I've decided to get rid of my DVD racks and instead go with ripping them all to the NAS for playback. I want to keep all the DVD menus and extra features, but have the option to strip out things like commercials, extra languages, and such. Anyone know a good program to do this that works on OS X?

I'm currently using FairMount and then dragging the VIDEO_TS folder off to the NAS. This makes an exact copy, but doesn't provide any editing options.

Still researching the best ways to play the content back as well. OS X is easy, with the DVD player opening a VIDEO_TS folder without a problem. Front Row also works, as long as the folder is in the ~/Movies folder, or linked from there. I'm looking into the different AppleTV hacks to also watch the ripped movies on it.

What about DVD Remaster from the same people as FairMount? It looks similar in operation to DVDShrink which I used to use on Windows to chop things out of DVDs.

I played around with the demo a bit, but it seems to be mostly geared towards shrinking a disk down to a single layer. I couldn't find a way to tell it "leave the video alone, but keep it in DVD format without spanish audio". It's either extract raw streams for editing, recompress, or convert for an iPod.

I did find this info on the Handbrake forums handy for automating a good chunk of the work on OS X.

I skipped doing this in OS X and just use DVD Shrink in Windows. Easier and better than anything for OS X that I was able to find. But I ran out of HD space and will have to start over again in the new year once I have a ReadyNAS Pro.

I thought I'd heard good things about Mac the Ripper, but I'm not very knowledgeable on the Mac software side...

I tried all the Mac tools, including Mac the Ripper. Crap compared to DVD Shrink. I can't remember exactly what the problem was with Mac the Ripper, but it was serious enough that I blew an entire afternoon doing rip tests with it and another similarly PITA tool before I finally gave up and just went full-bore with DVD Shrink.

It may have been its inability to properly isolate the different video and audio tracks correctly, but I can't remember. It does also have a terrible UI.

This is another type of utility that simply exists with poor quality and UI in Mac OS. Rippers and Taggers. transcoding-wise, Handbrake (mentioned by Tom) is pretty good, but I also still have to use FFMpegX (back to the shite UI).

I have tried to use Mac The Ripper in the past, when it works it works really well and has very simple options to only extract the feature track and audio you want. But, development seems to have been taken underground so the easily available versions don't cope with the copy protection on recent big releases.

Handbrake can do DVD Rips as well but this is mainly used for re-compression of DVDs and I wanted to retain the whole thing inc menus and features.

I gave up, I didn't want to spend the money on a paid solution or be forced to use Windows. I didn't like any of the hack front ends for my Apple TV either. But I would be very interested in how you get on with this, as if it's moved on from where I last left it I may pick the idea up again.

Cheers

Cris.

I've always used CloneDVD in combination with AnyDVD for this. If does everything you want it to do (drop certain languages or subtitles, compress to single layer or leave at the orginal size, skip commercials and logos - in other words make the movie start playing the moment the file is loaded, etc...)
Works great, but I don't know if there is a Mac version of this software. But maybe you can run in in a Virtual Machine or by using Boot Camp?

Here's one I've never tried. Commercial ($10), but available for download as a trial:

http://macdvdripperpro.com/

MacTheRipper's latest versions are as easy to get as always simply by using Google to search for them.

MacTheRipper 3.0r14 Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safa...-8&oe=UTF-8

I still can't stand its UI - it overly complicates the whole process.

Does this include Boxee and/or XBMC running on AppleTV? I don't have personal experience running either myself, but the screenshots and their format support look/sound top-notch.

Both also allow you to play back your ripped DVDs from ISO files. That makes for a nice way to keep them organized on disk instead of loose Video_TS folders.

I really don't understand why you have to do stuff like that Bruno. You come across as being a bit arrogant sometimes.

That release of MTR is over 2 years old and is the last version to be easily available, it doesn't work with lots of newer titles. Just like I said.

It does seem that the Mac solutions for this are still behind the Windows ones.

Cheers

Cris.

I've similarly been using FairMount. It's enough to do the job of getting bit-accurate copies, but the resulting VIDEO_TS folders don't always work properly with Boxee. Half of them show up and half don't. I have yet to try converting them to ISO's to see if that increases Boxee's hit rate.

I'm not being arrogant. That release is the latest release which you mentioned you didn't see. It is not listed on the MacTheRipper site nor the typpical download sites like MacUpdate. The listed version there 2.x.

Yes, it's two years old, but it's still current. The program I use is also at least that old. Not much has changed in the world of DVDs in the past few years, so if you're happy with a particular program, there's not much need to switch to something else. Unless of course the solution didn't work right from the start, which I think is the case with MTR. It's just never been that great a ripper when compared to other tools.

I was truly trying to be helpful. The version I linked is the latest available, as you said "underground." If you're so sensitive that you can't just read posts in a forum without getting personally offended, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about that. Frankly, I'm getting really tired of the personal attacks.

Not a personal attack Bruno, far from it. maybe just re-read your wording sometimes. We are all guilty of that from time to time. Just re-read you last post, are you telling me you don't see what I am talking about, it's there in you first and then 2nd to last sentence, "I'm not being arrogant" and "but there's nothing I can do about that", seems pretty arrogant to me. That's all I am saying, not that you were trying to be arrogant, just that you sometimes come across that way to me.

As I understand it the developer releases updates to people who have made a "donation" to him, which to me is taking the development underground. It's a shame because it's pretty much a "does what it says on the tin" kind of a program, and it put the scuppers on my whole Apple TV idea.

Cheers

Cris.

Cris, I understand what you're saying. I just don't see it in what I wrote. Especially since I was writing to all as general information. Yes, it was prompted by you mentioning that the latest versions weren't listed for download. This is also what I had found, but I saw the version number mentioned and then found it by searching.

As far as I recall, all of the version 3.x releases have been private. Most of them have been leaked. I'm not sure the developer has actually done anything since r14 to tell you the truth.

Also, the other program I linked looks like it has a far better UI. I'm not sure is it's as good as the Windows releases. IMO, being able to rip discs with a decent piece of software is worth running VMWare if you don't want to run an additional machine. I do either that or remote login to my PVR server for DVD Shrink.

You also didn't reply to the other more meat and potatoes portion in the other post, which was to mention Boxee and XBMC.

Anyway, I talk the way I talk and I write the way I write. You can assume that I'm not out to get anyone or show anyone up, especially in this forum. It's the only forum I visit on a regular basis and I feel like I can be as open as talking to someone in person here. Anyway, many of my friends and I talk rough or brash around each other, so don't perceive it as something that's certainly not intended.

I've tried XBMC and Boxee on the AppleTV. YMMV, but as far as I've seen the AppleTV is just too slow to run either of them. They seriously underpowered that thing. It's rather depressing. It looks like they gave it about 2% more power than it would need to run iTunes-purchased HD movies and not an MHz more. To be fair, they don't have to cater to hackers, but it really is a slow box, and I think that underpowering it limited what they would be able to do with the platform in the future.

And even if I didn't hack it, it's a nightmare to try to convert video for the AppleTV (at least on Windows). Handbrake does a good job, but I still had half the videos I made fail on me.

I wouldn't touch an AppleTV myself, either, but I didn't know it ran Boxee and XBMC at an unacceptable level of performance. On top of the processor, the Nvidia chip on it isn't that powerful either. I'm not sure about the replacement software, but Apple's own isn't able to output anything higher than 720p.

Boxee looks to be releasing their own hardware, so that's something to keep an eye on next month for anyone interested in a media playback device with a decent UI (announcement December 7th).

So far the Nvidia ION platform has been a complete disappointment in pricing. No one that I know of has released anything built with it in an ultra-small package at a decent price ($200 for instance), even without software. That means it's difficult to make one of those low-cost, low-power and completely silent MythTV front-ends right now.

The key to the AppleTV is that it is a pure MPEG4/H.264 box, and uses the NVidia GPU for decoding assistance. If you throw Boxee or XMBC on it, neither have GPU assist, so they have to rely on the Pentium M to do the heavy lifting.

Matt, as far as Handbrake, try out one of the development builds here. A lot of cleanup has happened since the last release, and on OS X, it's almost mandatory to run to encode anything without a crash.

As for an ION box, I would expect them to be a bit below CPU power of an Apple TV, but higher GPU power. The Dothan based Pentium Ms tend to outclass the Atoms by a little bit.

Thanks for the link, Tom. Actually, I should have been clearer: I had no trouble when encoding one file at a time, or setting up one batch file at a time, but when I tried to script a batch encode (using the exact same settings), the resulting files played fine on a computer but simply wouldn't play or even transfer to the AppleTV. AppleTV is insanely picky about the audio/video specs for its videos.


Yeah, that's the conclusion I came to. Even when you hack it and open up playback for other filetypes, it doesn't have nearly enough juice for something like HD MKV files. Granted, those files can task a system, but the AppleTV stutters uncontrollably.


I'm keeping an eye out for the Boxee hardware too, but in the meantime, I'm actually a bit impressed by Dell's new Zino HD box. It wouldn't make a good hub for an MCE setup, but it'd be a heck of an extender. Even the specs on the $229 build would be suitable for those purposes, though I'd throw in another $30 for Windows 7.

The Asrock ION 330 comes pretty close to that price point. I can buy one here for less than 200 euro, which mean you should be able to buy it in the US for the same amount, but in dollars.

The issue with the pricing on the ION is that the margins are likely already thin at the current retail prices. This doesn't leave much room for someone to budget in software development for a custom front end while trying to retail it at the same price point.

I think System on a Chip solutions are still going to be advantageous for a while, especially since they don't need to be especially fast on the general processing since they include silicon to deal specifically with MPEG and AVC variations.

I'm also considering doing this, but I had been thinking about compressing into an avi file of some kind. I have no idea which formats to use for the best compatibility or which utility to use to compress & convert the extracted DVD files. I'd like to hear the group's opinion about that as well.

J

In my experience, this will likely depend on what you'll be using to play back the files. Outside blatant lack of support for any particular format, you should play up to the decoding prowess of your particular player.

That said, most generic playback apps and devices seem to be able to handle an avi container with some type of mpeg4 content such as XVID. The other thing to keep in mind is what resolution you'll make your new files. DVD content can be anamorphic, but the anamorphic flag isn't supported in all codecs and file types, nor by all players, so you're probably going to end up with a different resolution than your original DVD.

From here you can go up or down by matching one of the DVD's resolution axis. For instance you can match for 640 width (the approximate viewable size of the 720 non-square NTSC pixels) and then go for a reduced vertical resolution to match your video content. For example, an anamorphic DVD that's a full 480 tall would end up as 640x362.

Or you can match for the vertical and expand the horizontal. You're creating some fake horizontal resolution, but more importantly, you're keeping all the original vertical resolution from the DVD. For instance an anamorphic DVD that's a full 480 pixels tall would end up as 848x480. Something in a wider perspective would end up as 848x something smaller (you're not going to encode black letterboxes in the video file).

Yo may notice that Apple's 480p trailers are most often 848 wide. In the DVD ripping world however, now one seems to do this. Instead you'l see stuff like 640x..., 624x.... or even 592x....

My goal is to just have enough HD space so I don't have to waste the time to transcode. It's what takes the longest amount of time and generally has the propensity to produce the incompatibilities and sync issues one might see. Just straight DVD rip (optionally leaving out some extras) and saved as a disk image (ISO). This solution is less portable, but you can always transcode from it later. Akin to keeping FLAC music and making portable MP3s as needed at a later date.

For mass compatibility, stick to H.264 for video encoding, inside an MP4 container. Handbrake can do this decently. Basically that should ensure compatibility with consoles, Windows (either via 7, or codecs in earlier versions)/Mac, and portable devices.

The problem comes in when you try and balance bit rate with what each device can play. Some devices expect an exact resolution and such, so it can be a pain. Find a short movie or maybe an episode of a TV series to encode and do tests with on the devices you want to use.

For my purposes, I figure I'll have all the raw DVDs on the NAS, and can encode them as necessary for various devices. Something I tend to do before I travel is handbrake a few movies to keep on my iPhone, and toss maybe some more content onto the laptop. Should be easier to manage now, as I can just batch encode without swapping discs.

ASRock ION 330 at NewEgg $349

Sorry, have to chime in here: I've always thought that ASRock was one of the worst company names ever.

Continue with your discussion

Oh, and I think that ASRock barebones seems a little expensive, don't you? $349 for a low-powered barebones?

Agreed. I've been busy on and off also doing this with all my DVD's. This project had been 'halted' for now since I need to buy some additional HD's (I've run out of disk space). I've also opted to simply rip the DVD's straight to ISO, only leaving out the languages/subtitles and/or commercials I don't need or want. The file is then saved as an mpeg-2 stream and takes about 4-5 GB per movie (of course longer movies use up more disk space). That way I can indeed always transcode from it later.
Another benefit is that it only takes me 7 minutes per movie to rip. If I wanted to do on-the-fly transcoding as well, I'm sure it would take about one hour per film. Not really do-able for a 1000+ movie collection. So that's why I opted to keep the orginal format; storage space is cheap enough these days anyway. Finally, another plus is these types of files can be played with literally every player and everything is contained in one big ISO file and not in the usual DVD type file setup with the audio-ts and video_ts subdirectories.

Which is, of course, exactly what that ISO filesystem image contains.

Cheers

Of course, I know that. It's just that it's easier to copy and sort.

Really, the name itself... maybe so.

The MSI Wind PC nettop is $135, ~40%.
I spent $120 for mine, then added a slot load dvd with frame for $80 and a HD for $100. Total $300.

The ASRock borebones has a pretty large advantage, spec wise over the MSI.
Nor is it completely bare, it includes a 320gb HD and a "DVD super-multi slim" drive.
About all you need to add is software. For the upgraded specs $350 seems a good deal to me.

Ah, sorry, I didn't see the feature list at the very bottom of the page. I assumed it didn't include a hard drive or RAM.

Dang, I forgot about the RAM, that means the MSI cost as much as this ASRock.

Video Teardown of ASRock

I have an honest question. I've been checking out the Dell Zino HD for a little while now. I'm considering it as a computer to recommend to very low-use clients who just want email, internet, and word processing. But that ASRock seems like it would be just as capable, and they're in the same price range.

So which one is more powerful? Which CPU is stronger? The Zino has an AMD Dual Core Athlon X2 3250e, whereas the ASRock has the Intel Atom 330 Dual core. I'm trying to compare the closest chips, and for the purpose of this question I'm looking at the 1.5GHz AMD and the 1.6GHz Intel.

So who wins? Without knowing how the CPUs compare, as far as I can see the Dell seems to win out. A build comparable to the $349 ASRock costs $339 for the Zino HD (which comes with Vista and a basic keyboard and mouse - which is nice for my clients). Plus then you get Dell backing you for a year. You also get far more customization at the time of order. For whatever reason, Newegg only has the lowest-end ASRock. They don't have any of the models with built-in wireless or blu-ray.

I know the Zino HD is hardly the beefiest computer out there, but given that the most basic version is $229, and the only necessary upgrade being a $30 upgrade from Vista to 7, it seems like a great value for a computer for grandma. Am I wrong?

If your going PC for the grandmother, go with the AMD based system. An Atom (even a dual core one) is going to be crushed by a proper desktop CPU, even if it is a low end Athlon. A quick search showed the Atom 330 hitting around 1950 in PCMark 05 CPU testing, while the Athlon 3250e hit 2919. For comparison, a 2.26ghz Core 2 Duo hits a bit above 4000.

Keep in mind the low spec now is going to mean a really low end spec a year, two or three from now. Things like Hulu and such are unplayable on a low end machine from just three years ago. I have no idea if your grandmother has need of such internet services, but going low end now may mean an upgrade is needed sooner for them down the road.

Hehe, well, first of all it's not for my grandma. That would be a little tough... No, this was just for a hypothetical grandma.

And I know what you mean, but frankly I think things are slowing down enough to where it's not as bad to buy low-end anymore. For about half of my clients, a low-end computer will do everything they need just fine, and will continue to do so for a long time. I'd say 25% of my clients have never heard of Hulu, and don't care about the new 1080p Youtube. Most of them just want to write up a Word document, email it to someone, and check out the news on the Washington Post.

So 50% don't need high-end, and 40% of my clients really only need a beefier computer because they share it with their children. And that last 10% still don't need to go all out. A Core 2 Duo will suit them fine.

Thanks for the numbers, by the way. Where did you find those?

Since you're going to have to support these machines and you've already figured out that their speeds are adequate, you should probably buy whatever you feel will be the easiest to deal with from a maintenance and warranty perspective. To me, that points to Dell (in a landslide) rather than ASRock, if your choice is strictly limited between those two.

BTW, the only reason that newer versions of operating systems and applications feel like they're maintaining speed is because hardware is getting faster. If the applications were truly maintaining their performance and usage requirements were truly as limited as they used to be, then applications like Word would be lightning fast on current hardware. Photoshop feels just as slow today as it did 10 years ago.

TweakTown put the 330 up against an AMD X2 4850E 2.5GHz.