Two minute sales pitch
----------------------
If you have a collection of TV show DVDs, you know how frustrating it
is to make a backup of it. You like the show, but you don't want to mess
with swapping disks, do you? How about having video files instead then.
I like Two and Half Men, I have all the seasons on DVD but now I have these
files too:
Two and a Half Men - S01E09 - Phase One, Complete.mkv
Two and a Half Men - S01E10 - Merry Thanksgiving.mkv
Two and a Half Men - S01E11 - Alan Harper, Frontier Chiropractor.mkv
There are many very good encoding GUIs out there. But none of them fully
automate the tedious task of ripping a DVD to a collection of MKV file.
For example,
I would like to say that I want the English audio and subtitle tracks.
Let's say the episode X starts on title Y of bla.iso. Then it goes onwards
(The episode X+1 is the title Y+1, etc.)
And then here are the titles of the episodes.
Make me files that are named "Two and a Half Men - S01ENN - Episode Title"
After that, go to the bla2.iso and do the same.
I rip all the DVD to ISO files then setup a job for all of them.
It may take several days to transcode everything. But once it is set up,
I don't have to touch the computer anymore.
What is it?
-----------
A script that automates transcoding a DVD image into a MKV file.
It will:
- mount the image with Virtual CloneDrive,
- decrypt the movie title(s) with DVD Decrypter,
- demux the streams with DGIndex,
- select the best audio stream of your choice of language,
- autocrop the borders
- calculate the bitrate
- reencode the video with X264 with one of the presets,
- rip the subtitles with VobSub and correct the timecodes
- and finally remux everything into a Matroska file in MKVMerge.
Pros
----
- Pretty flexible when it comes to what to streams and languages to keep.
- Can process multiple disks.
- Can handle multiple titles per disk. Very useful for TV show DVDs.
- Can name your output file automatically based on a template
- Small footprint
Cons
----
- No installer.
- No GUI.
- Not easy to configure.
- Lots of 3rd party tools to gather and install.
- Better to know some YAML. Not necessary - but it helps with the config file.
INSTALLATION
------------
1. Get and install the following tools
- Slysoft Virtual CloneDrive
- DVD Decrypter
- MEGUI
- VobSub
- MKVToolnix
- optionally AnyDVD because it's just the best DVD ripper
but it's commercial
2. Install Ruby for Windows
3. Open an admin command prompt
- Register autocroplib.dll
regsvr32 autocroplib.dll
4. Edit the dvdrip.yaml file and change the first section
This mostly means changing the paths to your tools if you haven't installed them
in their default location
Also change the drive letter that Virtual Clonedrive uses when it mounts its image
If you have several virtual drives you may also need to change the index of the drive
NOTE: For better encoding quality, update the tools from time to time in MeGUI or
by downloading from http://www.x264.nl. The x264 encoder has frequent updates.
CONFIGURATION
-------------
The dvdrip.yaml file has all the configuration settings. When you edit it, keep in
mind that it's a YAML file and it doesn't like tabs. See the end of this file for an example.
tempdir: D:\TEMPRIP
This is where the tool will store temporary files. They are not deleted before and after
the encode. Just in case you want to take a peek of what the tool does.
outdir: e:\two
This is where the output files go.
bitrate: 1200
This is the bitrate of the video stream after reencoding.
size: 1400
This is the target file size in MB for each track. Either bitrate or size must be
specified. bitrate takes precedence over size.
x264preset: slower
This is the quality preset in x264.
audio:
- English
This is a list of the audio languages that you want to keep.
If you want to add the Director's Commentary you need to add this here too
The tool will only keep AC3 tracks and pick the ones that have the highest
number of channels. Often, DVDs have a down-mixed track in stereo and the
tool will skip them.
sub:
- English
This is the list of the subtitle languages that you want to keep.
disk:
This is a list of the disks that you want the tool to process.
Ex of one disk
- image: E:\XFDISC1.iso
name: "X-Files"
season: 2
title: 1
episode: 1
tracks:
- Little Green Men
- The Host
- Blood
- Sleepless
For each disk, you have to specify:
* the image name - it's either the path of an ISO file or a single drive letter
* the list of tracks. See below
The list of tracks is a collection of tracks that follows a sequence.
In the example, we are saying that we want the DVD titles 1, 2, 3, 4 and
they match episode 1, 2, 3, 4. The track names are given by the
track list.
Optionally, you can indicate the video type. It is one of the following values:
- film (default - IVTC 24fps)
- progressive: 30 fps no deinterlacing
- interlaced: 30 fps with deinterlacing
By default, the video is considered film.
Default values
--------------
* season defaults to 1
* episode defaults to 1
* title defaults to 1
* type defaults to film
If there aren't any track, the DVD is a single movie dvd.
The configuration file ends with the --- marker.
The rest of the file is not processed.
Optionally, you can give cropping values for the video. By default the tool will
find the black borders and autocrop it.
USAGE
-----
Once the configuration file is written. Running the tool is easy.
From an admin console,
ruby rip.rb
SAMPLE CONFIGURATION FILE
---
x264preset: slower
clonedrive:
path: C:\Program Files\Elaborate Bytes\VirtualCloneDrive\Daemon.exe
letter: F
index: 0
decrypter: C:\Program Files\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe
mkvmerge: C:\Program Files\MKVtoolnix\mkvmerge.exe
megui: C:\Program Files\megui
tempdir: D:\TEMPRIP
outdir: e:\two
bitrate: 1200
audio:
- English
sub:
- English
disk:
- image: e:\TWO_AND_A_HALF_MEN_SEASON_2_D2.iso
name: Two and a Half Men
season: 2
episode: 12
title: 6
tracks:
- A Lungful Of Alan
- Zejdz Z Moich Wlosów (Get Off My Hair)
- Those Big Pink Things With Coconut
TODO:
- Support for non NTSC dvds