geekbin.net » DVD Ripping

Mplayer, Dumpfile, and AVI

IAmWill — Sat, 15 May 2010 23:25:46 +0000

Well, it has been some time since I posted anything and since I got a few new toys to play with, I figured I would let everyone know about my findings. I recently got a PS3 slim, but since I found out that you can’t stream HD over a wireless network, I invested in the DNS-321 NAS drive. Two great purchases! Talk about these systems will come with time, but for now, I wanted to share my new findings on how to get your DVD’s to AVI without any crazy scripting or code. two simple lines, and you have a nice video that can stream from an NAS to a PS3 or Xbox 360 (believe it or not, no matter what encryption you use, file name is VERY important).

First you need the DVD or the ISO of the DVD. From an older article, I talked about using vlc to do this, but updates have seemed to make this process useless, so now we just use the command line.

Simply:

mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream

mplayer dvd:// -dvd-device DVD.ISO -dumpstream

After this, you have a “stream.dump” file. All you have to do is…

mplayer stream.dump -dumpstream -dumpfile MOVIE.avi

(I do this is two steps to demonstrate that if you had a bunch of stream.dump files, you can easily convert them)

The size of this file is going to be big, but you have a DVD quality file with no extra encryption b.s. to mess with.

FYI, I tested this file out on my NAS and it streams perfect.

Xbox 360 Compatible Codec for Streaming (using vlc)- Part 2

IAmWill — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:35:22 +0000

Okay, so I called Microsoft and talked with a Media Center specialist about the right codec/containers to use to properly encode your movie files and have them play over UPnP. I haven’t tested all of them out yet, but I hope that one of these will work. I will be pushing all of them through vlc to see if I can get one working and will get back. Again, I am looking for DVD quality in my file, I don’t care the size, so this isn’t for crunching, this is for quality.

From Microsoft:

Q1: What are the details of Xbox 360 Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) support?
A1: The following list contains Xbox 360 AVI support details:
. File extensions: .avi, .divx
. Containers: AVI
. Video profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2, Simple and Advanced Simple Profile
. Video bitrate: 5 megabits per second (Mbps) with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second (fps)
. Audio profiles: Dolby Digital 2 channel and 5.1 channel, MP3
. Audio max bitrate: No restrictions

Q2: Can you describe Xbox 360 support for the H.264 standard?
A2: Xbox 360 provides the following H.264 support:
. File name extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov
. Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
. Video profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to level 4.1) profiles
. Video bitrate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
. Audio profiles: two-channel AAC low complexity (LC)
. Audio max bitrate: No restrictions

Q3: What exactly does Xbox 360 support for MPEG-4 Part 2?
A3: The following information describes Xbox 360 support for MPEG-4:
. File name extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov
. Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
. Video profiles: Simple and Advanced Simple Profile
. Video bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30 fps
. Audio profiles: two-channel AAC low complexity (LC)
. Audio max bitrate: No restrictions
Q4: What exactly does Xbox 360 support for WMV (VC-1)?
A4: The following information describes Xbox 360 support for WMV:
. File name extensions: .wmv
. Container: asf
. Video profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main, and advanced up to level 3
. Video bitrate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
. Audio profiles: WMA7/8, WMA 9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA lossless
. Audio max bitrate: No restrictions

Q5: Can I mix and match the video and audio codecs outside of those defined in questions 1 through 4 above?
A5: No, you cannot. We only support each audio and video codec in the explicit containers as defined in questions 1 through 4.

Q7: How do I create WMV, AVI, H.264, and MPEG-4 content? What encoders does Xbox 360 support?
A7: You can create this content by using one of the many third-party applications that are available. Xbox 360 supports many popular encoders. Specifically, for encoding to WMV, you can use Microsoft Expression Encoder or Windows Media Encoder.

Rip DVDs in Linux for your Xbox 360

IAmWill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:16:21 +0000

So I have found many posts out there where everyone can’t seem to find the “easy” or “user friendly” software that makes ripping DVD’s to your computer to stream to 360 via UPnP easy. Hopefully I have the solution that people want. I found that dumping the DVD stream with mplayer and using vlc to convert was the easiest method. I have also been playing with the formats and containers to encode with, and found the one that seems to look the best and still manage to save a little space.

First, simply put your DVD in the drive and use mplayer to dump the stream:

mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream

If you have an ISO image, then:

mplayer dvd:// -dvd-device DVD.ISO -dumpstream

You should now have “stream.dump” in the folder that your executed the command in.

Next, launch vlc, then click on the “Media” menu option, and select “Convert / Save”.

Click “Browse” and select a location to save your file. Save your file as a “.mov” file.

Before starting, you will want to create a profile so that you can repeat this easily. Click the “New Profile” button which looks like a sheet of paper with a star on it. (last button in the Settings block)

In the “Encapsulation” tab, select “MP4/MOV”.

In the “Video codec” tab, check Video, Codec H-264, Bitrate 3200 kb/s, Frame Rate 35 fps. (I am still tweaking these settings for best quality, so any help would be appreciated).

In the “Audio codec” tab, check Audio, Codec MPEG 4 Audio (AAC), Bitrate 256 kb/s, Channels 2, Sample 48000.

After that, label your profile, save, and start your ripping. My video files, on average, are about 1.5GB in size.

Any help on fps and bitrates would be appreciated, for me, file size isn’t as much of a problem, I want the best quality.