ratDVD...holy crap! The new Killer app??

[GeneralChaos]

This post might be a little premature, but I just ran across this crazy program that I have never heard of: ratDVD. (Thanks to http://www.torrentspy.com)

It essentially compresses a full sized DVD down (all features, audio, subtitles, menus...everything) by about 1/3 of the original size and allows for storage and transfer. Then you can uncompress it to fit on even a single-sided DVD with (supposedly) pretty lossless quality.

I am currently in the process of compressing one of my Seinfeld DVDs and I will post later and let you know how it turned out.

Imagine using this program in GVPBR to digitally archive some of your movies on HDD. And better yet...if it is possible, view your XXXXXXX.ratdvd file without uncompressing it.

Anyone else played around with this program?

[Ron22]

I know bleedat played with it a little see the thread below.
DVD library
Now is there a way to play them in GB-PVR?

[tieke]

Just thought it might be useful to actually post a link to the actual (freeware) ratDVD homepage, as well as the afterdawn guide

[GeneralChaos]

Ok, first of all...my first ratDVD attempt failed at 100% (wtf). But that file size took a 7.68 GB Seinfeld DVD down to about 1.2 GB in an hour! I am running it again and hopefully it will finish before I have to go to work :eek:

Here is a link for the source files that ratDVD uses. I would think that the code in "Playback and navigation filters" would be about what is needed to make this work within GBPVR.

I am not terribly good with advanced coding like this so this is something that I doubt I could complete. However, it seems simple in theory to integrate...so long as it was possible to get GBPVR to recognize ratDVD's internal playback decoders in the Video Decoder/Audio Decoder/Audio Renderer in the "DVD & Playback" tab in Config.

Opinions?

[GeneralChaos]

Thanks for the links Tieke...I totally forgot to put those up :p

I also noticed within the afterdawn guide it says: :
To play a ratDVD file, simply double click it. That's it. It will open in Windows Media Player 10 and playback just as the DVD would playback.

Seems like if even WMPlayer can play a file like that, it might be a pretty easily adapted format.

[lucindrea]

hmm .. how does this compair to dvdshrink?

[Pioneer4x4]

I read about that a while back, looks very nice if you are in the divx crowd, but unless if works over the MVP, I won't really get into it. As cheap as DVDs are I'm not worried about file size too much, and you still can't beat a DVD player hooked up to the TV for picture and features.

Now if GBPVR could play and control the files over the MVP....

[GeneralChaos]

Ok, I have been playing with ratDVD for a few days now. Here are a few of my results:

I took a ~2 min clip from Catch Me If You Can, it was 91.8MB raw data when I pulled it from the DVD using DVD Shrink's reauthoring tool.

ratDVD has a slider bar (50-150) for quality similar to DVD Shrink...but ratDVD appears to behave much different; most likely because it is using its own compression scheme. When the file is done compressing it is given a '.ratDVD' file extention.

.ratDVD File after compression (95 is the default setting)
******************************************
50 -- 19.1MB
75 -- 14.5MB
95 -- 19.5MB
100 -- 19.1MB
125 -- 19.1MB
150 -- 70MB

DVD Shrink file after conversion
******************************************
28.6% -- 41.1MB
40% -- 45.6MB
60% -- 61MB
80% -- 76.4MB
100% -- 91.8MB

One of the interesting things to note is that DVD Shrink uses a linear compression method (XVID codec I believe)...which explains why the file size vs. quality is climbing at a steady rate. ratDVD uses a hybrid codec called XEB that was designed by the developer and some friends borrowing some ideas from existing codecs. Looking at the numbers we see that a ratDVD file can stay roughly the same output size even though the quality is set higher. Honestly, I have no idea how it works, but I can assure that even on the absolute lowest setting (50), a .ratDVD file looked damn good in my opinion.

Obviously this program would be no good if you couldn't take your .ratDVD file and archive it on, say, a single layer DVD+/-R and watch it in a regular DVD player. Just open up your .ratDVD file in ratDVD and select your target size (preset for either a single or double layer DVD) and begin the uncompression process. Here are the results for that action:

.ratDVD file after uncompression
************************************************
50 -- 57.7MB
75 -- 53.5MB
95 -- 58MB
100 -- 57.7MB
125 -- 57.7MB
150 -- 66.2MB

I have yet to actually do this step on a full movie as the uncompression caused ratDVD to crash (CPU was running @ 100%). I was running on my slow machine...so now I am trying on my main computer.
Catch Me If You Can (full DVD/menus/extras) went from about 7.88GB to 1.24GB on the default settings for me.

Ok...there are all the fun numbers, so whats the bottom line?!

Pros:
-Quality looks great when viewing the compressed file from a HDD.
-ratDVD can make your movies SMALL, allowing for HDD archiving.
-There is a built in tagging feature similar to the tags on MP3's that can hold all sorts of fun facts about the movie (directors, actors, year, plot, etc)
-Auto adjusts for getting precise sizing for burning onto a single/dual layer DVD.
-Rediculously easy to use. Seriously....there are only about 10 buttons/menus in the entire program.

Cons:
-No built in decryptor. This is most likely so the authors can dance around lawsuits a little easier. DVDs with copy protection must first be ripped to HDD and then opened with ratDVD.
-TAKES FOREVER! 1 hour to get (most) DVDs to your HDD with DVD Decryptor, and then about 5 hours to rat (compress) the entire thing...menus/extras/movie. Then when you want to unrat (uncompress) your file so it can fit onto a DVD, it will take another handful of hours (remember, I haven't had success with this step yet.
-.ratDVD files only work with a couple of players. Windows Media Player 10 (10, and only 10....not WMP9, WMP8, or any other prior version....10!) and Zoom Media Player <-- which I had no luck with. WMP10 works fine for me though.

So who is going to use this?
I should first note that the author makes it VERY clear that he developed this tool for a pretty specific purpose. He wanted to d/l movies off the net with all the menus/extras/features intact and workable. He also wanted there to be a smaller file size, but still keeping the quality good. Also, this program hasn't been around very long. The current version is v0.6 which has only been on the net for a few weeks, so don't be too quick to discredit it


That being said, this program may or may not work for you. I am going to personally use it to keep JUST the movie part of my DVDs on my HDD for a digital archive. I will then use it to shrink all my DVD features/menus/movie down to fit on a single layer DVD.

That's all for now folks! I hope this was more helpful than confusing (almost 4AM as I write this)

Websites for these tools:
http://www.ratdvd.dk
http://www.free-codecs.com/DVD_Decrypter_download.htm

Edit: wording

[GeneralChaos]

Ok, so I mentioned earlier that ratDVD took forever on my backup computer:

-Athlon 2400 2.0GHz 266FSB
-512MB Crucial 2100 233MHz

Catch Me If You Can took about 5 hours to encode the full DVD (menus/extras/movie) on that machine.

I just ran through it on my main computer:
-AthlonXP 3500 2.2GHz 1GHz FSB
-Crucial 1GB 3200 400MHz

Only took 2.5 hours. That should help you estimate how long a ratDVD will take to encode. I am decoding now, hope it works!