even using Fairuse's PS3 encoding profile. I couldn't figure out why, the only thing I came up was that Fairuse was ripping them using Level 5.1, and PS3 can only read 4.1 and below (something like that).

What I do now is rip the DVD using DVD Fab, and then encode using Handbrake, mentioned above. I use the PS3 profile within Handbrake, and am using a target size of 1GB, which gives me a picture that is fine on my 22" HDTV. Takes around 2 hours per movie to encode and the results are great. I set-up a queue and encode while I'm asleep and while at work. Great program.

 

[AleleVanuatu]

Just download the dvds using bittorrent. You already own them anyway, saves time and will be encoded well.