Using Pandora To Rip Movie & Music Discs And Encode Them

[WizardStan]

HandBrake lets me set a target size without using multiple passes, though (or at least, the Linux and Mac OS X versions do - I can't comment as to whether or not the Windows version does, though). It always seems to be dead-on what I ask of it.

Single pass compresses the entire video at a constant bit rate to arrive at a known file size. This means that low motion video gets more bits than it actually needs, and fast motion video gets choppy or blocky as it runs out of encoding bits. At best, it may "save" bits from earlier parts of the video to use in more complex video later, but not necessarily.
Multipass is able to figure out which parts of the video need few bits and which need more, and kind of balance them out so you get a more consistent (and therefore better) quality for the same final file size.
Both methods should provide you with about the file size you want. The only difference is that multipass should produce a slightly higher quality end result.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

What about using an external dvd drive+Pandora to rip cd's to flac? Would that work at decent speeds, and if so what program would the Pandora have to use to make it happen?

 

[Pleng]

Yea that should work at reasonable speeds. Dont know what software you could use though.

 

[paulguy]

You'd just use the program "flac", which I guess is the official reference encoder/decoder/interface thing, as well as something like cdparanoia to rip the tracks.

 

[grahamr]

That's one of the things I love about the Pandora. I see a thread like this and the voice in the back of my head says, 'why would you want to do that?'. With the Pandora, the answer is clearly, 'duh, because you can!'

i see it like this, sure you can use a hammer on a screw, but its clearly the wrong tool for the job
The notion that 'because you can' do something against common sense makes you somehow unique(or cool) is overplayed. In other word theres nothing special about doing a mundane task in the crappiest way possible.
ok im off my soapbox for today

You obviously havn't experienced the raw pleasure you get from hitting the stubborn git of a screw in with a hammer. (usually after throwing the ill-fitting screwdriver accross the room in disgust)
It certainly puts a smile on my face.

 

[kaprikawn]

What about using an external dvd drive+Pandora to rip cd's to flac? Would that work at decent speeds, and if so what program would the Pandora have to use to make it happen?

Ruby Ripper is the program of choice for Linux. Not sure if it is available for or can be ported to the Pandora.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

What about using an external dvd drive+Pandora to rip cd's to flac? Would that work at decent speeds, and if so what program would the Pandora have to use to make it happen?

Ruby Ripper is the program of choice for Linux. Not sure if it is available for or can be ported to the Pandora.

thanks for the tip kaprikawn! I think I remember reading about Ruby Ripper awhile ago(the name is very familiar) If anybody else can weigh in on Ruby Ripper compatibility with our beloved Pandora that would be appreciated.

 

[paulguy]

If mplayer with libdvdcss is available on pandora, you can just do mplayer -dumpstream dvd://<title> to dump any title. It'll be in a single VOB named stream.dump. Unfortunately, I'll only rip a single title at a time, not all titles. This will not encode it, though, only do a straight rip. You'd use mencoder to transcode it to something smaller, but man that'll take an eternity on the pandora for any reasonable encoder/lavcopts.

An alright solution if you can't be arsed to download anything, since I imagine most people will have mplayer installed.

 

[Zotty]

What about using an external dvd drive+Pandora to rip cd's to flac? Would that work at decent speeds, and if so what program would the Pandora have to use to make it happen?

+1

And perhaps some additional use: When I buy a new CD the first thing I do is rip it to FLAC and store it on my server as backup. The server is not easily accessible (unless I twist my body in some awkward position). The Pandora would allow me to hookup a USB cable, insert disc and be done with it. OTOH sending it with 500KB/s to the server would take a while.

 

[WizardStan]

OTOH sending it with 500KB/s to the server would take a while.

About 10 minutes for a full 70 minute audio CD, based on average 65% compression. It'll probably take about that long to encode anyway, network isn't the major bottleneck here.

 

[Zotty]

OTOH sending it with 500KB/s to the server would take a while.

About 10 minutes for a full 70 minute audio CD, based on average 65% compression. It'll probably take about that long to encode anyway, network isn't the major bottleneck here.

It's all relative. The rest of my network communicates over a 1Gb connection, so compared to that this will feel quite slow :lol:

But very doable indeed!