Note: This guide should give you enough tool’s and knowledge to successfully convert a DVD to Xvid format. There is a lot more to it that what I have put down here. The way I have described is not necessarily the best way, but is the way I like to do it and is done using all free program’s and tool’s.
You will need these program’s installed:
A program to extract your movie as a single .vob file from your DVD…
I use DVDShrink, along with the latest version of AnyDVD. There is a free program that is similar to AnyDVD called DVD43, you may wish to try that.
You may be lucky and find you can decrypt your DVD just by using DVDshrink, however it has been outdated now for quite some time and will probably need some help.
A video encoder…
We will use the popular Koepi’s Xvid video codec.
An audio encoder…
You may have the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder already installed if you have WMP11, however if you don’t, you could use the Lame acm codec, or the Aud-X 5.1 surround audio codec. I use this codec as it has a special feature where it can downmix 5.1 AC3 surround sound to be Dolby Pro Logic II mp3, compatible with standalone home theater system’s.
A program to run the conversion…
I use VirtualDubMod, and because we are using the Aud-X 5.1 surround audio codec, you will need the compatible 1.6.0.0 surround version. (Bottom of the page)
Step 1: Extraction…
Insert your DVD and start any 3′rd party decrypter you may be using (AnyDVD or DVD43 etc).
Open DVDshrink.
First, set some option’s in shrink.
“Edit” – “Preferences” – “Preferences tab” – “Target DVD size” = DVD-9 (No compression applied). Click OK.
“Edit” – “Preferences” – “Output File’s tab” – Make sure “Split VOB file’s into 1GB size chunk’s” is unticked. Click OK.
Click “Open Disc”.
Once done, click “Reauthor” and you will see a seperate title under “Main Movie”. Double click it which will add it to the window on the left called “DVD structure”. Before extracting, to keep this guide basic, you need to eliminate the subtitle’s and language’s you don’t want. Click “Compression settings” and untick everything but 1 audio track. Click “Backup” at the top of shrink and save your .vob to a HD folder.
All done.
Step 2: Preparation…
Open VirtualDubMod 1.6.0.0.
Click “File” – “Open video file”. Select the .vob file you just saved. It may take a while to open.
Click “Video” – “Full processing mode”.
Click “Video” – “Filters”.
Add the “deinterlace” filter and set it to “blend fields together”.
The last filter we want to add is the “resize” filter, and this is where it get’s a bit tricky. You need to know the correct aspect ratio of your original DVD in order to correctly reduce it. Without going into the (confusing) detail’s, just Google “Movie Title” aspect ratio. Depending on what you see, just choose one of the following to set your resize filter as.
2.35:1 (WS) = 640 x 272.
1.33:1 (4 x 3) = 512 x 384.
1.77:1 (16 x 9) = 512 x 288
Lastly, while under the filter’s tab, click “Cropping” and crop out the black bar’s (if any) at the top and bottom of the picture. Make sure the total amount of pixel’s deleted is a multiple of 16.
Click OK.
The second preview window in VDubMod should now appear as the size you want, and should be the correct aspect ratio without any black bar’s.
Step 3: Encoding…
Audio.
Click “Streams” – “Stream list”.
If you wish to leave the audio stream untouched, usually done to keep the original 5.1 surround sound, right click on the grey shaded area and click “Direct stream copy”. Click OK. All done.
Note: AC3 is a rather old format, and is quite large, so I recommend compressing it. Aud-X can create mp3 surround audio @192kb/s while keeping the surround sound. (Dolby Pro Logic II). Aud-X can also directly compress an AC3 file, keeping the format, but I find you lose too much quality.
If you wish to compress the audio to mp3 to leave more bitrate available for the video, right click on the grey shaded area and select “Full processing mode”.
Right click again and select “Conversion”. Make sure “Channels” is set to what you wish to convert to. For this guide I’ll use 5.1 as I’m using a 5.1 Dolby Digital source and wish to keep the surround sound via the Aud-X codec.
Right click again and select “Compression”. Choose “Aud-X 5.1″ from the drop down list, then “High quality”. Click OK.
If you are converting to stereo, select “AC3 ACM 4 Aud-X codec”. Anything over 128kb/s is overkill for a normal movie. For music vid’s, you may want to go up to 192kb/s. Click OK.
Click OK again to exit the audio configuration screen.
All done.
Video.
We’ll be doing a 2-pass encode to get a top quality rip.
First pass.
Click “Video”- “Compression”.
Select “Xvid MPEG-4 codec” and click “configure”.
“Encoding type” – select “Twopass – 1st pass”. Then click the “more” button beside it and choose where to save your video.pass file. Xvid need’s this file for it’s second pass. Click OK.
Click OK again to exit the Xvid configuration screen.
Click “File” – “Save as” and save this first pass .avi to your hard drive somewhere.
This will take about 1.5 to 2 hour’s for a normal movie, so go and make a coffee and watch a movie you’ve grabbed from this awesome website.
Second pass.
When it’s finished the first pass, click “Video” – “Compression” – “Xvid MPEG-4 codec” – “Configure” again, change “Encoding type” to “Twopass – 2nd pass”, and under “more” make sure Xvid know’s where to find it’s video.pass file.
Click the button that switches between “Target bitrate” and “Target size”, Select “Target bitrate”.
Click “calc”. Choose your “Target size”. 716800 is a 700mb size rip, 1433600 is a 1.37gb size rip.
Under “Container”, choose “AVI-OpenDML”.
Under “Video”, enter the length of your movie and the correct framerate from your DVD. Open your original VOB file in DVDshrink once again, to find out the given length of your movie.
Under “Audio”, select the correct format that you are converting to. In this guide we have used “MP3-CBR”, avg bitrate = “192kb/s”. Click OK.
Click OK all the way out of the configuration screen.
Click “File” – “Save as” and save over the first .avi you saved from the first pass. This 2nd pass will take a bit longer than the first pass did.
All done. Enjoy.
Syko
Fix for audio error when joining 2 split .avi file’s
VirtualDubMod 1.6.0.0. Surround Version. (Bottom of page)
If you need an mp3 encoder, get the Lame ACM Codec.
1: Load .avi part 1.
“Streams” – “Stream list” – “Save WAV”.
2: Load .avi part 2.
Repeat as above.
3: Load original .avi part 1 again.
“Streams” – “Stream list” – Double click the original audio file so it’s crossed out. “Add” the .wav file you saved from step 1. Right click on your new audio stream and select “Full Processing Mode”. Right click it again and select “Compression”. Choose your mp3 encoder and a CBR bitrate similar to the original. Click OK.
Make sure “Video” is set to “Direct Stream Copy”.
“File” “Save As”.
4: Load original .avi part 2 again.
Repeat as above.
5: Join your new .avi part’s 1 & 2 as you would normally.
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