iPod Ripping DVDs to 5G iPod (iPod Video): Steps That Work!

[clayj]

EDIT 1/1/2006: New instructions! See below.

EDIT 10/28/2005: VERY IMPORTANT! You need to wait until Handbrake says "Done" before you do anything with the file it creates... failure to get a good "Done" will result in an MP4 file that will NOT play! So even if it says 100%, wait a while... if you wait for more than a couple of hours and it doesn't give you a "Done", kill the Handbrake process and try again. Remember: No "Done", no usable movie!

OK, I have personally used the following steps to rip a DVD into a format that is viewable on an iPod Gen5 ("Video iPod")... the resulting movie looks quite nice on the iPod's screen, but I do not yet know how it would look on an external display (i.e., a TV). If you want to watch DVD on your iPod and you don't want to wait any longer, read on. (I will update this thread as new info becomes available.)

1. Download Mac the Ripper and Handbrake. (You'll have to Google for the current location of Mac the Ripper...)
   
   NOTE: Yes, you can skip using Mac the Ripper... but I've heard of many instances where trying to use Handbrake to rip directly from a DVD does not work.
   
   
2. Insert your DVD, and kill (Force Quit if you have to) the DVD Player application if it starts.
   
   
3. Launch Mac the Ripper and wait for it to detect the DVD. Click the Mode button, and from the dropdown list, select Main Feature Extraction. Then, click Go!
   
   Extraction should take 45 minutes or so, but this will vary from DVD to DVD. Once extraction is complete, you can then quit Mac the Ripper and eject your DVD.
   
   
4. Then, launch Handbrake. In the dialog box that appears, select "DVD Folder / Image". Click Browse. Select the folder that Mac the Ripper created (this will be named "[something] Main Feature"), and click Open.
   
   
5. Once Handbrake has scanned the ripped DVD folder, you will see the main Handbrake dialog box. Here are the settings to set (use ONE of the two following sections):
   
   H.264 VIDEO (better for iPod-only playback)
   
   DESTINATION SECTION
   Codecs = AVC/H.264 Video / AAC Audio
   File = [specify any file name you like, ending in ".mp4"]
   
   VIDEO SECTION
   Encoder = x264 (Baseline profile) (this is CRITICAL! do not select "Main profile", or the video will not play on your iPod!)
   Quality = select Average Bitrate and type a value no higher than 640* in the box
   
   * Why 640, you ask? Because the MAXIMUM bitrate supported by the iPod with H.264 is 768. Since we are specifying an AVERAGE bitrate, we need to specify a lower value that will prevent spikes over 768 in the video. 640 is a nice, high value that has worked perfectly for me with over 20 movies ripped to date. 640 will give you the best quality, while ensuring that the file is actually playable on your iPod. If you enter 768, the video will almost certainly NOT play on your iPod.
   
   AUDIO SECTION
   Sample rate (Hz) = any value up to 48000 (higher value = better sound quality = bigger file)
   Bitrate (kbps) = any value up to 160 (higher value = better sound quality = bigger file)
   
   PICTURE SETTINGS
   Click Picture Settings. Using the arrow controls, drop the Width value to 320. Leave the "Keep aspect ratio" checkbox CHECKED; if you uncheck it and change the Height value manually, your video may be distorted and/or cropped. Then, click Close.
   
   MPEG-4 VIDEO (better for TV playback, since it supports higher resolution)
   
   DESTINATION SECTION
   Codecs = MPEG-4 Video / AAC Audio
   File = [specify any file name you like, ending in ".mp4"]
   
   VIDEO SECTION
   Encoder = FFmpeg
   Quality = select Average Bitrate and type any value up to 2000 or so in the box (for iPod-only playback, a value of 1024 will do nicely... for TV playback, you might want to specify a higher value... the maximum supported by the iPod with MPEG-4 is 2500, but since we're specifying an AVERAGE bitrate, you shouldn't go higher than 2000 or so)
   
   AUDIO SECTION
   Sample rate (Hz) = any value up to 48000 (higher value = better sound quality = bigger file)
   Bitrate (kbps) = any value up to 160 (higher value = better sound quality = bigger file)
   
   PICTURE SETTINGS
   Click Picture Settings.
   
   For iPod-only playback: Using the arrow controls, drop the Width value to 320.
   
   For TV playback: Change the settings as you like, but Width times Height should not exceed 230,400.
   
   In either case, you should leave the "Keep aspect ratio" checkbox CHECKED; if you uncheck it and change the Height value manually, your video may be distorted and/or cropped. Then, click Close.
   
   
6. When you've set one of the above sets of settings, click Rip. Ripping the DVD folder into a working MP4 file will take a while... possibly as much as 3 or 4 hours, depending on the DVD and the settings you choose. Wait until Handbrake gives you a "Done." message before you quit Handbrake or do anything with the new file!
   

I have been able to successfully rip over 20 movies to play on my iPod using these steps, without ANY problems. The file sizes will vary from movie to movie, depending on the length of the movie and how complicated visually it is. (For example, THX 1138, which contains many stark, bland white scenes, is a smaller file than Black Hawk Down.)

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the above steps.

Enjoy!

 

[Chundles]

Thanks clayj. Bugger. I have to it all again....

Also, the max supported bitrate for mpeg encoding on the iPod is 2.5mbps. Huge files but the quality would be good.

 

[pseybold]

steps for TV show extraction?

those steps work great for DVD movies...but how do we extract episodes from TV show DVDs?? what are the settings in mac the ripper to just get one episode at a time? any input would be of great help.


Pete

 

[debo]

How do you navigate the menus in the dvd?

 

[devilot]

I don't have the new iPod, but thanks for working out the 'how to' and posting it, clayj! I'm sure plenty of people will be able to use your advice.

 

[pseybold]

debo...you dont actually have DVD menus on the new iPods. when you extract off of the DVDs your just taking the main movie feature. so when you select that movie in your ipod it just starts playing from the beginning credits.

Pete

 

[killuminati]

those steps work great for DVD movies...but how do we extract episodes from TV show DVDs?? what are the settings in mac the ripper to just get one episode at a time? any input would be of great help.

I have the same problem, I am trying to rip individual Seinfeld episodes, and just certain songs from my Coldplay Live 2003 DVD.

I went to Title - Chapter extraction, and chose the appropriate settings. But after I'm done ripping and I go to Handbrake to select the VIDEO_TS folder, it says "no valid titles". I don't know what to do to fix this.

I'm going to try doing a main feature extraction and then just splitting up the video file after.

 

[pseybold]

yea. thats exactly what has been happening to me. i just tried full video extration but breaking them up isnt as easy as you think. theres all kinds of wierd VOB files. any clarification would be a great help!!

Pete

 

[killuminati]

yea. thats exactly what has been happening to me. i just tried full video extration but breaking them up isnt as easy as you think. theres all kinds of wierd VOB files. any clarification would be a great help!!

Pete

I'm planning on breaking them up after I'm done everything. If I pretended this was just a movie and followed the directions, in the end I would have an MPEG 4 file I think. That I would easily be able to break up.

I'm sure there must be an easier way though.

 

[Totalshock]

Why MacTheRipper?

Has anyone tried doing this without the intermediary step of using MacTheRipper... just using Handbrake to extract video, and playing the result on the iPod? That's what I've been trying to do... don't have the iPod 5G yet, but do have a bunch of stuff that I ripped out of DVD in H.264 that I'm going to have to re-rip to make it work on the Pod, by the looks of it.

Alternately, does anyone have a decent rationale (time savings?) for MacTheRippering your DVD to your HD, and then extracting the video with Handbrake, as opposed to just extracting with Handbrake straight from the DVD?

I'm curious.

 

[killuminati]

I just finished the whole process on one of the Seinfeld DVD discs. Even though I did Main Feature extraction, I only got the first episode off the disc. Now I would have no idea how to go about getting the other ones.

 

[pseybold]

killuminati, i did the same using the first disc from season 1 LOST. i did main feature extraction and only got the first of 4 episodes. then i tried doing individual titles and got unreadable files....PLEASE HELP!!! this is frekkin frustrating

Pete

 

[freeny]

as for just extracting a chapter or so from a dvd use "cinematize" http://www.miraizon.com/products/products.html (yes it costs $ but not everything in life is free. or as my graphics professor used to tell his class "maybe you have some friends who can help you out.") it allows you to grab just a chapter then converts the file to whatever you want. as for the "extract main feature" issue, you should use "full disc extraction". you may get some crap you dont want like previews but you can just trim them off with quicktime, but youll definately get everything. I know quicktime pro costs some $ but is perfect for such events and costs less then half of cinematize. you can cut a video into different parts such as episodes etc.

Inside handbrake you can also select which chapters you want to convert but you still need to extract the whole dvd in mactheripper.

 

[mulze22]

In the diveintothemark web page it says use the h.264 encoding, yet you say not to. May I ask why. I ripped the whole entire 1st disc of The Chappelle Show and it worked perfectly. THe quality was excellent and the good thing was that it was only 594 MB. Even though it took forever but I think that is due to my proccesor.

 

[clayj]

In the diveintothemark web page it says use the h.264 encoding, yet you say not to. May I ask why. I ripped the whole entire 1st disc of The Chappelle Show and it worked perfectly. THe quality was excellent and the good thing was that it was only 594 MB. Even though it took forever but I think that is due to my proccesor.

I say not to becuase it has NEVER worked for me.

 

[freeny]

I say not to becuase it has NEVER worked for me.

Clayj has spoken.

 

[JonHimself]

Hello all, I think I might have some information to add to this to hopefully help some people out. I do not have my iPod as of yet (25th!) but have already started the ripping process. I have found that Mac the Ripper is not always necessary but if you have hard drive space it's worth it - especially for ripping TV show DVD's. All I did was copy the whole disc to my hard drive... usually takes well under an hour and that way I would have all of the files on my computer and not have to worry about keeping the discs on me (I've even been doing encoding in lectures at school so by not having the dvd drive constantly spinning it keeps the noise to a minimum). Anyways, for TV show dvd's I have done the same thing.
The confusion seems to be occurring with regards to getting the episodes you want. What I would do is open Apple's DVD player and play the episode, then I would click on the Chapter/Title buttons until I was able to see which Title was playing. Then, open up handbrake and select the video_ts folder of the dvd you just copied. Under the Title menu find the one that was just playing and select it. It doesn't hurt to check the length of the title to make sure you have it correct. Then use the settings that clayj has provided (or your own) and you should be good to go.
I am still on the fence as to what my final settings will be. The h.264 codec at 768kbps is the best for file size and the quality is ok (even on the TV being played from my laptop - not the ipod) However I have also been ripping copies with the mpeg codec at 1500 and 768kbps. The 768kbps is almost identical between both codecs, file size as well, whereas the 1500kbps mpeg file is the best in terms of quality (obviously).
Has anyone heard anything about the h.264 codec in handbrake NOT working with the iPods? I read that on these forums somewhere but have not had problems putting them into iTunes and looking at the files in ffmpegx the settings all appear to be correct (h.264 320xwhatever depending on original and 768kbps) Does anyone know anything about that?

 

[clayj]

Clayj has spoken.

OK, to humor those of you who've questioned why I say not to use H.264, I am reripping Blade Runner... the MPEG-4 version works fine, so I only changed the one setting to H.264.

If the new rip doesn't work, I'll let you know... if it does, I'll let you know that, too.

 

[snowmoon]

Check your PM Clayj

 

[freeny]

OK, to humor those of you who've questioned why I say not to use H.264, I am reripping Blade Runner... the MPEG-4 version works fine, so I only changed the one setting to H.264.

If the new rip doesn't work, I'll let you know... if it does, I'll let you know that, too.

Im just busting your chops clayj. all the work you are doing is greatly appreciated and seeing that i dont have my hardware yet I guess I cant really say anything. keep up the good work and I will join you in this codec journey tonite. my wife has informed me that my pod is waiting for me at home and I already have my av cable in hand (cant believe I will be the first to try this unless of course someone else gets to it before me). cant wait to hook it up to my tv and see how well it all works.......

 

[Tommyg117]

I have tried ripping a dvd onto the computer and it did not work. Once it was encoded by using handbrake and the above specifications, Itunes wouldn't let me drag the file into itunes. So I might have to do the whole thing over again. I wish I had know that it wouldn't work for me before I took all my time doing it.

 

[freeny]

I have tried ripping a dvd onto the computer and it did not work. Once it was encoded by using handbrake and the above specifications, Itunes wouldn't let me drag the file into itunes. So I might have to do the whole thing over again. I wish I had know that it wouldn't work for me before I took all my time doing it.

be sure you drag it into the "library" and not the "movies" playlist in itunes. originally thought itunes wouldnt accept my movies until I discovered this.

 

[Tommyg117]

Ok, I got through the steps with handbrake but for some reason when it is encoding, it gets to 100% done and then just doesn't move, and it doesn't give me an option, it still seems like its encoding but the only choices are Pause and Cancel. How do I get this thing to work?

 

[clayj]

Ok, I got through the steps with handbrake but for some reason when it is encoding, it gets to 100% done and then just doesn't move, and it doesn't give me an option, it still seems like its encoding but the only choices are Pause and Cancel. How do I get this thing to work?

Give it a while... sometimes it looks like it's finished, but it's really not.

 

[Phat_Pat]

has anyone confirmed if converting it with QTPro works as well? If not more efficient?