DVD to MPEG for MVP

[andrewm]

What do people use to convert their DVD's to MPEG's so they can play them on the MVP ?

Any pointers welcome,

I'm PAL, but have DVD's in NTSC and PAL, and different region codes,

[cosmocat]

Dont bother with all that conversion hassle, just use XDVD and the conversion is done on the fly by VLC.

[andrewm]

I'd love to but I have 4 MVP's

What size computer do I need to transcode for four ?

MVPs also primeraly used for the kids to watch DVDs and recorded shows, so MPEG II nice and small to store,

[Jeff]

What do people use to convert their DVD's to MPEG's so they can play them on the MVP ?

Any pointers welcome,

I'm PAL, but have DVD's in NTSC and PAL, and different region codes,

The video archive plug-in includes a dvd2mpg conversion function as well as an options dvd2mpg plug-in.

Jeff

[andrewm]

Thanks for that Jeff

I think the archiver plug in used dvd decrypt ?

Which used to be great, but now days does not deal with most disks.

[d_pete]

I would rip the DVD to the hard disk using whatever method works for you and the DVD, then convert the relevant VOB file using mencoder

(multiple VOB files could be combined into one before converting by copying)

A command line something like

MENCODER input.vob -o output.mpg -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -ovc copy -oac lavc -lavcopts abitrate=256

will copy the video (as it's mpeg2 already) and transcode the audio to MP2 since the MVP chokes on the AC3 audio stream

[andrewm]

Thanks d_peter.

that looks to easy..... But I'm all for easy.

what do people use to get the vob onto the hard drive ?

[cosmocat]

I'd love to but I have 4 MVP's

Ah , yes. XDVD will support multiple sessions, but your next question becomes relevent...

What size computer do I need to transcode for four ?

Big, probably 3GHz+ Dual Core.
Better going with the seperate processing options others have suggested.

what do people use to get the vob onto the hard drive ?

I use the free version of DVDFab , store the result temporarily to the hard disk and then use DVDshrink to strip out just the bits you want.

[sjgore]

I use DVD Decrypter (free) to rip the files to my hard disk (there is the option to rip the main feature to one large VOB file, instead of lots of 1GB VOB files). I then rename the file to .MPG. At this stage, it will play on my MediaMVP but with no sound. So I use VideoReDo (shareware) to re-save the file with MPEG audio instead of ACM audio. It does this without re-compressing the video, it just changes the audio. The file will then play on an MediaMVP perfectly!

Steve.

[zehd]

Thanks d_peter.

that looks to easy..... But I'm all for easy.

what do people use to get the vob onto the hard drive ?

You mentioned that DVD Decrypter is dead. Well I guess sort of...

This is what I use

DVD Decrypter 3.5.4 to Hard drive. Even it is not fully decrypted it's still on the hard drive.

FixVTS is a small program I found (net searchable) that will further decrypt things like Hardware errors (encryption) etc..

DVD Shrink has a decryption too, but I found that if the above two steps didn't work, then I'm really trying to decrypt a drink coaster...