Ripping DVDs

[macbaseball]

I currently record a few shows weekly on my Panasonic DVD Recorder (Panasonic DMR-E50) and then burn them. After that I upload them to my Powerbook using MactheRipper, I then encode them in ProDV25 (Or something like that; it's them iddle option) in MPEG Stream Clip. I then use iMovie to edit the commericals out, and then compress it in MPEG-4.

Ok here's my problem: I want to purchase a 20 inch monitor, but when I watch these shows they will become pixalated, as they are 720x 528 or480. The monitors I'm looking at would display this at about 2.25 times it's original size. I figured out that MPEG Stream Clip is the one assigning this size and it's not changeable, as far as I know.

Is there another set of applications (Or a single applcation) to do this process better. I think the problem is all three of these apps, as Mactheripper doesn't rip at a very high quality (Not bad, but not great), MPEG Streamclip assigns the smaller resolution, and iMovie isn't great at compression, even though the interface and tools are perfect for what i want to do. Perhaps even a partner application for iMovie would work. I'm willing to spend some money, i just have to know what to buy, and that I'm spending money wisely.

 

[joshjohnson]

I currently record a few shows weekly on my Panasonic DVD Recorder (Panasonic DMR-E50) and then burn them. After that I upload them to my Powerbook using MactheRipper, I then encode them in ProDV25 (Or something like that; it's them iddle option) in MPEG Stream Clip. I then use iMovie to edit the commericals out, and then compress it in MPEG-4.

Ok here's my problem: I want to purchase a 20 inch monitor, but when I watch these shows they will become pixalated, as they are 720x 528 or480. The monitors I'm looking at would display this at about 2.25 times it's original size. I figured out that MPEG Stream Clip is the one assigning this size and it's not changeable, as far as I know.

Is there another set of applications (Or a single applcation) to do this process better. I think the problem is all three of these apps, as Mactheripper doesn't rip at a very high quality (Not bad, but not great), MPEG Streamclip assigns the smaller resolution, and iMovie isn't great at compression, even though the interface and tools are perfect for what i want to do. Perhaps even a partner application for iMovie would work. I'm willing to spend some money, i just have to know what to buy, and that I'm spending money wisely.

Unfortunately, none of the mac apps are responsible for the 720x640 resolutions of your programs, it's what the shows were broadcast from the station at, so there is no way to increase the quality by increasing the resolution. you can export the MPEG4 in quicktime pro to say 1024x768, but that's a waste of time and HD space. Only way to make tv look better on your shiny new monitor is to get EyeTV 500 and watch HDTV on it.

 

[macbaseball]

Ok, then does anyone have any suggestions for a better encoder, or is iMovie/Quicktime top of the line.

 

[mthangbk]

I highly recommend ffmpegX. It's free and very fast, work greet for me.
You can see the instructions for using it here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040203155707109

 

[live4ever]

A few things:

1-MactheRipper is not needed since these DVD-Rs aren't encrypted you can copy the .vobs directly to the hard drive.

2-Use MPEG Streamclip to edit out the commercials (set the in and out points) and export as a mpeg (this does not re-encode the video or resize it, it just chops out the commercials) - the only reason to edit in iMovie would be to add special effects (ie. transitions, titles etc.) to the footage

This saves a further degradation in video quality (mpeg2>DV>mpeg4 will lose more than mpeg2>mpeg4 since there is two lossy compression steps).

3-Use ffmpegX or D-Vision to compress to a mpeg4 variant (XviD is probably the best, however h.264 is still under development and has probably gotten better in the last few months).

 

[daveL]

I think the problem is all three of these apps, as Mactheripper doesn't rip at a very high quality (Not bad, but not great) ...

All MacTheRipper does is remove the DVD encryption; it has absolutely no affect on the video quality whatsoever. The "quality" MTR gives you is identical to the "quality" of the original DVD, so your comment above makes no sense.

 

[macbaseball]

Alright, I wasn't sure exactly what it was doing, so thanks for clarifying.

 

[macbaseball]

Use MPEG Streamclip to edit out the commercials (set the in and out points) and export as a mpeg (this does not re-encode the video or resize it, it just chops out the commercials)

I couldn't make this work - when I edited out the second set of commercials the first segament of the show was deleted - could you give me a little more information on how to edit out the commercials. Thanks