ripping dvds

Okay, so I'm trying mac the ripper today. Now, I come from using DVD shrink on windows, so I'm trying to figure out how to select which sections i don't want ripped (say I dont' want preiews) and also how to compress stuff like menus and bonus features, and use less compression on the actual movie. I also can't figure out how to remove other audio tracks (such as japanese or french).

So far I don't see any real options in it, besides rip just main movie or rip whole movie.

How would I go about being able to do the things I could do in windows with a dvd?

 

*bump*
Okay, looking around more, didn't see a whole lot on this forum about this.

Does toast allow me to do those things I want with DVD ripping/manipulation?

 

I haven't tried, but AFAIK Toast is more like Nero than DVD-Shrink. I *think* ffmpegx will let you recode the vob files - essentialy what DVDShink does. My HD is too small for bothering with such large files and I don't have a DVD burner in my macbook anyways . Also, perhaps iDVD has tools for converting DVD9 to DVD5 after they are ripped, it is worth taking a look.

 

As you've already discovered, Mac the Ripper doesn't do compression. If you'd like to do further editing and compression of the extracted movie you might want to look at DVD2one.

 

Thanks for that link mach.
I'm surprised its this hard to find some sort of utility to remaster or compress certain parts of a dvd structure compared to windows.
Oh well, hopefully this dvd2one will work.

 

Wow I agree with Hollownail, thanks for that link. I couldn't find anything like that when I searched around for one. definite thanks! 50 dollars is a bit pricey for it, but I'll have to see if its worth it.

Definitely giving you some rep points there.

 

Thanks, but it's usually not too tough to find stuff like that seeing as how the Mac community is relatively small. That's one of the beauty parts - you don't get drowned in tons of crapware on that side of the fence. Word gets around fairly quickly about the good stuff and I just come across things like this from hanging out in the MacAddict forums and browsing MacUpdate.

 

well, i tried it... it does allow the removal of audio tracks, but not much else really.
I'm going to have to play with some more apps.
Too bad theres no dvd shrink for os x. thats literally the best ripping software i've ever used.

 

I agree, DVD shrink is a very nice piece of software. You might try running it inside Parallels or Crossover for Mac, it will probably work under Parallels but I am not so sure about Crossover.

 

ohhh, crossover is a good idea. I'd do parallels... but I'm not paying the high price for it and *ahem* i'm not getting it through other means *ahem*
oddly enough, i can't partition my drive to do boot camp. So I'm backing everything up, then reformatting completely so I can do dual boot.
But that leaves me with precious little hard drive space left... guess I'll have to get an external one formatted to fat 32.

 

there is also Handbrake, it allows you to choose pretty specifically what you want to rip off the disc to a newly encoded video file. from which video track, audio track, and offers a few different compression codecs and compression options.

 

Handbrake doesn't take dvd and change the data back into a dvd. IT takes a dvd and makes it into a single file.
As far as i can tell. If you say it can do that, maybe i'll play with it more.

 

well, you could use the video file it creates and throw it into idvd and reauthor it. it would be time consuming, especially to find the right settings. but its something you could try.

 

yeah.... thast really outrageous to even try that.

Plus idvd is unstable and slow enough as it is. And I don't want to redo the menus and worry about how to deal with dts and stereo soundtracks (though likely i would remove the stereo tracks.

 

just checked, ffmpegx indeed has options to resize a DVD. You may either choose a DVD profile in the output options (but then I assume it wont retain the menu structure) or go under tools and choose a file to be recompressed. Still haven't tested it and it doens't seem nowhere as easy or complete as DVD-Shrink, but it might do the trick.

 

yeah, it is becoming aparant that to really do good dvd ripping, you have to use XP.
and i wanted to avoid xp on my mac...

 

ah, crossover won't work. dvd shrink, nero and other brunig programs cannot see the bruners (i think due to lack of atapi drivers).
unknown if it will work during the final release...

 

Turns out that DVDone2 isn't that great. I used some DVD software (cant remember the name) on my windows box and it rips anything, DVDone2 doesnt rip protected content, I used the dvd program to make backup copies of my DVDs.

Wanna know why? Search for 'DVD Rot' on google. DVD Rot is basically the DVD industries most kept secret from consumers, they want to keep it as quiet as possible.

 

Even in windows, most rippers won't copy protected content (at least the new protection). Most often, you have to turn teh disc into an iso then rip the iso in dvd shrink.
so dvd decrypter to dvd shrink usually works well.

 

For some reason I cant remeber the name of the software that bypasses the protection, but in my case generally I believe if I own the DVD, I have all rights to make backups of it to prevent loss, and such silly things as protection these companies put on are ridiculous in the first place.

I don't know what law it is specifically (there are so many dealing with computers and protection I can never keep up with it) but it states that consumers have the right to backup anything they own as long as they are the rightful owner of it, this law has been tried in court numerous times and basically every attempt failed.

 

I belive it says you can only do an analog copy, not a digital one. Well, I believe technically it says you cannot create a perfect copy of it. Which ... is hard to do a perfect copy of a DVD9 to a DVD5 ;-p
but something like that.

 

While I wholeheartdly agree with you, the DMCA simply put that right away. It is strictly forbidden in the US of A to copy, invent or even link to methods to circunvent copy-protected material (DVDs are mostly protected with CSS). Basically any DVD ripper is forbidden in US (in fact most DVD ripping software is forbidden there, as well as linking to them). This happened to the program we were talking about, DVD-Shrink:

This is one instance of a fact that is clearly and most undeniably illegal; yet, IMO and in many people's (yours including I assume, from what you said) the law is simply immoral.

 

Don't know if this pretty much solves your issue but I found that using MacTheRipper in conjuction with DVD2OneX2 works very well.

 

It seems useless to me. I can't control what it rips and what it doesn't. It's an all menus and crap, or just the movie.
I can't tell it to use high levels of compression on the menus and extras, cut out certain audio tracks, and use little to no compression on the main movie.

Oh well, I'll be reformatting soon and then I'll have bootcamp and I'll just use windows to do it. It seems to have much better software for this type of thing.

 

Kinda funny you say that because I was adjusting all those settings you were just saying that it lacked tonight. It kinda took me a while to find them though, they programmers didn't exactly put it in a shining spot. However I don't disagree with you on Windows still being a little predominant in this part of the software area. Hopefully someone will come along and make it.

 

Ah... I think I misunderstood what it's doing.
I thought that it ripped the DVD itself... I'll rip a dvd with mac the ripper and try that program and see how it is.

 

Yeah supposely you set like a "default" of what you want before you go and hit "rip full movie" or whatever you choose and whatnot, like I said the layout isn't exactly great and is somewhat confusing.

In any case the dual processors really help in compression I think

 

Hi guys,
New to the forum & apologize if i might have gotten lost along the way. Desparately trying to find out if i can run DVDSHRINK on my PARALLELS DESKTOP (that i just installed on my new macmini). I'm a total newbie to mac's..and an overall technical bafoon..but i "think" i got everything set up correctly. Parallels "seems" to be working..and i downloaded SHRINK (& NERO 7 demo etc..). But having all sorts of problems with shrink. One disk previewed o.k...but then another would only be analyzed if i unchecked the preview box...*BUT*...after that it stated it was gonna' take like 4 hours to back it up (or something absurd like that). I've been quite uncertain in regards to the few threads i've found on this topic of parallels' compatability w. shrink. I heard shrink definitely works w. bootcamp..which i'm on the verge of installing..but, of course, would rather not have to if shrink WILL work with parallels.
Any help or suggestions or links would be truly appreciated, as this is driving me nuts!

thanks guys,
josh

 

Yes, Johs, we know it works in bootcamp and parallels. But we're talking about using it in OS X, not windows.
I did break down and install Bootcamp as I wanted to play Civ 4 (owned it for windows already).
I may get parallels as well next year as I want to be able to use Visual Studio without having to boot into Windows.

 

It's probably down to two factors: direct video access (which is probably how Shrink wants to play video) and file access. I am not quite sure how Shrink access files on the HD, and how well does Parallels provides that. Are the vobs stored in the Parallels "partition"? Also, there are two modes of storing the VM "hard disk"; one grows as needed until it hits the maximum size, and the other pre-allocates all the needed space. I would guess this second method is faster, but I am not so sure how much.

::EDIT:: I forgot... you did install Parallels Tools right? Also, try installing Sandra or HDTach and do some benchmarks.

 

Oh..wow..really?...Sorry i missed that. As usual, things just fly right over my head. So.....you're actually getting or "trying" to get programs like DVDSHRINK to run right from OSX? Had no idea that was even an option. Man that'd be great to figure that out and not even worry about parallels or anything. I mean i'll use windows for some things like tagbot, some color browsers, maybe ebay turbo lister ... But most often i wanted it for shrink.

Anyways...so DVD SHRINK "DOES" work on Parallels Desktop? Man i wish i could figure out what i was doing wrong!

thanks,

josh

......oh, and regarding where the vob's are stored etc. I"ll have to check into that. This is where i start getting lost. I do know i've read a few posts here & there that parallels has a hard time recognizing a cd/dvd drive for what it actually is. Maybe i even read that here? Anyways...I'll continue "trying" to figure it out. And thanks again, very much, for your help.

.....*Lastly..just checked out "crossover"..So that's how you can run windows / pc programs right on your OSX? I'll have to read more about that now.

 

As far as I've heard, DVD shrink and stuff works fine in Parallels. I only played with it briefly in parallels.
Cross over will NOT work on any DVD software. I don't think it can even see the dvd drive on the MBP. At least, it doesn't see it with the burning software.
So yeah, it can't be used to rip or burn stuff.

But I might just stick to having my desktop to rip a DVD, as it's faster ripping a dvd than my MBP. Theres one place where the processor seems to have little to do with the speed of something...

 

Hey hollownail..thanks for the reply.

But man..i'm so lost now. Was almost happily ready to throw in the towl & just set up bootcamp as most threads i've followed & asked questions on have indicated dvdshrink (or any type of ripping / burning program) will not work w. parallels. Now again i'm teased with the notion that it will work. Aiyeee. Well...if you stumble across any info. on how to get it to work w. parallels i'd be much grateful.

Thanks,
josh

 

Hrm, I thought dvd shrink did work in parallels. I'll have a friend try it out on his MB sometime soon and see if it works. I thought it did...
I might be wrong at that, but hey, even if it doesn't, you can still use bootcamp.
And bootcamp is free.
I'd try it, but I dont' own parallels and my trial is up

 

thanks again hollownail

now i am seeing a few posts replying to many of the dismayed dvdshrink fans who can't seem to get it to work under parallels.....that are saying it works for them. First option i'm going to explore is adding memory or trying to add some gigs to my xp c drive. That may very well be the answer. We'll see. Wish i wasn't so computer illiterate. Every solution i attempt is like a science project to me...all in the name of burning dvd's. I wish i'd taken up computers a bit earlier in life!
But thanks again....and if you do stumble across any straight forward idiot friendly solutions to this that'd be great!

josh

 

yeah, i told my friend to test it on his MB. Hopefully he'll have some time to try it this week.

 

Josh, as I said this needs a little sorting out. My Macbook drive is rather full, so I am not willing to try Shrink on it. First of all, how big is your C: drive under Paralells? is it a flat drive or expanding? Have you installed Paralells tools? How much memory (both physical memory in the Macbook and memory available for the VM in Paralells) you have? Answer those so we can try sorting it out.

 

Hey guys..hey Wooky!

O.k...if i didn't mention..i'm working on a newer mac mini (early/mid 06'). I'm up to 10.4.8 and have the max of 2 gigs RAM installed. On my Parallels desktop i currently have 256mb RAM on my Windows XP VM (my only VM)...and i just allocated 20 gigs to the hard disk. I thought i set the memory to a flat rate..but it appears it's still on the expanding setting. I did install tools....**But the actual memory on my XP C Drive is still only 7.79 GB (w. only 4.35 free gigs).

Dunnoh'....if i set the memory to a flat rate & figure out how to actually increase the space on my XP C Drive..think that may work? I've come across a few sites dealing with the issue of actually increasing the space on the Windows C Drive..and it seems kind of difficult...but i'll def. force myself to figure it out if you guys think that might work?

Lastly...I keep running across posts from another fellow who's having the exact same prob's i'm having. Here's what he writes:

".....Keep getting errors. Different errors each time, but errors none-the-less....... Set up with 512mb memory and 20gb hard drive space. Everything runs fine. I don't know what else to do.......Ok, I tried it again. This time I allocated 1gb of memory for Parallels. It made it over half way this time. And I watched the Activity Monitor in OS X as the memory usage in Parallels rose to 924mb, then it stopped again. Windows said that I ran out of virtual memory and DVD Shrink said again that I was out of memory. Any more suggestions?..........I also noticed that the amount buffered in the encoding window continued to increase until it reached about 2,000mb!!! When I run it in Bootcamp the amount buffered doesn't get any higher than 66mb. What is going on?"

Hope this helps. And again....i really really appreciate all the kind help. Very nice of you guys. I do think, regardless...i'm gonna' go ahead and install bootcamp just so i'm not so preoccupied with this....but, man, if any of you guys can point me in the right direction regarding parallels (and dvdshrink) i'd be psyched!

much thanks,

josh

 

Hum let's see. I am not sure how Parallels will treat a HD that first was expanding and then set to flat; If I were you I would start over with a fresh VM and allocate the right size from the start. If you are unwilling to do that, you might try the following:

-reset the C: drive to its previous size;
-in XP virtual memory settings, allocate a fixed amount (i.e., do not let XP auto manage the virtual memory; allocate either 512MB or 1GB, 512 is probably enough);
-allocate 512MB of physical RAM to XP under Parallels;
-make sure XP runs fine after these; if there is some error, try lowering slightly the amount of RAM allocated to XP (I remembered one version of VMWare gave weird errors when set up with 512MB);
-make sure Parallels caching policy is set to better VM performance!
-after that, make another HD under Parallels, make sure it is flat and set its size to 15-20GB.
-I guess you will have to format this HD under XP after you create it.
-when running shrink, write the ISO to the HD instead of burning it right away; if you already doing this and it does not work, try creating a DVD dir structure instead.

From the quote you posted, apparently there is some kind of incompability between Shrink and Parallels; perhaps the memory management, disk access, caching or else. But it might show up only in certain configs, perhaps we can bypass it by setting up a friendly environment...

Try reporting exactly how you set it up and exactly which error ocurred.

Good luck.