The Willett Family

For the longest time, I was a fan of using Gordian Knot to rip my movies in xvid.  Once the x264 standard came out, I was really interested in trying to compress my data even more and see if I couldn’t get the same image quality.  In my eye’s opinion, I believe I have been pretty successful at ripping full DVD movies.  The following is a set of instructions on how I use MeGUI to RIP my DVD movies.

Copy VOB to Computer:

On my computer, I have AnyDVD installed.  It’s the best program I have used to remove the DVD copy protection.  I then use the old DVDDecrypter program, version 3.5.4.0, to rip the movie on the disk to a vob file.  Within DVDDecrypter, make sure you select to create the additional file “Chapter Information – OGG” within the IFO Mode tab of the settings window.  Additionally, I set File Splitting to None.  Next, on the Mode menu, select IFO mode.

Now insert the DVD.  DVD Decrypter will automatically detect the movie stream and highlight it.  Select the location on your hard disk where you want to copy it and click on the DVD->HD icon.

Special Note:  I have found on Windows Vista I have to run DVD Decrypter as the administrator or it won’t detect the DVD drives.

After DVD Decrypter is complete, close it and open MeGUI.

Create D2V file:

In MeGUI, select tools->DG Indexer->D2V Creater.  This will bring up another window where you will select the VOB file for your movie as the Input File.  Make sure to Demux the audio track you want in final ripped movie.   I usually just demux all tracks.  Then select theoutput filename of your d2v file.  It should be something.d2v.  Then select the Queue button and close the window if it did not do so automatically.  Now click on the Queue tab on the main MeGUI window and click ‘Start’.

Note that some movies confuse DVDDecrypter and you end up with some tracks leading into the movie and it can mess up the audio sync in the movie.  If you run into this, I usually manually run DGIndexer and then clip the front end of the movie until I get into the Chapter of the movie where it really starts.  Then save the project to a file.

Create AVS Script:

In MeGUI, select Tools->AVS Script Creater.  This screen may pop up automatically after DGIndexer finishes running within MeGUI.  Select the AutoCrop button on the Options tab.  It will determine how much black space is on the outside of each sceen.  Then select the Resize option and select the Suggest Resolution.  On the Filters tab, select the source type.  Movies are usually Progressive.  I always select the Noise Filter with it set to Minimal Noise.  Now select Save and close the window if it does not do so automatically.

Video Encoding:

On the main MeGUI window, select the Input tab.  You will see your movie information already entered into the video encoding section.  Select the encoder setting to x264: DXVA-SD-HQ.  This is the best quality codec for 480p or less input.  (See this avsforum post).  Select the output file format to be mp4.  Select the Enqueue button within the Video encoding section of the page.

Audio Encoding:

On the same main MeGUI window Input tab, you will see the Audio track information already filled in.  I use the Nero AAC: NDAAC-HE-MultiChannel-128kbps Encoder setting.  To use this, you must have Nero installed on your system or the Nero Audio codec dll available to MeGUI.  Select MP4-AAC as your extension.  Select EnQueue.

Subtitles:

If the movie has subtitles you want to include with your ripped version, from the main MeGUI windows, select Tools->VobSubber.  In the VobSubber windows, select the original VOB file and then chose which subtitle tracks you want to include.  Then select the Queue button.

Start Ripping:

On the main MeGUI window, select the Queue tab.  Select the Start button on the bottom of the window.  Now you wait.  Depending on your computer, anywhere from a couple hours to much, much longer.

Mux the Audio/Video tracks:

From the main MeGUI window, select Tools->Muxer->MKV muxer (I use MKV because I can include the original chapter information in the movie).  In the Muxer window, select the mp4 file you created in the Video encoding section as the Video Input.  Select the audio file you created in the Audio encoding section.  Select the Chapter information from the .OGG file created by DVD Decrypter.  If you have subtitles, you can select that file as well.  It should be noted that you may need to modify the subtitles file to set the “Forced Subtitles” setting to ON.  Select Queue and close the window.  On the main MeGUI window, select the Queue tab and the Start button.   You should now have a ripped version of your movie sitting in the output folder specified in the muxing window.

One final Note:  This should only be used for Movies you own!!!!!

Enjoy!