Ripping DVD's - Serious help needed.

I have a handful of DVD TV seasons of various shows and since I have a HTPC in my room with a 500GB HDD, I want to rip the DVD's to my HDD so I can watch whatever, whenever without switching out DVD's. I want .avi files for each episode.

I have tried imTOO and the quality is just bad, I can't get it to look even 1/2 decent. This is compressing with Xvid and DivX in imTOO with each episode of ~20min to a target size of ~230mb.

I've tried AutoGK, and I can't seem to get it to work right. I've opened a .ifo (or whatever) from a DVD I ripped, selected the section (single episode) and about 8-10 hours I came back, and it converted the entire DVD (all episodes) to a 250mb file...needless to say, worthless. I can't get it to rip a single episode.

I'm running an ASUS A7N8X-X, Athlon XP Barton 2400+ OC'd to around 2ghz, have 1gig RAM and Vista Ultimate.


What programs are going to be the best/easiest for good quality regardless of price (I'm willing to buy a program if it sets up my HTPC how I want it)? I don't mind a 300mb file for each episode too much (althouh 180mb or 230mb would be nicer) as long as its good quality.

Help!

I am also looking for a good quality DVD ripping program.....but i would prefer it to be free.

Im looking forward to any suggestions that people have.

I used DVD shrink back in the day. Dunno if its still around or for free anymore though. It ripped the dvds just fine.

I use DVD Decrypter (pull any .bup's remember), and use Nero to convert it to a smaller avi if I want. I'm a big vob kinda guy though, hate compression.

use handbrake.

I use Super DVD Ripper.
its cheap, has only a few options, so no screwing it up, simple to use, and always works.

other programs I've tried always have weird outcomes, widescreen movies are stretched or squashed, 4:3 movies end up stretched...
with super DVD ripper, I've never had a problem, cause theres little I can screw up in it. so it just works everytime.
put DVD in, hit the go button, wait 20 minutes, done.

personally I perfer simplicity and reliability.
but thats not usually what you will find in a free program.

Kunaak said:

I use Super DVD Ripper.
its cheap, has only a few options, so no screwing it up, simple to use, and always works.

other programs I've tried always have weird outcomes, widescreen movies are stretched or squashed, 4:3 movies end up stretched...
with super DVD ripper, I've never had a problem, cause theres little I can screw up in it. so it just works everytime.
put DVD in, hit the go button, wait 20 minutes, done.

personally I perfer simplicity and reliability.
but thats not usually what you will find in a free program.

Click to expand...

What kind of options are there? How is the quality (most important question)?

SeasonalEclipse said:

I used DVD shrink back in the day. Dunno if its still around or for free anymore though. It ripped the dvds just fine.

Click to expand...

I have DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter, both of them only rip the DVD to the HDD/burn to another DVD, they maintain the DVD format files. I'd like to compress each ~20min episode to about 230mb or so if possible. I have a lot movies and TV shows on my HDD, and although I still have a lot of free space, I want to be able to store a lot more without having to add another HDD.

I don't know if you can do this.... but could you run a livecd and use a linux program to encode/decode the films?

JamesXP said:

I don't know if you can do this.... but could you run a livecd and use a linux program to encode/decode the films?

Click to expand...

I have 2 optical drives, I guess so.

Will this be noticeably better though? Seems like a lot of effort. It'd be nice to be able to queue up a DVD or 2 full of TV episodes, start it at below-normal priority, and just use the computer as normal and keep it turned on overnight.


I ran 1 file through Super DVD, used XviD. It had a lot of the "mouse teeth", the jagged edges (and the sound may have been off).

I am decoding a file right now with DivX (newest version), using interpolation (to get rid of the torn pixels/jagged edges that plagued the last one). We'll see if it seems better.


I think it may be a function of settings that I'm missing here. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to get a 20min DVD .VOB to compress to around 230mb with DivX or XviD with pretty decent quality.


Question with Super DVD: Is there any way to set-up a queue? Its running right now and I don't wanna mess with it, and I want to make sure I can get it to queue a bunch of files at once.