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Best dvd ripping software for TELEVISION SHOWS!!!!

post #1 of 23
12/30/10 at 2:55pm
Thread Starter 
[rant]I'm a little on edge today, because I've wasted such a huge amount of my day checking out different software because I believe "there has to be a better way." Alas, I've come up empty handed once again and remembering why I don't try this more often with my dvd's.[/rant]

How is it there no software out there that can pull dvd information off the net and tell you what tracks to rip? Why is there (seemingly, I can't see the difference) multiple copies of the SAME (episode) vob file on every disc? Which one should I be ripping? Why is there no ripping tool that can tell you, 'these are the episodes', 'this is their names', and 'I will rip them as such'.

List of programs I have tried so far

Dvd Decrypter (wtf am supposed to do)
Handbrake (absolute garbage)
Magic Dvd Ripper (my personal favorite for dvd movies)
ImToo Dvd ripper (again, not a bad one)

Again, I'm just lost on this one, and had a duplicate experience when trying to rip a season of Heroes episodes about a year ago, Took me about 3 days to complete the rips of about 15 episodes. Ideas?
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post #2 of 23
12/30/10 at 3:06pm
I don't think that information exists anywhere. Let me know if you find it.

For some series it's pretty simple though, each episode gets it's own VTS. The problem I have is more that a lot of my series just stick all the episodes together in 1 VTS so you have to use something like DVD Shrink to chop each episode out individually. Of course then there's the really annoying ones that have blank cells (I think) in between the episodes which cause audio sync issues on everything after the first episode.
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post #3 of 23
12/30/10 at 3:09pm
Hmm, with Handbrake you just select the episodes and then let Handbrake encode them to mpeg4. After that I just click on each one and watch the beginning 10 seconds and compare it to the episode on the disc to get the right episode #.

Or the easier way is to just download them. Someone already did the work for you.
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post #4 of 23
12/30/10 at 3:32pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah I would just rather have higher quality rips (without all the network adverts and symbols). I would have no problem if they were all lumped into one VOB. VirtualDub works amazing for that stuff (chopping up video).
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post #5 of 23
12/30/10 at 4:03pm
Perhaps try MakeMKV - it'll remove eps it recognises as duplicates, at the very least. It just repacks the selected video/audio/subs to MKV, without re-encoding, so same quality as the DVD...

Forced subs with TV series will be trial and error - though, I have yet to come across a TV series with forced subs that aren't burned into the video anyway.

Cheers,
athe.
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post #6 of 23
12/30/10 at 8:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by almostinsane View Post

Hmm, with Handbrake you just select the episodes and then let Handbrake encode them to mpeg4. After that I just click on each one and watch the beginning 10 seconds and compare it to the episode on the disc to get the right episode #.

I assume that only works when the DVDs are nicely authored with each episode being a separate title? Or does it have some way to split on specific chapters?

And is there any way to run an AVISynth script through handbrake? I think it wasn't possible last time I looked.

Quote:


Or the easier way is to just download them. Someone already did the work for you.

Setting aside the legality issues, you're still left with questionable/variable quality of the encodings if you do that.

Hijacking the OP's thread a bit, what I've come up with so far is I rip the DVD to individual episode "DVDs" with DVD Shrink (a DVD structure for each episode). Then I've got a couple AVISynth profiles setup in StaxRip so I pick the appropriate one, and then load all the DVDs with the Folder Batch option and transcode them all at once.

This works pretty good except it's a pain to rip all the episodes individually, which as I mentioned above is necessary all too often due them being authored with all episodes as a single title, or the aforementioned blank cells which screw up the audio sync.
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post #7 of 23
12/30/10 at 9:28pm
I use DVDfab and never have any issues.
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post #8 of 23
12/30/10 at 11:11pm
stranger there is almost no variable to the quality of tv shows that are available online. There is usually a choice of a bit higher bitrate as well but how these captures are done is pretty strict to a standard. You wont find much of any difference in quality unless you are talking about old shows that are tv captures using old cards to do the cap. Basically tv rips are flawless today. You can probably get a higher bitrate using a dvd as a source for some of these I dont know or maybe if you locally recorded HD tv you might be able to get a high res of it. But compared to my hauppage 2250 I dont see any difference in the stuff I get. I seriously think you just gotta be in love with doing it yourself to go through the work of trying to mess with encoding a show unless its just not available online or perhaps if its the dvd version and its uncensored. I noticed a few shows I own on dvd are much better like that than what was aired on tv. But thats rare too. And often you can still find even that out there somewhere for download.
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post #9 of 23
12/30/10 at 11:51pm
Back when I used to re-encode:
  1. Mindless rip to ISO (usually until I fill up my HDD).
  2. Mount a whole bunch of ISO's on the PC (I think I had 12 virtual drives set-up, which is usually good for two seasons).
  3. Depending on how the DVD's are authored, I'd either use Multi-Shrink or create a batch file for DVD Decrypter to extract individual episodes if necessary. Sometimes, I can work directly off off the DVD.
  4. Batch files for creating DGMPGDec and Avisynth scripts for individual episodes.
  5. Dump Avisynth scripts in VirtualDub (later changed to MeGUI).
  6. Wait for PC to finish encoding.
I know it sounds like a lot of work but it's really mostly scripts and stuff. The only thing that actually requires me to stay in front of the PC at length is ripping the DVDs to ISO. Prep work after that (#2~5) is easy. Caveat, lots of storage was necessary for the process.
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post #10 of 23
12/31/10 at 6:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ogormask View Post

stranger there is almost no variable to the quality of tv shows that are available online.

I beg to differ. Quality of shows you download can vary significantly. If you get a show in avi format it will almost always be inferior to DVD quality. If you get an mkv file it will be fairly close to HD quality, but the audio is a mixed bag. Sometimes you'll get 5.1 audio and sometimes you'll only get stereo. It mainly depends on who converted the file to a particular format and uploaded the torrent. I'll only download shows as a last resort because the quality is always inconsistent compared to what I record..

Ripping TV episodes from a DVD will vary depending on how the original DVD was authored. Some DVDs will have each episode in a separate VOB file. Others will have the episodes concatenated and split between VOBs.

The first step is to rip the disc to your hard drive. If the episodes are in individual VOBs then it's simply a matter of remuxing them in VideoReDo to whatever format you prefer and renaming the VOB with the show and episode title.

If the episodes span more than one VOB it might be easiest to join all of the VOBs into a single file and then edit out each episode. Again, VideoReDo will do the job very nicely.
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post #11 of 23
12/31/10 at 7:13am
I too find it frustrating that DVD series ripping is more complicated than say ripping a an audio cd. It sounds like there is real void to be filled by some software developer to make a program that has a database of dvd series with some sort of episode identifier, then queries theTVDB for episode details (and nfo file if you are using xbmc or other jukeboxes). We need a Free Cddb for TV dvd's!
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post #12 of 23
12/31/10 at 7:21am
Duplicate post. Deleted.
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post #13 of 23
12/31/10 at 7:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by captain_video View Post

I beg to differ. Quality of shows you download can vary significantly. If you get a show in avi format it will almost always be inferior to DVD quality. If you get an mkv file it will be fairly close to HD quality, but the audio is a mixed bag. Sometimes you'll get 5.1 audio and sometimes you'll only get stereo. It mainly depends on who converted the file to a particular format and uploaded the torrent. I'll only download shows as a last resort because the quality is always inconsistent compared to what I record..

Ripping TV episodes from a DVD will vary depending on how the original DVD was authored. Some DVDs will have each episode in a separate VOB file. Others will have the episodes concatenated and split between VOBs.

The first step is to rip the disc to your hard drive. If the episodes are in individual VOBs then it's simply a matter of remuxing them in VideoReDo to whatever format you prefer and renaming the VOB with the show and episode title.

If the episodes span more than one VOB it might be easiest to join all of the VOBs into a single file and then edit out each episode. Again, VideoReDo will do the job very nicely.

You just need to know where to get your stuff. Of course if its an avi it won't look that good, because its standard def. Pretty much all the shows are available in
standard def as an avi
high def but compressed down to 1-2 gigs in an mkv
high def uncompressed mpegs/h264 captures

Again you just need to have the right sources. But of course not everyone is into this sort of thing.
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post #14 of 23
12/31/10 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ogormask View Post

stranger there is almost no variable to the quality of tv shows that are available online. There is usually a choice of a bit higher bitrate as well but how these captures are done is pretty strict to a standard. You wont find much of any difference in quality unless you are talking about old shows that are tv captures using old cards to do the cap. Basically tv rips are flawless today. You can probably get a higher bitrate using a dvd as a source for some of these I dont know or maybe if you locally recorded HD tv you might be able to get a high res of it. But compared to my hauppage 2250 I dont see any difference in the stuff I get. I seriously think you just gotta be in love with doing it yourself to go through the work of trying to mess with encoding a show unless its just not available online or perhaps if its the dvd version and its uncensored. I noticed a few shows I own on dvd are much better like that than what was aired on tv. But thats rare too. And often you can still find even that out there somewhere for download.

Maybe for stuff that's being broadcast, but that's not the stuff I buy (if it's being broadcast there's no point buying it, I can just record it).
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post #15 of 23
12/31/10 at 10:02am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by athe View Post

Perhaps try MakeMKV - it'll remove eps it recognises as duplicates, at the very least. It just repacks the selected video/audio/subs to MKV, without re-encoding, so same quality as the DVD...

Forced subs with TV series will be trial and error - though, I have yet to come across a TV series with forced subs that aren't burned into the video anyway.

Cheers,
athe.

Thank you thank you thank you. This program rocks. I have no problem converting to avi from this (although I'm not sure I want to, these rips look great!).

Lot of good suggestions in here guys, thanks for the quick replies.

Also, another question I was thinking, there is no point in ripping to 720p or 1080p from dvd correct? 480p (720x480) is the highest resolution supported by the format right?
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post #16 of 23
12/31/10 at 7:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by unsivil_audio View Post

Thank you thank you thank you. This program rocks. I have no problem converting to avi from this (although I'm not sure I want to, these rips look great!).

You're welcome. Seriously, unless you are running short on HDD space, I don't see the point in re-encoding (also, it can take a significant amount of time depending on your system). I currently have ~500 eps of different shows ripped, and it takes around 600GB of space.

Quote:
Originally Posted by unsivil_audio View Post

Also, another question I was thinking, there is no point in ripping to 720p or 1080p from dvd correct? 480p (720x480) is the highest resolution supported by the format right?

No reason to - the encoder can't put anything in there that isn't there to begin with (and quite possibly might make the video look worse).


Cheers,
athe.
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post #17 of 23
1/1/11 at 6:13am
+1 for makemkv, when this leaves beta im definitely buying it. it has ripped every disk and bluray i threw at it.
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post #18 of 23
1/20/11 at 1:22pm
So, I've got a challenge for you all, I'm looking for a solution that can handle the following, the fewer manual steps the better:
  • DVDs with each episode back to back in a single title (MakeMKV can't do this)
  • Execute AVISynth scripts
  • Encode to H.264
  • Retain original audio
  • Retain original subtitle tracks (without burning them into the video)

Suggestions?
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post #19 of 23
1/20/11 at 7:54pm
I find it amazing that one of the metadata services does not include Which title is which episode on a dvd.

If something like mymovies had this information available you could use it with handbrake and atomic parsley to rip individual episodes to individual files with correct metadata embedded.
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post #20 of 23
1/20/11 at 9:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by potts.mike View Post

I find it amazing that one of the metadata services does not include Which title is which episode on a dvd.

Probably afraid of being sued into oblivion.
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post #21 of 23
1/21/11 at 4:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by potts.mike View Post

I find it amazing that one of the metadata services does not include Which title is which episode on a dvd.

If something like mymovies had this information available you could use it with handbrake and atomic parsley to rip individual episodes to individual files with correct metadata embedded.

Supposedly MyMovies is working on TV shows.

That said, Handbrake doesn't support AVS scripts so it's out. That said, I did find my solution (I think) last night, just encode the whole title, and then split it into episodes with MKVmerge.
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post #22 of 23
1/21/11 at 6:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by skriefal View Post

Probably afraid of being sued into oblivion.

Your probably right. It is silly though, omen hasn't been sued and it essentially does the same thing.
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post #23 of 23
1/6/13 at 12:34pm
I bought myself a used copy of "The Big Bang Theory" Season 1 on DVD and I'm trying to rip it to my server. Well, the rip with MakeMKV went fine, but I don't want 600-700MB episodes and I don't mind a little quality hit.

Trying to squeeze them down using RipBot264 (works well with my movies) but the resulting file has a sped up video and normal speed audio. I've tried outputting as both MKV and MP4 but the issue remains. The output files were around 300MB.

Any tips?

Thanks.
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