So you've decided to share videos, a DVD to Quicktime guide.
Oct 21 '03
The Bottom Line This guide will give you all the knowledge that you will need to encode a video file from a DVD into the web suitable Quicktime format.
It will not work for a full length film.
Have you ever brought a new DVD and found an extra on it that you would just love to share with the online community? Don't worry, this has happened to a lot of people and it's perfectly OK to feel this way. There are sometimes a lot of cool things to be found on a DVD that can not be found anywhere else, and with the whole multi regional angle, they are often impossible to find in other countries. This is where the internet comes in, as it allows people who know how, to share these videos with millions of people world wide. This guide will give you all the knowledge that you will need to encode a video file from a DVD into the web suitable Quicktime format for the sake of sharing with your peers. Firstly though a legal notice.
It is illegal to share any video file that comes under the copyright of another person. This means that it is a crime, and a punishable crime if you are caught, to copy a film from DVD and share it with anyone else. Fortunately it is virtually impossible to do this with a full length movie into Quicktime, unless you have a computer the size of the FBI's database. Most extras are OK to share, these would include trailers for various films (including the occasional rare trailer that was never released online), little animated shorts from years ago, though if the DVD is a compilation then it's a touchy area, and sometimes if you're very lucky you can get an early student film from the director in question, as was the case for M-Night-Shamalyan on the Signs DVD. Those sorts of things will usually be perfectly acceptable for sharing on-line, as they were never designed for making money. However if you try burning them to CD and selling them, then the company's who made them first will have something to say.
With that unfortunate bit of business out of the way I can write the rest of this guide without people worrying that I endorse illegal activity. What I'm going to do though, is that I'm going to write this guide step by step. That way It will be easier to understand what I'm writing, and by the end you will have the knowledge to encode a video file into a higher resolution than the ones done by Apple themselves, at http://www.apple.com/trailers/.
Step 1 http://www.afterdawn.com/software/dawnload.cfm?mirror=184&software_id=251
First of all you need to rip the file from your DVD onto your hard drive. This will require a DVDrom drive on your PC (If you didn't realize that then maybe this isn't for you), and a ripping software. I myself find Smart Ripper to be the best. Simply download smart ripper and unzip the folder, no installation required. Then open Smart ripper, with your DVD in the DVDrom drive, and you will be presented with a list of options. Don't worry, the settings are already optimal so all you need to do is to search through the list of files and find the file that is the same length as the one you want to rip. Tick that box, then click start. You should find a large .VOB file, this is the video so simply check it to make sure it is the correct file and then move on.
Step 2 http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/DVD2AVI_1.77.3.zip
Download a program called DVD2AVI, don't worry there's no installation again. Open that and load up the .VOB file you just ripped. You don't have to do much here, it's simply a case of entering a few options. Go to the top of the screen, and in the menu bar select Audio. A drop down box will appear with a group of options. Select the second item down, the one called Output Method and another drop down box will appear. On this one select Decode to WAV (AC3, LCPM) and exit that drop down box.
Move to the third item in the audio options, it's called Dolby Digital decode and in this drop down box tick Dolby surround downmix. Then highlight Dynamic range control, and in the next drop down box select Off.
The fourth item in audio is called 48 - 44.1KHz, and this simply needs to be set to Ultra High.
The first and Fifth boxes are irrelevant, unless the audio is on a different track, which you would know if the VOB file was silent when you played it in your DVD player, so simply exit Audio.
In the Video drop down box, ignore iDCT Algorithm and go straight to Field Operation. In the drop down box select None.
Move down to Colour Space and select YUV 4:2:2
finally move to the YUV-RGB drop down menu and I select PC scale.
All that's left to do is to go to the File drop down box and select Save Project, to save this first stage into the folder of your choice.
Step 3 http://tmpg.pegasys-inc.com/download_files/TMPGEnc-2.521.58.169-Free.zip
Download the program TMPenc, again it's free and doesn't require installing. The next step is a little more complex than the last. At the moment you don't have a real video file, just a very small .2v file, that mirrors the VOB with the setting s you used in DVD2AVI. In TMPenc simply browse for a video source and select that .2v you just made. Then go to the settings tab to open up a new window.
In this one set the aspect ratio to 1:1 (VGA) and then move to the advanced tab. Video source type should say Interlace, don't worry that's what it should be. Interlacing is the method used for playing back these video's on a standard TV screen, but they will need to be deinterlaced for use on your monitor. First of all though you want to check what the field order is. You do this by simply double clicking on the deinterlace filter and choosing method Even Odd field (field). Then in this same video you simply scan through the video. If playback is jerky then exit deinterlace and set it to Bottom Field First [field B], then double click on deinterlace and do the same thing. Once you have discovered the field order simply uncheck deinterlace.
What you do next depends on what DVD your using. For a region 1, USA/Canada disk put a check next to inverse telecine and go into that. Click on Auto-setting and make sure setting method says 24 fps (flicker prioritized). Then click start. This will usually take a minute or two.
For any other disk Check Do Not Rate Frame Conversion, then Check Inverse Tecline and again enter. Set the dropdown box to 25fps. Then right click on the first frame of the top box. Click on "deal after this frame according to selected pattern" enter 01. then scan through the video, and if there's lines then it's still interlaced then change the 01 to 10 and carry on.
All Disks - Scan through the video to see whether or not you have removed the interlacing, if you still see lines then it means the disk was double interlaced, don't worry you can sort this out later.
The next step is to crop those ugly black bars from the trailer so Check the setting Clip Frame and enter it. Try to scan to a point of the trailer that is bright so that you can easily distinguish the black bars from the trailer. Then simply set the correct number of pixels on each side until they are gone, this can be done 1 pixel at a time.
Next go back to the Video Tab and select the correct size for your trailer. An easy way to discover this is to take a screen shot of the VOB, remove the cropping in your paint program of choice and set the size to the nearest acceptable ratio. Acceptable ratio's are...
1.33:1
720x540
640x480
480x360
1.66:1
720x432
640x384
480x288
1.78:1
720x404
640x360
480x272
1.85:1
720x388
640x344
480x260
2:1
720x360
640x320
480x240
2.2:1
720x328
640x288
480x220
2.35:1
720x304
640x272
480x204
You have now finished this step, so select OK then save project again.
step 4 http://www.digital-digest.net/downloads/files/encode/BeSweetv1.4.zip and http://www.digital-digest.net/downloads/files/gui/BeSweetGUIv0.6.zip
Download the Besweet files .exe and GUI, then unzip both folders into one folder. Then open the GUI, browse for the Besweet exe and select the Besweet exe you just downloaded. Then open up the Ac3 audio you separated from the video in DVD2AVI as the input file. Output file can be named whatever you like. (If you're working from a non US/Canada DVD then check Change rate from, and set it from 25000 to 24000) Click the WAV to WAV button.
Step 5 http://www.divx-digest.tv/software/codec/VFAPICodecV105en.zip
This is a very easy step, simply download VPafi then open it. Select the open option and open the .tr file that you made in TMPenc. The output file should be whatever you want to name it, then click convert.
step 6 http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.5.7.zip
Download V-Dub, same score of no install necessary. Then open that and load up the .VPAFI file that you just made, thankfully V-Dub will be convinced that it's an AVI, as opposed to the VOB that it's mirroring so there'll be no loss of quality. Select the audio options and choose WAV audio. Choose the WAV that you made in Besweet, and the audio is done.
If you're working from a non US/Canada DVD then select the choose frame rate option. Simply check the Change to option and type in 24.000.
Finally select the filters option. If your file is double interlaced then choose the Deinterlace filter, V-dub has the best I've ever tried. Make sure you use Blend Fields Together [Best] and that's you're deinterlacing problems over. If the trailers brightness is off then select levels and adjust the brightness based on the preview window, then simply exit filters and save this file as an AVI. This is where you may meet a potential problem. The uncompressed AVI is 2GB a min, so make sure you have enough space. Full movies now not only illegal, but out of the question.
step 7
Ah, finally the final stage, and also the one that requires Moolah. You need to get the software Sorenson Squeeze which requires installing. Simply open the AVI into Sorenson and follow these simple options.
go to the compression tab and select custom settings. Name the setting after the size of the trailer, and use the following settings.
Video output-Sorenson video pro
Data rate-depends on the trailer, but for 640 trailers 1800 is probably a good average, and 1200 for 480 trailers.
Frame Rate- 1:1
Method-Sorenson 2 pass VBR
Frame Size-Whatever your trailer size is.
Keyframe-Every 60 frames
Audio output-fraunhofer MP3
Data Rate-160
Sample rate-44.100 khz
Chanels-Stereo
Then click on the options link next to the Video Output. Click on the Tab that says encode, then simply set Bi-Directional Encoding to off, check automatic keyframes and set that to 65. Now you just have to squeeze your trailer and you are done. Congratulations.
Additonal info: Adding Subtitles http://www.nanomessiah.com/download/VobSub_2.23.exe
Step 1-install Vob-Sub remembering to install the V-Dub filters.
Step 2-follow the guide guide but when ripping the trailer remember to rip the subtitle file too.
Step3-When you reach the V Dub Stage open up your trailer select Video, filters, add, vobsub 2.23, open, ifo and vobs for creating idx/sub, open .ifo file, select folder for subs, OK, OK, OK. Open, select the sub you just made, select colours placement language and transparency ect... to how you want. Click OK then scan through the video to see how your subs appear.
Note tick too many of the colour boxes and you'll have a big box cover your trailer. In otherwords Do not do that!!!
If you're dealing with a region 1 24fps source, then add audio, do your filtering and you're done.
If you're dealing with a different source, then do your filtering, convert the trailer to uncompressed AVI. Open new AVI in V-Dub select video direct stream copy, you can still then set it to convert to 24.000fps, do that. Add audio and convert your new Avi. (so double space needed). Then just squeeze.
The easier way Lower quality but less time consuming.
1. Rip.
2. Open VOB in V-Dub
3. Crop, resize using a precise bicubic [A=1.00], deinterlace when needed.
4. Save as AVI, uncompressed video and audio (sometimes increase volume).
5. Squeeze
Finally
You'll need a Web Host. I do not recommend Powweb for trailers, despite how cheap they are. Just search google, or if you can't afford that then try a P2P software, but once again I do not endorse using them for illegal purposes.
Example of the complex method.
http://helloworld.zapto.org:443/vincefok/editman/carl/Once_Upon_A_Time_In_China_Hong_Kong_Legends_640X304.mov
I'd like o thank my friend Mark for teaching me this process, and my Friend Chris for teaching me the simple version all those years ago. Finally my friend Editman for hosting that sample trailer, that should actually work occasionally.
© Carl Lazarevic
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