Ripping WITH MENUS...

[ZballZ]

I have a question for anyone who has been thru the process of ripping their DVD collection to a standalone multimedia player...

I have just purchased the WD LIVE TV HUB (1tb hdd), and want to keep my DVDs on it for easy access...

but which storage format is best?

I would like to keep the menus, subs and commentary but cant really find an easy way of doing this...

also, MPEG2 takes up so much HDD-space, so is there anyway to keep menus, full quality, but recompres to a better format (like H.264) ?


thx
ZballZ

 

[Appleind]

I use AutoGK to convert to an XviD AVI. I also use WD TV Live

 

[ZballZ]

I use AutoGK to convert to an XviD AVI. I also use WD TV Live

...but this would just give you the main movie file, and not the whole DVD with menus intact, right?

 

[jason221]

I don't know if you can do this and have it work on a multimedia player. There are applications like MacTheRipper and RipIt, which copy the entire DVD image onto your computer. RipIt will put it on your computer either as a folder or as a .dvdmedia file (which I guess is just the folder consolidated into an individual file). The Mac's built-in DVD Player app will read both of these formats. No idea if the WD Live can read those, though.

MacTheRipper is free, and RipIt is an app that you need to pay for full functionality / unlimited rips (but it's better, in my opinion).

 

[kuwisdelu]

You can do what jason said to preserve the whole DVD, and it'll be the file size of a DVD. I don't think there's any way to convert to a more efficient format while preserving the menus.

You can, however, rip it to a format like H.264 in a container with the subtitles and other audio tracks like commentary or other languages. You'd lose the menus, though, and you'd have to rip whatever extras you wanted separately.

 

[ZballZ]

Thx for the replies. I read that the WD HUB plays .iso-files. Any software for mac that would rip full dvds directly to iso? I've been searching the web, and it seems that .iso files in osx aren't really that common... ?

You can do what jason said to preserve the whole DVD, and it'll be the file size of a DVD. I don't think there's any way to convert to a more efficient format while preserving the menus.

You can, however, rip it to a format like H.264 in a container with the subtitles and other audio tracks like commentary or other languages. You'd lose the menus, though, and you'd have to rip whatever extras you wanted separately.

This would probably be the best non-menu option. Also gives my DVD collection a smaller footprint. Any particular software you would use for this? The simpler the better. I have a large DVD-collection to rip, and want the process to be smooth and easy ...