I've Never Ripped a DVD Before. Help?

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

1: What program(s) would be well-suited for this presumably basic task?

2: What would be the preferrable file format if I intend to upload the videos to YouTube?

3: How do I break the movie into shorter segments so that uploading to YouTube is a possibility?

4: What other things should I know or be sure of?

1. First, make sure you have the Divx and/or Xvid (preferably Divx for easier cutting) codecs installed on your computer so you can encode your DVD into those formats. Second, use DVD Decryptor to copy the necessary files from your DVD to your hard drive. Then you have to encode the movie. I personally like AutoGK to do the encoding. Now, as far as how to begin using these two programs, this guide should get you started. (Although since you are trying to rip a non-commercial DVD, I'm not sure what the structure will look like in DVD Decryptor. Though I'd imagine that there's only one program chain on your DVD. Additionally, for the output size in AutoGK, I would recommend using the "custom size(MB)" option instead of what they do since you're not ripping a commercial DVD. This really depends on how long the movie is you're trying to rip and how much quality matters to you. How long is this movie anyway?)

2. Probably Divx or Xvid with MP3 audio. But YouTube's AVI->FLV(the format they play their videos in) conversion can cause audio/video desynchronization once in a great while. (At least it does for me when I post videos; the longer the video is, the more likely that it will happen.) If that happens, I've heard that uploading the video in .wmv will correct it, but I've never encoded a video into .wmv, so I don't know anything about that.

3. VirtualDub FTW! This program takes a bit to get used to but is awesome for cutting videos up, among many many other things. All you have to do is just shave your video down to what you want by deleting frames, then make sure "direct stream copy" is selected under Audio and Video. Then save the video and don't worry about overwriting your original because VirtualDub only saves copies. (If you originally encoded your video into Xvid with AutoGK [Divx can be cut up just fine.] you need to reencode it by selecting "full processing mode" followed by "compression..." then by selecting either Xvid or Divx. From there, the bitrate and encoding type can be changed. If you need to do this, let everybody know and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

4. First, for non-director accounts, YouTube puts a 10 minute limit on videos to discourage copyright infringement. But if you can manage to get a director account, that limit is removed so you don't have to worry about the time limit. BUT they do put a 100MB limit on the video you can upload for ALL accounts. (That is such a pain in the ass! The filesize can be changed by changing the codec bitrate and reencoding a copy of the original using VirtualDub.) So if you get a director account but your video is fairly long, it might be a good idea to split your video up because the quality might start to suffer.

Second, ripping and editing video is a pain in the ass. It's not as simple as ripping an audio CD to MP3.

Finally, if you have any questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to help.

Jam it back in, in the dark.