A Quick And Simple Guide To Ripping Your Dvds For Your Pandora


Prometheus

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Since this has come up in a few threads, I figured I would write up a quick and simple guide to ripping your DVDs, with results that will just work on your Pandora after you have installed the Community Codec Pack.

This guide is not intended for video enthusiasts who want to flawlessly preserve absolutely every facet of the source disc they're ripping from, and I won't be covering subtitles and the like as I have no experience with those at this time - it's just a no-nonsense guide for everyday folks who quite likely just want to watch their videos on their Pandora and want them to just work. ;)

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started. The tool we'll be using for this is called HandBrake - it's available for Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 (in both 64-bit and 32-bit x86 flavours, as well as PowerPC), Linux (32-bit and 64-bit x86 RPMs for Fedora 12 are available, and nightly pre-release builds are available for x86 Ubuntu - the source-code is also available), and Microsoft Windows (this covers 2000, XP, Vista, and 7). You can download it here.

The GUI is more-or-less the same between all versions of HandBrake, and it looks like pretty much like this;
HandBrake_mac1.png

This image is from the Mac version, and was borrowed from the HandBrake Screenshots page, although I have put it on my own Photobucket space for the purposes of this guide.

The first thing you need to do once you've downloaded HandBrake and gotten it running, is to insert a DVD. If you need me to spell out how to do this for you, you might have trouble with the rest of the guide. ;)

Once your DVD is in and has been identified by your system, you'll want to click the "Source" button which is located in the upper left corner of the HandBrake window. This should bring up a box in which you can navigate to your DVD drive, which should be displaying the disc's label, which, for the purposes of this tutorial, we'll be referring to as Foo - for future reference, Foo is an animated television series compilation. Click on Foo, and click the "Open" button on the navigation box - HandBrake will now scan all of the Titles (for example, each trailer and each TV episode) that are on the disc.

Now that all of the Titles have been scanned, you'll want to find the first episode that's on the Foo disc. There is a drop-down menu not too far below the "Source" button, and it's labelled "Title:". Click on this menu, and it will display a (usually) short list of the disc's contents, which should look a bit like this;

Title 1 - 00h01m
Title 2 - 00h03m
Title 3 - 00h06m
Title 4 - 00h23m
Title 5 - 00h23m
Title 6 - 00h23m
Title 7 - 00h23m
Title 8 - 00h24m
Title 9 - 00h23m

As you can see, you can identify which Titles are Foo's episodes, and which are its trailers, by their running times. In this case, you'll want to click on Title 4, here.

We will be ignoring the drop-down menus that cover which chapters to rip - I'm assuming that we'll want to rip them all. If the DVD you're ripping has multiple camera angles (or makes use of this facility to show alternate storyboard versions of some scenes, or other such things), make sure the "Angle:" drop-down menu is set to whatever the one you wish to rip is - in this case, we'll say that Angle "1" is the default for Foo, so we won't be changing it.

Now we want to change the format we're ripping to. There is a drop-down menu that's informatively named "Format:" - change this to "MP4 File" if it isn't set this already. This will generate either a .mp4 or .m4v file, depending on whether you want to leave the chapter markers in place or not (I'll cover this later).

You may now choose a location to rip the file to, and a name for it - in this case, since we're ripping from a disc named Foo, consisting of TV show episodes, we'll browse to a folder on the desktop called "Foo", and choose the filename "Foo-1", to signify that this is episode one of the series. You can do this from the "Destination" box that is located below the "Title:", "Angle:" and "Chapters:" drop-down menus.

Next, click on the drop-down menu labelled "Video Codec:", and change this to "ffmpeg". Leave the "Framerate:" menu set to "Same as source". For the sake of speed, and because Foo doesn't really need a super-duper-all-singing-all-dancing high-quality rip, we'll uncheck the box below this, which is marked "2-pass encoding". Since this is an old animated show, we'll just hop over to the "Quality:" side of this panel and give it a target size to aim for - in this case, 600MB will do. Your mileage may vary on this, as it can come down to personal preference as well as how much space you have on the SD Card you're using for your DVD rips. Don't just follow my suggestion blindly on this one, it's just that I've had great success with 600MB as a target size for 20 to 25 minute animated shows, which is why I'm using it in this example.

Above the options that we just played with, there are a series of tabs, named "Audio", "Subtitles", "Advanced", and "Chapters". We're already on "Video", we won't be messing with the "Subtitles" tab, and "Advanced" isn't used for the video codec we're working with, so we can safely ignore those. Click on "Audio", and make sure that the audio type is set to "AAC (faac)", and that the bitrate is 128kbps (this is roughly equivalent to MP3 audio at 160kbps or so). Next, click on "Chapters". If you're ripping a movie, you may want to leave "Create Chapter Markers" checked - I prefer not to do this for TV show rips, however, so for Foo, I'll uncheck it.

At the top of the window is a button labelled "Picture Settings". When you click this, you will be presented with options relating to settings for anamorphic films, aspect ratio, cropping, and so on. The default crop setting is fine for most people's purposes, so we'll leave this one alone. Aspect ratio and anamorphic settings tend to come down to personal preferences - there are preview images available (they're ripped from the DVD itself, so you can see how it will look), so just tweak these until you're happy with them. You don't need to adjust the resolution from the source unless you plan to be using your rips on another device that has a lower-resolution display than the Pandora does - the resolution of most (all?) DVDs will fit on the Pandora's display just fine as-is.

Once this is done, at the top of the screen, click on "Add to Queue". Since these settings are usually preserved between episodes on the same disc, you can now change the "Title:" menu to the next episode, and increment the filename to "Foo-2", and then click "Add to Queue" for that. Sometimes, however, the "Picture Settings" options may be forgotten, so do double-check this before you add the next episode to the queue.

Now, click on Show Queue, and in the new window that pops up, double-check that you've got everything you want ripped in the list. If this is ok, then click the "Start" button at the top of the Queue window, and HandBrake will now start ripping your DVD. If you're ripping a single episode, or a movie, you do not need to deal with adding these to the queue - once you've sorted out your settings for these, you can simply click on the "Start" button in HandBrake's main window, instead.

Either way, now all you have to do is wait! HandBrake will alert you (at least on Mac OS X and Linux - I haven't used it on Windows, as I do not use Windows, so I don't know if it alerts you there as well) when it has finished ripping the disc, and it will then be ready for further ripping if you wish.

After that, all you have to do is copy your rips to an SD Card, and if you have installed the Community Codec Pack, you will now be able to watch them. Enjoy!
 
Please note that the windows version of HandBrake is not capable of ripping commercial DVDs out of the box. It can be made to do so, but I don't think instructions are welcome on this board. I don't remember if the same is true for other operating systems.

Also, if you are trying to figure out what quality settings to use there is the "Preview Window" button that will encode and show a short (10-20s?) clip from the middle of the video so you can get a better feel for what it will look like.

Edit: dang, keep misspelling (capitalizing) HandBrake.
 
Oh, brilliant, thanks!

One question though:
You don't need to adjust the resolution from the source unless you plan to be using your rips on another device that has a lower-resolution display than the Pandora does - the resolution of most (all?) DVDs will fit on the Pandora's display just fine as-is.
What is the the resolution of a DVD video, then? Would cropping and/or downscaling help filesize?

And as I am not able to test for myself right now, does that 'quality' slider change to reflect the target filesize? (Or, will I know how terrible a 2-hour movie looks at 10MB, before ripping and playing it?)
 
Vlynndar said:
What is the the resolution of a DVD video, then? Would cropping and/or downscaling help filesize?
It should tell you the resolution of the source video in the Picture Settings part. I've honestly never touched the cropping options in all the years I've used HandBrake (which is since its first beta release on Mac OS X, which is where it started :p), but downscaling would help it, yes. I don't know how it would look on the Pandora's display if you downscaled the rip and then watched the video at full-screen, though.

And as I am not able to test for myself right now, does that 'quality' slider change to reflect the target filesize?
I don't believe it does - or at least, it doesn't in the version I'm using.
 
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When you say to use Mplayer I am assuming that Gnome , the default app is what you mean ?
 
I'm afraid I'm not quite sure I understand. The only instance of the word "mplayer" that I can find in this thread is in your post, just above this one I'm writing right now. Could you clarify, please?
 
Prometheus said:
I'm afraid I'm not quite sure I understand. The only instance of the word "mplayer" that I can find in this thread is in your post, just above this one I'm writing right now. Could you clarify, please?

The Community Codec Pack shows Mplayer (Media Player Classic) as the Media Player that will be installed. http://apps.open-pandora.org/cgi-bin/viewapp.pl?/Other/CodecPack.inf

But when I install the Community Codec Pack the only thing selectable when I right click on the video file is Gnome Player. This was confusing. Just making sure they are the same thing lol .
 
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I'm pretty sure that Media Player Classic is of no relation to mplayer and GNOME-mplayer, but I could well be wrong (I don't use Windows, so I'm not familiar with Media Player Classic, if it is indeed Windows software). :p

Either way, GNOME-mplayer (which is just plain mplayer, but with a graphical front-end - you can call it from the command line to drop some overhead, which can be handy) will play files ripped with the method described here just fine. :)
 
Prometheus said:
I'm pretty sure that Media Player Classic is of no relation to mplayer and GNOME-mplayer, but I could well be wrong (I don't use Windows, so I'm not familiar with Media Player Classic, if it is indeed Windows software). :p

Either way, GNOME-mplayer (which is just plain mplayer, but with a graphical front-end - you can call it from the command line to drop some overhead, which can be handy) will play files ripped with the method described here just fine. :)

OK, they probably should change the picture on the front page of the Community Codec download page then. It's quite confusing.

Thanks for the help :)
 
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Having looked at it, that is kind of confusing. :blink:

Anyhow, no problem. I hope the guide's useful to you. :)
 
Prometheus said:
Having looked at it, that is kind of confusing. :blink:

Anyhow, no problem. I hope the guide's useful to you. :)

Yes it was perfect. :)

I got the movie Avatar running perfectly.

Changed the Mplayer config to up the brightness a bit and the sound a bit and the results is one sweet looking movie player. :)
 
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I for one have converted many a video for quite a few portable devices and Divx compatible players. While it has been nearly a year and a half since my PSP video days, I thought I'd make a few comments on this.

I strongly suggest for those who are new to this, especially those waiting for a Pandora like myself, to really play with the settings! Take this time to find your sweet spot for video and it will be easier later, especially when you want to make and load some videos and card space may be a concern. You may be surprised just how low you can go! It's all a matter of taste.

For instance, on my Pocket PC I have to keep bit rates rather low for the processor to handle things, yet I have found that I can still get quite acceptable results. While the Pandora does have a higher rez screen it's really not much bigger. So for TV shows or other small clips it would be acceptable for me to encode using settings like 320x240 video in Divx at about 250Kbps and 128Kbps mp3 audio. Encoded in virtualdub, this usually averages out to be around 1-2MB per minute. So I could easily hold a sitcom in around 50MB. it's not razor sharp, it's not without some visible artifacts, but it in now way impedes viewing of the show in a manner that everything is easily seen.

If I were using h.264 video like Prometheus used (especially since her's is animation) I may not even change the size of the video but I would encode it to be 200 to 300 MB in size just due to the fact that animation can be compressed much more with less noticeable artifacts. It really does come down to taste, but I would be interested to see what Prometheus would think of the quality if she resized to 320xsomething and compressed it to say 150MB even. I would imagine being animation and on such a small screen the results wouldn't be too much worse. And 4 episodes could fit in the same space. EDIT: Also cropping video that has the black bars in it can further reduce file size or increase quality for the selected filesize as well.

It really comes down to what you would be happy with. For a watch once and discard video, I am more than happy to cram it in as small as I can still enjoy watching it at. For something Like a Movie I might want to save and load on for watching every so often or using TV out, you should still have excellent results using 700MB in Divx or h.264 video for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

I only wanted to add that people should find their acceptable quality level by playing with different settings, so we didn't have people who thought that 600MB for h.264 for every 25 or so minutes was the norm. At that size you would have movies coming close to 2GB when even 600MB might be close enough to DVD on such a small screen using h.264.

When I get my Pandora I am going to optimize my encodings in categories, Animation TV, Animation Movie, Live TV and Movie (Slow video vs. Fast action) of which I will be happy to share my results as now I'm going to do this for both Divx and h.264. After all at some point, the extra bits won't really make it look any better but just eat up space. So I will have suggested settings for space saving as well as best look for the size. Sorry if this seems unnecessary to some, I guess having a 256MB card in my PDA really taught me to save space and I figure not every Pandora owner is going to have even 2 SD cards let alone 2- 32GB ones. ( I will have one 16GB and one 1GB)

Oh, and thanks to Prometheus for having taken the time to post this tutorial for those who have not done this yet. It's amazing how many people think it's insanely difficult to do this, and this thread will surely help show people it's not so mind boggling difficult.

EDIT: anywhere I said h.264 above, Mp4 video will suffice, not sure the extent of h.264 compatibility on Pandora.
 
Poem58 said:
If I were using h.264 video like Prometheus used (especially since her's is animation) I may not even change the size of the video but I would encode it to be 200 to 300 MB in size just due to the fact that animation can be compressed much more with less noticeable artifacts.
I didn't use h.264. I used MPEG4. ;)

It really does come down to taste, but I would be interested to see what Prometheus would think of the quality if she resized to 320xsomething and compressed it to say 150MB even. I would imagine being animation and on such a small screen the results wouldn't be too much worse.
I haven't tried this, admittedly - I should note that I use the same rips on my main computer as well, which is why I don't resize mine. Also, I'm one of those folks who are driven absolutely barmy by artifacting. :lol:

Oh, and thanks to Prometheus for having taken the time to post this tutorial for those who have not done this yet. It's amazing how many people think it's insanely difficult to do this, and this thread will surely help show people it's not so mind boggling difficult.
No problem. :) I had quite a lot of fun writing it. I strongly second your recommendation to play with the settings until they're to your liking, by the way - the guide can be thought of more as a "Quick Start" sort of thing, rather than a rigid set of instructions.
 
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Sorry I based that comment on the fact your screen shot (which I know you borrowed) was set to encode with h.264, and having not used handbrake as an encoder yet, I assumed since you had not specified otherwise that you used the same setting. Even so the same comments still stand although h.264 might have favorable results as it did on the PSP.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply this was anything less than a helpful start guide, my comments are also an attempt to be helpful. While some people can't stand artifacting of any kind, many will not mind the relatively low artifacting that can be seen on (or should I say cannot be seen on) such a small screen. Since people like to jam as many games/roms/music as they can on a card, I just wanted to encourage the experimentation to see what works best for them if they wish to cram as much on as possible without making videos ugly or overly compressed. I've found once you get a feel for what quality you get for different compression rates, it makes making the decision much faster and simpler in the future. Especially seeing many didn't know the reduced detail in cartoonish content allows it to maintain a much clearer look when compressed more heavily.
 
Your comments are very helpful indeed. :) They reminded me of some stuff I'd forgotten, even (like the animation/compression stuff - I'm amazed by how often I forget that :lol: ).
 
I went to try Handbrake and yep, no way to read the DVD on Windows. You have to take the intermediate step to rip the DVD to the hard drive. I guess I'll look for a work around as the software I used to use to go from DVD to Divx/Xvid etc. was Fair Use Wizard which was great software but went from free to being sold. Not that I'm above paying or anything, but I'll try to make Handbrake work first just to try it out. I'd imagine it is what most people will use anyway. I want to rip the Daffy duck cartoon "Duck Amuck" and don't feel like decrypting the entire DVD with my drive near full again. So I'll report back on how it goes...

Edit: Apparently the work around involves buying software! So If I'm going to pay for the software to bypass this to make Handbrake work, I might as well just get the one I liked before which needs no secondary background process to make it work.

There is a free possibility, but IF it works you have to have yet a third software "layer" to access the disc, far too much effort to rip a cartoon...lol

So I decided to rip the first VOB, and funny, thought it wasn't going to read, but it's good, so I'll give it a go now...

Edit 2: whoa! 3 hours to rip the VOB? at .1x...what the? Thought about using the other software, then realized if I remember correctly it too ripped the entire disc first. So I guess I'll just deal and get on with it...lol
 
Thanks much, Poem58. I'd be interested to hear how you get on. :) I don't use Windows, and know nobody in person who does, so it's quite tricky for me to account for things like that.
 
Prometheus said:
Thanks much, Poem58. I'd be interested to hear how you get on. :) I don't use Windows, and know nobody in person who does, so it's quite tricky for me to account for things like that.
That's why I thought I'd jump in. I had to set this up for myself anyway. Had to restart the ripper, it was going to take 3 hours for 1 VOB, now it's 9 minutes. I won't be able to finish this today as I'm actually employed part time again finally. So results will be likely tomorrow. Hoping to post screen shots if all goes well unless it would be allowable to post say 10 second clips for people to try, so if a mod knows if it's OK...I'd appreciate it (they have to be small my upload abilities are horribly slow) If I could post clips Prometheus, would be willing to give your impressions on your Pandora?

Edit: Oh and by posting clips I mean links to download them for testing purposes, not actually displaying them here or anything...
 
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I don't know if it would be ok to post clips, as that's not my area of expertise, I'm afraid. I'm certainly willing to give impressions, though. :)
 
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