Hi guys,
Currently in the process of trying to joing the world of XBMC, trying to get it working on an Acer Revo running Ubuntu, I'm a noob to both, so it's one step forward one back at the moment! All good fun though.
What I'd like some help on is what are people best practice for ripping DVD's that they play via XBMC? Have never been into ripping DVD's up until now, but can see once I get the system up and running, converting my whole DVD collection, so I want to make sure I have the best process sorted, before doing it.
So I guess the questions are, what software do you use? What format preserves picture quality and multi-channel sound? Do you have to do somethign special at the point of ripping to get XBMC to show thumbnails? Does the process work everytime or do copyright issues mess up the process sometimes?
The rips will most likely reside on my NAS.
Thanks for any tips.
DVDFab (dvd-dvd) to dump movies into .iso files to SMB share device (NAS). Filenames from IMDB title so that library can scrape properly automatically. In library mode XBMC really shows it's claws... Use Rapier3.x skin eg.
1 movie = 5-8GB (nothing stripped!). Pure DVD Experience, The only intelligent way.
Cheers buddy.
I think I may have finally broken the back of building my media PC, touch wood. Have given your suggestion a go and made an ISO, not had a chance to try it yet, but thanks for the pointer.
Instead of using some software application to create an ISO, you can also just copy the VIDEO_TS folder from your dvd to your (external) harddrive!
I simply create a folder: "Batman (2009)" and copy the VIDEO_TS folder in that folder.
Do that for every dvd.
realjobe Wrote:DVDFab (dvd-dvd) to dump movies into .iso files to SMB share device (NAS). Filenames from IMDB title so that library can scrape properly automatically. In library mode XBMC really shows it's claws... Use Rapier3.x skin eg.
1 movie = 5-8GB (nothing stripped!). Pure DVD Experience, The only intelligent way.
couldnt have said it better myself.
ISO or VIDEO_TS both work. They're both uncompromised quality and both will scrape fine.
Some people use DVDFab or AnyDVD if they have encryption issues when they rip.
Welcome to XBMC!
ISOs load *much* slower than VIDEO_TS across a network - some ISOs 20 seconds plus, no Video_TS more than a couple of seconds. I converted all my ISOs to straight rips as it seems to be easier for XBMC to handle
Mkv is a good file format if you just want movie and no extras which reduces the size a bit by cutting out all the fluff. If you want to go further and shrink without losing much quality but takes some time Handbrake is a good encoding tool and both programs are free for dvd.
Why not just DVD rip the things? Depending upon how expensive your TV is, you hardly notice a difference in most DVD rips today and talking 700 meg file rather than gig.
True multimedia display is Blue Ray not DVDs go back to Bedrock ya flintstones lol
I can rip a DVD in 30 minutes, so why do I want to waste time taking 30 minutes trying to transfer 4 - 6 gigs worth of information?
Well to be honest I dont know why they bother putting older movies on blu ray? Dvd is fine on older flicks
moviebuff Wrote:Well to be honest I dont know why they bother putting older movies on blu ray? Dvd is fine on older flicks
Older movies can definitely benefit from higher resolution on a larger screen.
Guess ill have to get a few older movies on blu ray and try it out thanx
Cheers for the replies, gives me a few more things to try!
If I use some software to rip the DVD, making smaller files, will it still scrape ok in XBMC?
Are there any issues of doing an ISO copy of a tv show, say a DVD with 3 episodes on it? Will XBMC handle that ok and know what to do with it in terms of being able to select individual episodes from that disk?:confused2:
And thanks for the warm welcome!
They know that some people will buy old movies on new formats. I personally would buy new movies such as Avatar on blue ray if the film was good enough to justify the extra money.
Saying that though sometimes blue ray is only £3 odd dearer than a DVD but I looked for Enemy of the state last night on blue ray and that was near enough £16. DVD it's a couple of quid.
Only old films that I would buy in new format, are the star wars movies, as it's not worth buying anything that was before the digital age.
My point on this topic though really was why copy or make ISO files of the whole DVD, when a DVD rip will be just as good, and smaller and you can store more.
To the people bleeting on about copy video ts folders and crap, either get blue ray, or simply DVD rip, rather than thinking that you have to have 4 gigs of DVD information to watch a movie.
If you are going to do that, why bother with XBMC why not just put a DVD into a DVD player if you want a total DVD experience, seems overkill.
Once the number of DVDs you own starts to hit the mid 100s storing them on HD becomes much more attractive than "how do I store all these DVDs?".
The quality of older movies on bluray depends on the bluray and the process they used mastering it. Some aren't any better than the original DVD and some are stunning. It depends on the movie.