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Can't find a DVD ripping guide with info I want

1425 Views 11 Replies 7 Participants Last post by pittsoccer33, Aug 24, 2011

JonRaines

Discussion Starter · Aug 20, 2011

Hi, this is my first post on these forums and I'm not even sure this is the right place for it. I have been considering building an HTPC/DVR box to replace my cable dvr and play media all over the house. I have been getting some great info from Assassin's guide on the build and Greeneyez for setting up 7MC. I've been playing around in 7MC on my main PC to get familiar with it before building the dedicated box and am ready to try ripping a couple DVDs to see how it all looks in mediabrowser. I have been searching around on google and in these forums for several hours and haven't been able to find out what I want to know.

I want to put my DVDs on the HDD in original quality with no more compression than they already have. Now I know I can just do a copy folder structure or make an .iso and I will do that if I have to. Space is not an issue, but I'd like to remove the stuff I'll never use like French and Spanish tracks, trailers, FBI warnings. On the other hand, I would like the keep the menu, commentary tracks, and selected special features. Is this possible? I can see it being a problem with the menu if there are things missing that the menu expects to see. If I do have to lose the menus, do I put the special features in the same folder as the main movie? Will there be metadata for them? How do I know which files to keep if the filenames are just title/chapter numbers? Do the ripping programs let you play the files from within them so you know what to include or exclude?

Sorry to be so longwinded, and if these questions are already answered somewhere else, just point me in the right direction.

Thanks so much,

Jon

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sievers

· #2 · Aug 20, 2011

You shouldn't have trouble doing this. Years ago I used to use a free program called DVDShrink and it could do exactly as you described. It lists all the stuff on the disc, and you just select the parts you want. Despite the name of the software, shrinking is not required, you can keep the original quality if desired.

Of course this is an old school way and I'm sure there are many newer products that do the same thing and more.

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JonRaines

Discussion Starter · #3 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by sievers /forum/post/20844414

You shouldn't have trouble doing this. Years ago I used to use a free program called DVDShrink and it could do exactly as you described. It lists all the stuff on the disc, and you just select the parts you want. Despite the name of the software, shrinking is not required, you can keep the original quality if desired.

Of course this is an old school way and I'm sure there are many newer products that do the same thing and more.

OK, thanks. Good to know it is possible. So the folder structure is retained and certain files are just left behind? What happens if you try to select something in the DVD menu that got left out, an error message?

Thanks for the reply,

Jon

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hirent

· #4 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonRaines /forum/post/20844646

OK, thanks. Good to know it is possible. So the folder structure is retained and certain files are just left behind? What happens if you try to select something in the DVD menu that got left out, an error message?

Thanks for the reply,

Jon

DVD Shrink is hands down the best program and free to boot.

However, its not updated anymore and might hiccup on some newer titles.

I don't think DVD Shrink can do what you are looking for.

It has two modes of operation: Full Disc and Reauthor

Full Disc allows you to back up the entire disc and Reauthor allows you to create an entire new structure.

In FD mode, you can uncheck unwanted audio and subtitles; however it won't allow you to remove the file itself.

In Reauthor, you simply take the titles you want with the audio and subtitles (you want to keep) and list them in an order. There is no menu structure whatsoever.

Its the best option since it saves a lot space.

I used to do exactly what you are looking for: keeping Menus while removing unwanted tracks. I used to use Nero Recode for that. Nero Recode would substitute the removed title with a picture which said 'This track has been removed'. So it would play the track from the menu and show the picture. Best of all, it allows the user to select a custom picture too instead of the standard one.

Recode does not have copy protection removal, so it needs AnyDVD to run in the background or you can use DVD Shrink to rip it first and then use Recode on the ripped disc.

Its been a long time since I used Recode, so I don't know what the latest versions have.

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JonRaines

Discussion Starter · #5 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by hirent /forum/post/20846799

DVD Shrink is hands down the best program and free to boot.

However, its not updated anymore and might hiccup on some newer titles.

I don't think DVD Shrink can do what you are looking for.

It has two modes of operation: Full Disc and Reauthor

Full Disc allows you to back up the entire disc and Reauthor allows you to create an entire new structure.

In FD mode, you can uncheck unwanted audio and subtitles; however it won't allow you to remove the file itself.

In Reauthor, you simply take the titles you want with the audio and subtitles (you want to keep) and list them in an order. There is no menu structure whatsoever.

Its the best option since it saves a lot space.

I used to do exactly what you are looking for: keeping Menus while removing unwanted tracks. I used to use Nero Recode for that. Nero Recode would substitute the removed title with a picture which said 'This track has been removed'. So it would play the track from the menu and show the picture. Best of all, it allows the user to select a custom picture too instead of the standard one.

Recode does not have copy protection removal, so it needs AnyDVD to run in the background or you can use DVD Shrink to rip it first and then use Recode on the ripped disc.

Its been a long time since I used Recode, so I don't know what the latest versions have.

Wow, thanks for the info!

I wanted to start playing around last night so I downloaded DVDFab for the decryption and ended up with trail version of full software, not sure if I got the correct file. Anyway, I was able to do what I wanted with it, but I'm guessing that will only work until the the trial ends and then it will only be a decrypter. Then I'll have to decide whether to pay for it or use something else. But that's another topic.

I have another question now. After ripping a couple movies into the folder structure Media Browser prefers, Media Center Master got the metadata fine. So then I decided to try copying my Family Guy box set. I used a folder structure that I saw on MCM forum of \\Family Guy\\Season 1\\S01E01-E07\\VIDEO_TS for disc 1 but MCM only sees episode 1 and retrieved data for it, but not the other 6 eps. I don't want to rip any more until I find what I did wrong

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hirent

· #6 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonRaines /forum/post/20846853

I used a folder structure that I saw on MCM forum of \\Family Guy\\Season 1\\S01E01-E07\\VIDEO_TS for disc 1 but MCM only sees episode 1 and retrieved data for it, but not the other 6 eps. I don't want to rip any more until I find what I did wrong

You didn't do anything wrong.

To get Meta-Data from the internet, the software has to identify & match the exact name in an exact sequence. You got the name and the sequence correct; 'S01E01'. And so MCM found data for the first episode and downloaded it.

AFAIK, there is no meta data on the internet which has disc level info. You will have to rip each individual episode in folder form to get data for each episode; that's how I do it.

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JonRaines

Discussion Starter · #7 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by hirent /forum/post/20846986

You didn't do anything wrong.

To get Meta-Data from the internet, the software has to identify & match the exact name in an exact sequence. You got the name and the sequence correct; 'S01E01'. And so MCM found data for the first episode and downloaded it.

AFAIK, there is no meta data on the internet which has disc level info. You will have to rip each individual episode in folder form to get data for each episode; that's how I do it.

OK, so it's different with DVDs as opposed to DVRing or downloading? My understanding of those was that you just dumped episode files into the season folder and didn't need a separate folder for each episode.

Thanks for the answer,

Jon

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Somewhatlost

· #8 · Aug 20, 2011

fwiw, as far as TV show episodes (and things like that) I actually prefer just ripping them into individual episodes and doing away with the disk menu altogether...

I also just dump all my seasons into one folder, the sXXeXX makes it easy enough to sort...ie:

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s01e01-Death Has a Shadow

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s01e02-I Never Met the Dead Man

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s03e04-One If by Clam Two If by Sea

etc...

I then leave it up to the front end to arrange the episodes in logical order... so there really is no need for the disk menu...

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JonRaines

Discussion Starter · #9 · Aug 20, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by Somewhatlost /forum/post/20847176

fwiw, as far as TV show episodes (and things like that) I actually prefer just ripping them into individual episodes and doing away with the disk menu altogether...

I also just dump all my seasons into one folder, the sXXeXX makes it easy enough to sort...ie:

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s01e01-Death Has a Shadow

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s01e02-I Never Met the Dead Man

\\\\Tower\ v\\Family Guy\\Family Guy-s03e04-One If by Clam Two If by Sea

etc...

I then leave it up to the front end to arrange the episodes in logical order... so there really is no need for the disk menu...

Yeah, I didn't include the menus on that rip since the disc only had commercials besides the episodes. What you say makes sense about the one folder idea, that sounds like a better plan than having 20-odd folders with Video_TS in them, I'll decide that later. What format are you ripping the episodes in? I still want 1:1 original quality and the best compatibility with other devices would be nice to.

Thanks for the advice,

Jon

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davdev

· #10 · Aug 23, 2011

DVD Fab should allow you to rip each episode individually. I would probably go with making them MKV files, but a DVD rip would be fine as an MP4 as well. If you don't want to lose quality, just make sure you have the quality settings set to no compression.

As for another question, I don't know of any service that would provide metadata for individual special features on a DVD. For me, I only rip the main movie. If I wanted to keep the special features, I would go a full disk copy. Using a program like Anydvd will skip right over all the FBI warnings, even if they are still in the file, and getting rid of those little items literally saves no disk space.

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ogormask

· #11 · Aug 24, 2011

You realize that stripping "the stuff you dont want" probably wont save you much space? An audio track is like 300mb usually even a dts track isnt all the much.

I use anydvd to have it start at the first menu so you never see the crap at the start.

For tv eps yeah sometimes its easier to have separate mkv files. I prefer it this way because its easier to keep track of what ep I am on.

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pittsoccer33

· #12 · Aug 24, 2011

WinX DVD is a program I played around with a few years ago.

You could set it to create .mpeg files that were direct remuxes of the vob files. It would retain AC3 audio and you could easily and quickly set it to to copy each episode on the disc.

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