DVD ripping 5.1 audio, full seek, full quality, 2GB size one step!

First I would like to thank Turd Furgeson for his streaming threads and Google. This reason I am making this thread is because it took me days of research to come up with this, and I thought this should be in one place for others that are looking to do the same thing. This is probably common knowledge to most but for someone like me it was a royal pain to come up with this.

My primary goal was to rip my DVD collection while maintaining video quality, full 5.1 audio, save on storage space and be able to stream to my PS3 without losing any seek capability. The only catch is that to encode in h.264 is pretty CPU intensive and it takes my C2D box ~ 3 hours for encoding. The good news is my media server box is an old P4 and streams these files no issue, with full seek and 5.1 audio at ~ 2GB per movie! Well worth it because I can have a VOB in 15 minutes but with no compression you're looking at minimum 4GB files. Also, MP4 H.264 files are natively playable from the PS3 harddrive, unlike VOB which also require extra step of conversion to MPG. I haven't been able to confirm this, will someone be so kind? Edit: Success! I was able to copy the MP4 file to the PS3 hard drive and it works!

What you will need(I did not provide links but easily Googled)
- Media server (confirmed with Tversity and PS3 Media Server)
- Encoder (I used Handbrake and stuck with it because it is so consistent)
- DVD decrypter (I used DVD43, it's free and runs in the backround. Just set it and forget it!)

What to do This is for HDMI receivers only! See end for optical.
-Get your media server up and running. (that is a whole other tutorial)
-Install and run Handbrake and DVD 43.
-Insert DVD. DVD 43 will auto detect and run in the backround. There is a yellow smiley face in the task bar and when it turns green you are ready.
-Click Source on Handbrake and select the DVD drive and set your destination folder.
-Configure Handbrake
a. In presets column to right select PS3
b. Change output settings to MP4
c. In video tab make sure codec is H.264
d. In audio tab select for source English 5.1 AC3, Codec AAC, Mixdown 6 channel discrete. I also like to select english subtitles with the "forced subtitles only" box checked. Theoretically there are subtitles only when the director intended them ie when someone is speaking a foreign language. I have not been able to confirm if this works, will someone be so kind? IIRC, Kill Bill is a good example.
e. Everything else stays default, press Start and ~ 3 hours later you will have an MP4 file that is seekable, smaller, looks great and half the size! Please note that with PSM, I could not get the seek to work past 1.5x but apparently my P4 box is not powerful enough but no issues with Tversity.
f. Don't forget to manually enable AAC in the XMB auidio settings on your PS3. Do not expect any fancy DD lights to come on because the audio is decoded on the PS3 and PCM to your receiver.

Someone please confirm if this works directly off PS3 hard drive with no streaming as I have no means to do this currently. Edit: Works off PS3 hardrive, no transcoding! Also, I have not messed around with DTS so if someone would like to contribute please feel free.

For receivers with optical only, replace step d.
d. Audio settings codec "AC3"
Please note that Tversity does not play the end file with AC3 and I could only get it to work with PSM with transcode(mencoder). I do not have an optical connection but this should theoretically work because all the DD lights turn on my receiver. Someone kindly confirm!

Happy ripping!

I was able to copy an MP4 to the PS3 hard drive and great success! I edited the original post.

Mgr, my original plan was to simply stream with Tversity. The fact that is works directly off the PS3 is a bonus. H.264 is the way to go because although processor hungry to encode, it is a small file size better in video quality than other codecs. Once encoded it does not use any cpu to play even with PS3 media server. My P4 box peaked at 8% running an MP4 with Tversity. Plus, if you look past all the setup, it really is only one step!

The only thing different I would suggest is maybe use audio codec to AC3 to get the nice DD lights to come on your AVR. This does not work well with Tversity though, only PSM.

Matryx, it's most likely your wireless, but also PMS does not play nice with older computers. Just to make sure you can temporarily run a cat 5 to your PS3 to check. I would also recommend trying Tversity because i have an older computer(P4) for my media server and it works better with Tversity because it uses alot less resources. No thumbnails though I'm afraid.

Being that I don't use subtitles, I haven't checked into this. IIRC, the subtitles will be permanently burned in if you select the option for subtitles and is not switchable. Maybe someone else can confirm as I am not sure on this. I would love to try it for you but its almost a three hour encode!

Mgr, are you using version 0.9.3, and did you remember to set the preset to "PS3"? What you're describing doesn't sound familiar to me.

The codec should be default H.264 if you preset to PS3. In the "Video" tab, right next to the "Picture settings" tab, there is a drop down box for "video codec". The options are Mpeg 4(Xvid), Mpeg 4 (FFmpg), H.264, and VP3.

The "output settings" there is a drop down box for "format". This is where you selct MP4.

I'm not sure why handbrake is not recognizing your disc, did you try another DVD? Hope I could help, good luck!

I haven't had time to look into this, I have a similar issue. Wierd thing is the file plays in my P4 box on WMP11 with XP perfectly, however it will not play on my C2D box with WMP11 running on Vista. I didn't have time to check if I have all the codecs up to date on my Vista machine but I'm pretty sure that's the problem. See if you can force it to run on WMP11 or VLC, I'm curious to find out as well. I won't be home untill 9.00PM EST tonight.

This is duh of me, but I didn't realize that I can copy the file to the PS3 simply by pressing Triangle and "Copy". Instead I was trying to delete stuff off my 2GB thumbdrive.

Thanks Turd F. I ripped a movie last night in XVID. I didn't have time to test it out on the PS3 yet but so far it plays fine on my laptop. It took less than a half hour to rip and took up less than 1G. If this works, I will rip the movies where video quality is not as critical like stand up stuff or South Park. I am LOVING the audio and video quality of h.264 MP4's but man, I was ripping Battlestar Galactica season 1, disk 1 and it took six hours of both my CPU cores running at 100%!

I will post results tonight.. that is IF I can put KZ2 down for a minute!

I ripped XVID using handbrake with 6 channel discrete and it does not play natively on the PS3. Not sure why, I thought it was a supported format. It does however work with transcoding via PMS, and works on my PC with WMP11. I'm not too bummed as the quality is WAY inferior to h.264.

The point in this is to have the highest quality DVD rip possible in the smallest file size possible that will stream off ANY media server without transcoding AND if you choose to do so play natively off the PS3 harddrive while maintaining 5.1 surround sound AND keep it simple to one step instead of multiple steps such as ripping to VOB and converting to MPG or demux and remux or VOB merging and other things like that. Hows that for a run on sentence? People have been trying to do this for a long time and I just put it into one thread for people that are interested. I did alot of research and googling and read through ALL of the streaming threads here on AVS so I am trying to help make it convenient for others so they don't have to do the same.

Handbrake = video encoder
Tversity = media server for streaming to PS3 (not necessary, optional if you don't want to store the MP4's on your PS3 harddrive)

Exactly, and don't forget to select AAC 6 channel discrete if you want to keep the 5.1 soundtrack. The only downside is even with a Core 2 Duo processor, you're looking at ~ 3 hours for encoding a full length film.

Abe, the main concern here is saving space AND maintaining quality. Many were using Divx to save place but the quality is pretty crappy. I used to use the method you mentioned but each VOB takes up 4-6 GB and more if you don't run compression. If you are also storing HD videos that also run around 6GB+, then you will run out of room fast. Also, not everyone has 1T of storage. Not to mention converting VOB to mpeg is an extra step. Simply renaming the VOB to MPG does not work enough times where I found it frustrating. The only time I rip VOB is if I'm going to also want a hard copy burned on DVR, but thats hardly ever.