Easiest way DVD>PC>TIVO?

[zeeway]

I wanted to transfer an instructional DVD to my TIVO, so I could watch it more easily. So I read up on Doom9's site - man, there are a lot of smart people in this world that talk about things I have never heard of. I also read threads on this site, that I did not understand.

Finally wound up using DVDFab Decrypter to rip the DVD to the PC, and then Prism to convert the VOB to a MPEG file. I did this chapter by chapter, and it works okay, even though the audio and video are not exactly in synch. Along the way I also played with DVD Shrink, Rejig, and Muxman. DVD Shrink was okay, but it could not capture by chapters as far as I could tell. Rejig and Muxman for demux and remux were not clear to me at all.

While I was happy (and proud) to get this task done, I am thinking some smart guy must have developed software that makes this easier for novices like me.

So here's my question: Is there an easy all in one program that can rip from DVD (encrypted or not), convert to MPEG, and do this well, easily and dependably? If it could also allow me to do editing, all the better. I have read writeups of Videoredo -is that just for editing? or can it also do ripping and video file conversion? The big name commercial programs from Roxio and others have terrible reviews as far as I can tell. Any advice?

[dlfl]

Try (free trial, uncrippled) VideoReDo TVSuite (http://www.videoredo.com/en/Compare.htm).
It says it will: "Open title directly from a folder on a DVD or a copied VIDEO_TS folder file".

I haven't used this feature yet but I've used VRD quite a bit and it is well worth the money. You can adjust the audio synch also, if necessary -- but it probably won't be a problem with this program.

Be sure to register the trial version (no cost) or it will probably be crippled to a short video length, e.g., 30 min.

I'm not sure how it handles encryption but just try it on your files of interest.

[wmcbrine]

So here's my question: Is there an easy all in one program that can rip from DVD (encrypted or not), convert to MPEG, and do this well, easily and dependably?Yes, although you probably won't like it. This is how I do it:

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile movie.mpg dvd://1

where "1" represents the "main title" on the DVD -- usually it's 1, but not always (and less often than it used to be). That's a command line for MPlayer (http://mplayerhq.hu/). It gives you the whole movie in one tidy MPEG file. It's Free, open source.

[schwingle]

How long does it take for that mplayer command to spool out a dvd?

[wmcbrine]

I dunno. Not long.

[greg_burns]

I'm not sure how it handles encryption but just try it on your files of interest.

Just tried it on a commercial disc. As expected, it just stops with a message that the disc is encrypted.

You'll need something to decrypt the disc first if using VRTS. (Which is still an awesome choice especially if you want to edit the video.)


DVD Decrypter is free, but limited and no longer supported
AnyDVD (http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html)
DVDFab (http://www.dvdfab.com/fab-compare.htm)

[mikeylikesit40]

try Auto Gordian Knot. Granted it transcodes the DVD into an XVid but it's simple, takes up less room thus letting you keep more on your harddrive.

http://www.autogk.me.uk/

It's also the tool everyone uses who posts Xvid's out there on the internet.

[greg_burns]

Trying VRTS right now (after decrypting). It seems to want to make me do each chapter on the disc separately. Anyone else try this before? I see there is a way to join projects together, but seems kinda inconvenient

[greg_burns]

DVD copied to my hard drive plays great on PC. Created an .mpg using VRTS and transferred to S3. While the .mpg plays great on the PC, plays like crap on my S3. :confused:

[wgw]

DVDFab Vob passthrough followed by VideoRedo QuickStream Fix conversion to mpg has always worked well for me.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5564453#post5564453

Or for a free conversion of the vob to mpg you can use MPEG Streamclip to convert the vob to a transport stream, use Mpeg2repair to fix any problems with the transport stream, and then use MPEG Streamclip again to convert the .ts to .mpg.

The point being to repair any glitches in the vob before passing it to the Tivo. You can't avoid the corruption created by the mpg to ty stream conversion caused by the bugs in the Tivo software, but ensuring that the vob/mpg is error free will ensure that standard dvds transfered to the tivo play with minimal errors.

[msmart]

Trying VRTS right now (after decrypting). It seems to want to make me do each chapter on the disc separately. Anyone else try this before? I see there is a way to join projects together, but seems kinda inconvenient I just tried this on a few DVDs this past weekend. The files created by DVD Decrypter had to be run through VRTS QuickStream Fix in order for VRTS to see the entire length of the movie.

I'm not sure I understand, is it creating separate mpg files for each chapter? In DVD Decrypter, did you change File Splitting to "None" in Tools > Settings > IFO Mode tab > Options? Check out the first part of THIS (http://www.anders.com/guides/convert/video/iPod/windows.html) tutorial.

ADDED: wgw beat me to the submit button. :(. Anyway we both agree on the need for QSF. btw, my purpose for ripping DVDs is to put them on my iPod (I use SUPER for the m4v conversion)

[rambler]

I run a dvd's VOB thru Videora (it's free).

Still a multi-step process though (rip dvd, videora, tell tivo to pull it over).

[zeeway]

Thanks everyone, I think I will give DVD Fab Platinum a try

[leeherman]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a DVD ripper that maintains Dolby Digital 5.1 and can output to a format a Tivo can read?

I'd like to rip some of my DVDs to my Network Attached Storage so I can play them through my Tivos.

Thanks!

LH

[YazooWho]

I've used this method a lot and works...

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/dvdshrink.htm

Sometimes I have had to convert the mpg file using Videora Tivo convertor.

[mattdon]

Hey guys,

I've been reading a bunch of these posts and still have two newbie questions (please let me know if this should be posted elsewhere):

1. I've got my dvd library ripped onto several hard drives. I used dvdshrink with a resulting single .vob file. I used the recommendation found on the forum to simply rename the extension to .mpg and was able to watch Star Wars IV via my Tivo HD (it really looked great!). Haven't tested this with my other movies, but am excited at the prospect of being able to use my Tivo HD as something close to a Home Theater frontend.

Question is how can I create shortcuts in the My TiVo Recordings folder that point to drives on the PC (that has the Tivo Desktop)? And taking it a step further, can the shortcut point to a shared drive on the network?

2. When I tell the Tivo to transfer the .mpg movie from my PC so I can watch it I assume it is transfering the file to the Tivo's hard drive. Is there a way to have the tivo see my other "shared" hard drives as onboard drives so that the tivo just "plays" them from their current location? My goal is to have the ability to play any of the movies in my library at will without having to transfer them (thus reducing or eliminating any delay in watching the movie). Hope this makes sense.

Do I need something like pytivo do accomplish this?

Any thoughts welcome and thanks!

Matt

[Jiffylush]

Hey guys,

I've been reading a bunch of these posts and still have two newbie questions (please let me know if this should be posted elsewhere):

1. I've got my dvd library ripped onto several hard drives. I used dvdshrink with a resulting single .vob file. I used the recommendation found on the forum to simply rename the extension to .mpg and was able to watch Star Wars IV via my Tivo HD (it really looked great!). Haven't tested this with my other movies, but am excited at the prospect of being able to use my Tivo HD as something close to a Home Theater frontend.

Question is how can I create shortcuts in the My TiVo Recordings folder that point to drives on the PC (that has the Tivo Desktop)? And taking it a step further, can the shortcut point to a shared drive on the network?

2. When I tell the Tivo to transfer the .mpg movie from my PC so I can watch it I assume it is transfering the file to the Tivo's hard drive. Is there a way to have the tivo see my other "shared" hard drives as onboard drives so that the tivo just "plays" them from their current location? My goal is to have the ability to play any of the movies in my library at will without having to transfer them (thus reducing or eliminating any delay in watching the movie). Hope this makes sense.

Do I need something like pytivo do accomplish this?

Any thoughts welcome and thanks!

Matt

I don't think it is possible to play from the network, but with mpeg2 on a wired network your transfer speeds should be fast enough to start watching immediately, you just have to click around a little and delete it when done.

That is how I use it now (when not using the PS3 which just plays them from the network).

Usually only stuff that needs to be transcoded transfers slow enough to require me to wait before starting.

[mattdon]

Thanks Jiffylush. Any thoughts on the folder / Shortcut issue. I tried creating a shortcut, but the Tivo only displayed the .mpg files (not the shortcut).

Matt

[Jiffylush]

Thanks Jiffylush. Any thoughts on the folder / Shortcut issue. I tried creating a shortcut, but the Tivo only displayed the .mpg files (not the shortcut).

Matt

Now I do believe that pytivo does support folders instead of one big pile of mpg files.

Maybe you should try it out?

[thczv]

I just tried this on a few DVDs this past weekend. The files created by DVD Decrypter had to be run through VRTS QuickStream Fix in order for VRTS to see the entire length of the movie.

I'm not sure I understand, is it creating separate mpg files for each chapter? In DVD Decrypter, did you change File Splitting to "None" in Tools > Settings > IFO Mode tab > Options? Check out the first part of THIS (http://www.anders.com/guides/convert/video/iPod/windows.html) tutorial.

ADDED: wgw beat me to the submit button. :(. Anyway we both agree on the need for QSF. btw, my purpose for ripping DVDs is to put them on my iPod (I use SUPER for the m4v conversion)

If you put a lot of DVDs on your ipod, you might want to try ipoddrop. In many cases I can drop a vob file on the icon and it does everything else. I use it alot. It will also convert almost any other format for the ipod.

[foreperson]

Just received my TiVo last week changing from Replay TV because I wanted to bridge the gap between my PC network and TV. I am using Cucsoft software to convert directly from DVDs to MP4 (iPod format). I have converted numerious movies without a problem. I am saving the mp4s in a movie directory and a shortcut to the movie in "My TiVo Recordings". The quality, while not equal to DVD, is very good. The only problem I have is displaying the PC link in the "Now Playing List" even when the photo and music links exist. The link is unreliable.

[jenlatham]

I've been archiving my DVD movies and TV shows very easily using DVD Shrink and TiVo desktop. I might overkill on the detail here, but here's a step by step. I'm presuming you've already got TiVo Desktop up and running.

In DVD Shrink,

Open Disc button
Select DVD drive containing your disc and click OK
(brief wait for analysis)
Click Re-author button
Click the DVD Browser tab. You'll see the various items that make up the DVD. On the sample I'm looking at, there are sections for Menus, Main Movie, and Extras. Typically, you want any/all of the items listed in Main Movie. The duration is listed to help you identify which ones you want, or you can highlight an appropriate piece and play it down in the lower left to visualy identify what you want.
Once you've identified the sections you want, drag them to the left panel in the order you want.
Click on the Compression Settings tab. You want only the first audio selection checked; uncheck any additional languages and any subtitling
I typically turn all compression off. If you're concerned on disk space or transfer time, you can set it as you desire. You may receive warnings at some point if the file sizes exceed what would fit on a single layer DVD (4.7GB) but that isn't relevant for our purposes.
Click Backup! button
Your backup target is a Hard Disk Folder; select your destination. I uncheck create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders. Click OK and the files will be ripped to your hard drive.

Once the Backup is Complete, view the folder you selected as the output location in Windows Explorer. Here's where this process gets very easy. You'll see a variety of .bup, .ifo, and .vob files. Merely RENAME the .vob files as you like, and give them a .mpg extension. As I understand it, these files are already in an MPEG-2 format that TiVo can read. We don't need the .bup or .ifo files.

Now move these files to your TiVo Recordings folder, and you can download to your TiVo and enjoy.

Hope this helps.

[dolphin]

I've been archiving my DVD movies and TV shows very easily using DVD Shrink and TiVo desktop. I might overkill on the detail here, but here's a step by step. I'm presuming you've already got TiVo Desktop up and running.

.............
I'm trying this, but all I get is audio, and no video .... TiVo Series 2s, one of them running 9.1 and another running 9.3.

In the past, I've run the vob through autogk, which always produces a good mpeg. But that takes quite a while to run. I'd like to be able to skip that step.

Any ideas on the no-video problem???????

[jenlatham]

I started having difficulties, and made a separate post on the subject. My DVD to PC step was working well, but TiVo Desktop and Tivo.NET weren't reliably moving files to the TiVo for me.

I had someone suggest pyTivo; it accepts any file type that ffmpeg converts. Since I made that change, it's worked great for TV shows I've copied from DVD. I think it's worked well for movies, but I haven't yet watched the movie to verify.

I'd suggest skipping your autogk (which I'm not familiar with) and just use pyTivo on the VOB files. I'm very happy with the results.

[HDTiVo]

I'm trying this, but all I get is audio, and no video .... TiVo Series 2s, one of them running 9.1 and another running 9.3.

In the past, I've run the vob through autogk, which always produces a good mpeg. But that takes quite a while to run. I'd like to be able to skip that step.

Any ideas on the no-video problem???????

Nothing comes to mind about the specific problem, but I always run the .vob through Quick Stream Fix in VideoRedo for the final .mpg


Jenlatham: did you ever check the audio format thing I mentioned?

[JoJetSki]

I use DVDFab which will rip any DVD I need to a Divx in one step. I can then use Tivo Desktop Plus to stream the file over in real time and watch the movie. Moreover, once in Divx I can watch the movie on my XB360 etc.

[jenlatham]

Jenlatham: did you ever check the audio format thing I mentioned?

I'm able to move VOB files I previously could not now that I'm running pyTiVo, so I don't think I've hit the audio format quirk you did. I had made sure only to export one audio track via DVD Shrink.

[BiloxiGeek]

Magic DVD Ripper to rip any or all of the titles to .mpg files -> MetaGenerator to get the accompanying .txt file for program info -> pyTivo to serve it up to your TiVo.

[gvegastiger]

I'm having a problem getting my mpg files to my tivo without them skipping. Will this quick stream fix alleviate that problem?

[Spunky93]

What settings did you use in Magic DVD Ripper? I ripped a few DVDs to MPG with Magic DVD Ripper using "original MPEG" and I can play them on the computer but pyTivo will not transfer them to my Tivo.

Any ideas?

When I rip the DVD with Moyea DVD ripper the resulting MPEG transfers to the Tivo just fine but the audio is out of sync.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

[BiloxiGeek]

What settings did you use in Magic DVD Ripper? I ripped a few DVDs to MPG with Magic DVD Ripper using "original MPEG" and I can play them on the computer but pyTivo will not transfer them to my Tivo.

Any ideas?

When I rip the DVD with Moyea DVD ripper the resulting MPEG transfers to the Tivo just fine but the audio is out of sync.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

I'm out on the road right now so it's hard to be sure. But I'm fairly certain that the default settings in Magic DVD Ripper are what I use. The mpg's play just fine on XP and Fedora 8. They also transfer with no problems via pyTivo and play on my TivoHD and Series 2 Dual Tuner without any problems. I'll be back home tomorrow evening and can verify my M-DVD-R settings then.

[ftlaud_dj]

I use DVDFab which will rip any DVD I need to a Divx in one step. I can then use Tivo Desktop Plus to stream the file over in real time and watch the movie. Moreover, once in Divx I can watch the movie on my XB360 etc.

What settings are you using in DVD Fab? I have been ripping my DVD collection (owned) to ISO and keeping it on a 1TB drive for several months now, but in the last few weeks I've discovered the joy of not having to re-burn a movie back out to DVD and rather watch them on the TivoHD.

The issue I have is a very large file for the main movie, typically around 3.5 to 4gb in MP2 hitting the Tivo, I would like to see if there is a way that I can extract the main movie from my ISO and compress it to Divx or Xvid to save space but retain some quality.

My workflow now is:

RIP to ISO - DVD FAB Main Movie Only
ISO to Tivo - Extract main movie with DVD Shrink to VOB
COPY VOB to Server - Transfer VOB to server running Tivo DT and rename MPG

Transfer to TivoHD via Tivo Desktop
2 minute buffer almost instant via wired network

Obviously I get excellent quality since my main movie is uncompressed DVD from the original and there is no re-compression when going to the TivoHD. I know that Divx or XVid are going to compress but I welcome this if I can have good quality without artifacts on my Mitsu and have movies that are less than 2gb each, my storage server would be very pleased as well.

Miguel