Converting DVD to Divx
Most of the DVD conversion guides I have found have been a bit vague, just text and with no pictures to show you what to do. Hopefully this one will be clearer ;). I've already explained basically how to use Flask Mpeg so I will now explain the alternative to Flask Mpeg, Mpeg2Avi and VirtualDub. Mpeg2Avi is a little less user friendly but is just as fast as Flask. Other benefits are that the Mpeg2Avi program tends to make slightly smaller files than the same settings in Flask Mpeg. There is also much less chance of your audio becoming out of synchronization with the video source because VirtualDub is able to fix these problems as they appear. You will have to decide which version converts the DVD CD best. Anyway here is the step by step guide:
Programs you will need
Note: Most programs will require that Windows Media Player is installed and fully up to date ie. install the Media Players latest upgrade! You will probably also need Direct X 7.0 installed and Direct X Media (which is different from Direct X and needs to be installed as well).
Step 1. Ripping the VOB files
This is simple, use DeCSS or DOD Power Ripper to copy the VOB files from the DVD CD to your hard drive.
Step 2. Converting the VOB's to Divx
Make sure you have the Divx Codec installed along with all the Windows upgrades mentioned at the start. You may as well install the Radium MP3 Codec here too. Copy the Mpeg2Avi program folder to your hard disk. Put inside the same folder as Mpeg2Avi the AC3DEC and the AVGUI programs. Don't copy the folders just the programs. Inside the Mpeg2Avi folder should look something like this:
Double click on the green avgui icon and you will see the following intro screen. Notice that it tells you that both Mpeg2Avi and ac3dec are found and ready to use.
Select the Video tab and put in the following settings I have left everything else default. When you click on the badly named button "Give me many Pictures", Avgui will let you browse for the VOB files on your hard disk. Use the "Output" button to select where you want to save the Divx video file. If you have a PAL DVD use 25 as the Frame Rate and 29.970 for NTSC DVD's. I always select the output as AVI YUV2 because it is faster, but I don't think its too important which one is used; RGB is slowest because it is converted to YUV before it is compressed.
When you have finished choosing the correct settings press the "give me my video" button and it will open the following dialogue box. Under the Video Codec Select DivX ;-) MPEG-4 Low-Motion. Press the Configure button for additional settings. I set the Compression Control to 0 Crispness. You can play about with these settings if you like to see how it turns out. What Data Rate to choose depends on your finished film length. Obviously the higher the Data Rate the better the finished result. But to fit everything on a single 650 MB CD requires that we use about 900 kBits/s for a 90 minuet film. For a 2 hour film you will require about 650 kBits/s.
Click OK and the following window will appear showing the video compression progress.
Once finished click on the Audio tab (there are even less settings here). Click the "Give me food" button and browse for the VOB file again. Use the "Output Files" button to tell it where to save your audio file. Click the large 'give me my audio' button.
Up pops the Audio compression settings. Choose PCM 48.000 Hz 16 Bit, Stereo. Click OK.
The following window describes your progress:
Thats it! You now have a Divx Video and a separate audio file.
Step 3. Sticking them all Together
Run VirtualDub and open the Divx video file you just made.
Go to the Video settings and select Direct stream copy.
Choose Frame Rate > Change so video and audio duration's match. Click OK.
Go to the Interleaving options and set it to Preload 1000 ms of audio and interleave audio after every 500 frames. Click OK.
Choose the Audio Compression option > MPEG Layer-3. Click Show all formats and select 96 kBit/s, 44,100 Hz, Stereo (you can also go as high as 128 or as low as 64 kBits/s if you wish).
Go to the Audio settings. Make sure it is set to WAV audio and select Full processing mode.
Finally, choose Save AVI and select where you wish to save it on your hard disk.
The following box will appear showing details of its progress. In about 10 to 15 minuets your final Divx will be complete. To speed up this process you can also select a higher priority in the processing thread priority box (circled in red).
Congratulations, you now have a finished Divx video file ;o). Now do the same to each Vob file you have extracted to make them into Divx video files.
DVD's usually split the movie on the disk into between 4 and 6 separate gigabyte chunks. People with huge hard disks often merge the VOB files together before they compress the DVD to Divx but this is not necessary for us. We will use Peck's Power Join to merge all of the finished Divx files into a single video.
Using this program is really simple, find any two or more Divx files (they have the extension avi of course) and add them to the list in correct order from top to bottom. Press the add to list button (circled in red) to add each Divx file . When done press: Join! That's it! You now have a completely finished Divx movie small enough to fit on a single CD-R.
Troubleshooting
Multi-Language DVD's
Usually if the DVD is multi-language it will have two or more audio files saved inside the VOB file. After you have ripped the VOB to your hard disk all the sound will be messed up and sound like a severely scratched audio CD, or you may just hear two voices playing at the same time! Usually ignoring the apparent problem and just converting the DVD as normal will do the trick. The ac3dec software will only decode the audio00 file, which is almost always the English soundtrack.
If this doesn't work you could try a program called VobSnoopy. It is simple to use, just open the VOB file and select the extract Audio option to extract all the audio files. Open AVGUI as though you were going to convert the audio. Select the fist file 'audio00' or whatever you called it. Now instead of converting it choose the 'play audio' button. Is this the English soundtrack? If not, delete this audio file! Then open the next and the next until you find the English sound track. Delete all other soundtracks except English. You should now be left with the correct audio and video. Convert the video as normal, but instead of choosing the VOB file for the audio select the extracted audio file.
Alternatively, if this doesn't work, it is likely that the film has been recorded twice! Some Disney films have been known to do this. If this is the case do the following:
Use the program MpegUtils to analyze ALL the VOB's. Use the Check VOB button and then split by Vob ID. Now look for the VOB files that have about the same sizes and play a bit of each. These files usually will contain the same part of the movie but one will be in another language. One is for the English version, one is for the French, German and so on. Delete all the unwanted language VOB's and merge the rest in the right order using the program Vobmerge. Remake the DVD structure thusly vts_01_1.vob ; vts_01_2.vob ; vts_01_3.vob etc. Bingo, perfect audio!
Interactive DVD's
Interactive DVD's are not too common at the moment but when one such as The Matrix comes along it presents all kinds of problems. You must treat them as you would a Multi-Language DVD. You must use MpegUtils to split the VOB files up and look at each clip to try and figure out where they should go. Once you have them in the correct order just VobMerge them together and bingo! The following example is how The Matrix was solved thanks to Asyd Rayne:
You must open each file individually with MPEGUtils and click "Check File". Then click "Split VOB". Make sure you set it to Split by VOB ID in the popup window. Then you can delete your original VOB file. To fix The Matrix just delete the following files highlighted in Red and you will have a perfect version.
Region 1 DVD CD of the Matrix
If you have a Region 1 DVD CD of the Matrix you may need to delete the following files:
Vts_02_1.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_1.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_3.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_4.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_5.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_6.vob doesn't need to be changed:
Region 2 DVD CD of the Matrix
If you have a Region 2 DVD CD of the Matrix you may need to use the following settings. But make sure the finished result is correct before you convert it to Divx.
Vts_02_1.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_1.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_3.vob this file doesnt need to be altered.
Vts_02_4.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_5.vob splits into the following:
Vts_02_6.vob splits into the following: