DVD to Mp4???

**Inline_guy** · January 23rd, 2003, 02:41 PM

OK here is my question. What do I need to do to rip a DVD? Now before you answer, answer this question : is it illegal to rip a DVD I own to make it into a quicktime/Mpeg4?

If the answer to the latter question is yes, then don't tell me how to do it. I will figure it out on my own. If however, the answer is no, then by all means explain to me what I need to get and do to make Mp4's of my movies (for on the road... allot easier than carrying a bunch of movies...)

Thanks

Matthew

**jeb1138** · January 23rd, 2003, 03:51 PM

I'm not sure if you can get a clear answer to the legality question. Fair use seems to imply that it is legal to make, at the very least, personal copies for yourself of your own media for use or for backup. On the other hand, it seems to be illegal to break the DVD encryption scheme, which you have to do in order to make copies of DVDs into any format. I've heard so many 'professional' opinions on all this that I'm not sure who's got it right anymore. I'm definitely not an expert or a lawyer, however, so if I'm wrong somebody please correct me.

Here's what I know works for making personal copies if you're using OS X:
1. Rip the DVD to your hard drive using 0SEx. You can rip it as:
---a) a DVD image, which you can then mount later using Toast. No quality loss but also no extra compression so it takes up as much space as it does on the DVD -- usually around 8GB. If this is what you want to do you are done after this step.
---b) "Elem. streams" (zero quality loss audio and video files), which you can then convert (with quality loss) to mp4 files. (see Step 2)
---c) other options that I haven't found very useful.

2. If you choose "Elem. streams" you need to use tools like mAC3dec (for the audio) and mpeg2decX (for the video) to convert the audio and video to mp4 files. Then you can paste them together using quicktime pro.

Ripping DVD's losslessly isn't hard at all, but converting them to other formats like MP4 is still pretty messy on the Mac in my experience and unless you're willing to experiment and make a bunch of mistakes I probably wouldn't bother with it. There are sites out there that deal exclusively with this sort of thing. I can't remember any off the top of my head but a google search should turn them up if you're interested. Hopefully this will get you started though.

If you really want it to be easy, however, you've gotta get a PC.

Here's where you can get those tools:
mpeg2decX (versiontracker)
mAC3dec (versiontracker)
0SEx (cs.buffalo.edu)

**stealth** · January 23rd, 2003, 04:02 PM

first of all ... DVD backup 1.3 is a much better app than 0SEX for this kinda work

second of all. if u have the mpeg2 decoder for quicktime. i (think) you can export the mpeg2 (DVD) into a mp4 file without needin to do the audio and image with 2 diff apps
and u can also manage the type of mpeg4 compression

**wdw_** · January 23rd, 2003, 04:37 PM

I think the best codec to rip DVDs into is 3ivx. And the best app to rip mpeg2 with is DiVA. On a Dual 1Ghz you can get DiVA to convert MPEG2 to 3ivx at speed over 35fps. You could rip a 2 hour movie in under 2 hours.

**Inline_guy** · January 23rd, 2003, 06:02 PM

Thanks for all the info guys. That will be a good start. Maybe I will sit down tomorrow and start looking at all the different options...

Matthew

**ByerlyRips** · January 24th, 2003, 04:42 PM

Use 0SeX to rip. Use ffmpegX to convert the DVD to DivX (MPEG-4) with mencoder. Great quality and perfectly in sync results.

**Inline_guy** · January 24th, 2003, 06:33 PM

If I use ffmpegX... should I break the OSeX file into seperat steams, or just the one vorb file?

Matthew

**substrate** · January 24th, 2003, 06:50 PM

There's a new one-step application for ripping DVD to DiVX (or VOB or VCD), it's called forty-two. It seems to work nicely.

<a href=http://homepage.mac.com/kaicherry/index2.html>click here</a>