[DaveGee]

I just wanted to hear what my fellow mac users were using to accomplish the following...

1. DVD Rip: (to folder or ISO but ISO is preferred right?)

2. DVD Title Rip: (but WITHOUT any transcoding) all I want is a simple no nonsense rip these titles that are 40ish minutes long and leave them in the VOB format. It seems everyone wants me to encode the video into something else and I just want the pure untouched video.

3 DVD Joining: Any 1st GEN DVDers around? Remember 'flippers', well I got more than a couple of movies that you actually had to FLIP 1/2 way thru the movie (this was prior to DL DVDs being widely available).

4 DVD Joining where the total side can be larger than 9GB?**


** This is for the few titles where even WITH todays DL DVDs a movie STILL wont fit onto a single DVD.. One title that comes to mind is The Godfather Part II... Godfather I and III both fit on their respective DL discs but II that puppy is split across 2 discs and 3/4 the way thru the movie you gotta change to the 2nd disc. (yea it sucks, not so much with XBMC but still I'd like to see one single entry for GF II instead of 2...

Okay... so sound off on what tools you use or know of that can get jobs like this done... I'm really interested in seeing what apps pop up.

Thanks in advance!

Dave

[DaveGee]

Wow... what a unresponsive Mac group, not what I'd expect from Mac users.

[Boseman]

While this doesn't have a lot to do with XBMC as a whole, the Mac equiv of a .iso is a .img which XBMC also supports, as well as a ton of other formats.

As for tools for ripping and compressing, you might try
http://www.ripdifferent.com/

I personally use MacTheRipper for ripping and DVD2OneX to accomplish most of the tasks that you outline.

[davilla]

"Mac equiv of a .iso is a .img", not really

An ".img" is a disk image. Could be of various different formats. An ".iso" is a well defined disk format, typically a CD/DVD disk format.

A ".img" could be a ".iso" format. OSX does not care when mounting it. Confused yet ?

[Boseman]

Very good point. Sorry for the confusion.

If you use DVD2ONEX for joining or compressing the ripped DVD, there is an option (one of many) for creating a DVD image (with the extension of .img) as output. This is a disk image of the DVD, which XBMC (Davilla and team) handles nicely for playback.

Another point on this, I personally have used .VOB, Video_TS folders, as well as the .img formats for DVD video. DVD2ONEX can output any of these (compressed or un-compressed) with no difficulty on XBMC.

[DaveGee]

Very good point. Sorry for the confusion.

If you use DVD2ONEX for joining or compressing the ripped DVD, there is an option (one of many) for creating a DVD image (with the extension of .img) as output. This is a disk image of the DVD, which XBMC (Davilla and team) handles nicely for playback.

Another point on this, I personally have used .VOB, Video_TS folders, as well as the .img formats for DVD video. DVD2ONEX can output any of these (compressed or un-compressed) with no difficulty on XBMC.

On MTR, well sad fact is I can't seem to get an up to date binary!

I've paid... no 'gifted' to MTR and for some reason they aren't telling me the new location of the binary. I have one binary of MTR thats 10 or so months old and its clearly not the most recent and the version and it seems to have crashing fits probably because its a beta from back then.

I've mailed them 2x and only got 1 caned reply stating I'd get a followup email once my gift has cleared... sad fact is my 'gift' cleared well over a year ago.

In short: I'd have to advise people interested in MTR to look elsewhere you'll likely get the same treatment as me.

As to DVD2ONEX I had totally forgot about them, for some reason thinking they were only good if you wanted to shrink dvd content down to a size conducive to DVD media. If they can put my Godfather II into one single VIDEO_TS format I'd be so happy... Gonna check them out now... thanks for the tip.

"While this doesn't have a lot to do with XBMC"

And I'm sorry but I'd have to disagree, after all what's the point of XBMC if you don't have the tools necessary to feed the monster.

And by my logic where better to find fellow Mac using XBMC who have already or potentially run into issues such as having to combine the Godfather II into a single untouched VIDEO_TS folder.

Every other Mac centric site that was dvd centric (ripdifferent aka mtr and/or handbrake and/or avsforums 'Macintosh home theater pc' forum, etc)** had people who needed it transcoded that specific movie (or some other 'wouldn't fit on 1 dvd movie) to another lesser quality format so all solutions pointed to handbrake...

** Yes, I did a lot of searching in quite a number of places before posting this... I'm rarely a post without looking kind of guy.

But if you feel my post was off topic for XBMC then who am I to argue but I'm trying hard to find a place more appropriate to find mac users who have already ripped their media specifically for playback in XBMC (full quality with dvd menus and the works) and not some ripped down to zero quality video for playback on their iphone or PSP or insert your favorite movie playing handheld device.

I'm just curious how my post got moved when a moderator hasn't even made a comment in this thread... unless Boseman is a moderator but just isn't titled as such.

Anyway we can agree to disagree on that... and in short thanks to those who took the time to help. I'm off to check out DVD2ONEX!

Dave

[Boseman]

No, I'm not a moderator, just a Mac user.

It's indeed unfortunate you are having difficulties with MTR since I find it as the best option for ripping my DVD library for backup and use with different players. I have been a user for several years now (as well) and have found the community to be extremely good, although a single developer option does pose some challenges at times. However, the technology seems to be far superior to some of the stuff out there for marketed solutions.

I see your posts on ripdifferent and it does seem you are on the proper path for resolution. 2socks will not lead you astray. All the moderators on that site are the "support" mechanism and are selected by the developer. The whole process for getting updates has changed and there is no longer a download site, it is now done thru an email process with a registration key. However, the request does need to be extremely accurate (especially the Subject line) or it gets filtered out.

Back to XBMC, I have found it to be pretty rich for providing playback and has a ton of format options (as well as multi-platform). The tools you use for creating the formats is not really a part of the media center. So, as a user I personally can see why the developers try to stay focused on XBMC specific issues/questions/help, rather than a general video forum. Else, there would be a ton of stuff to wade thru.

Good luck with your findings.

[DaveGee]

Point well made...

Yea and that was the reason for my odd title.. and change of heart to rewrite the body of the post. Its too bad I couldn't change the title perhaps then it wouldn't have been moved so quickly to the off topic area.

Initially I wrote the post very narrowly focused to that one specific Movie Title.

Then I realized just how TOTALLY out of place my post was (I didn't see anyone else doing such things) so I re-wrote it far more generic and instead of trying to get specific answers to a specific movie problem I made it more about the basic tools that mac users would need to get/format/prepare the media (CDs/DVDs/etc) prior to XBMC receiving them.

But the title was still all about The Godfather... lol

Oh well.. water under the bridge and I think I'm back on track now thanks to everyones help.

Now I just gotta figure out a way to pay for DTOX... I believe in using as little credit as possible and our only card is not a revolving line of credit, we're forced to pay in full every month... At any given time I'm only in debt for the House the Car (if the loan isn't already paid) and 1 months credit card charges. Makes married life just that much less stressful.

Problem is, no VISA or MC and DTOX doesn't support PayPal nor Googles payment service so I'm kinda stuck. Frustrating as hell to be honest, I mean I want to pay and yet I cant. I'll figure something out that doesn't require me to get a revolving credit card but its just more frustration in waiting.

Cheers!

Dave

[Boseman]

Very refreshing to see someone in today's climate with such an astute approach to managing your finances. It seems that you are in the fortunate minority.

I have never used it, but I believe PayPal has introduced an option called Secure Card or Paypal plugin which allows a one shot Mastercard transaction to occur. Which of course allows for this type of transaction. Maybe worth looking into for you. Again, I have no clue as to how it actually works or if it applies to your needs.

Hey, be sure to use the trial of DTOX before you part with your hard earned $$$

[DaveGee]

Very refreshing to see someone in today's climate with such an astute approach to managing your finances. It seems that you are in the fortunate minority.

Well, I was taught about money at an early age... and the teaching never stopped. Got my dad to thank for that (rest his soul). Anyway... yea I'll check out paypal and google I think you're right, one or maybe even both have some form of paying people who don't directly accept their payment services.

But yea... I'm testing out the trial version now and while I can't use it on my specific issue since its way over the 2h limit I've got some other flippers from the baby days of DVD that I can dig up. Yea, I got into dvd real early.

Funny thing is I don't think I have the same lust for Bluray... Even now with the war all but a memory.. I got a strange feeling that BRD is gonna be a looser. Maybe its the economy... After all dvd really took off in a time when a monkey with a dart and the WSJ stock section could pick a GREAT stock performer. Today we clearly live in a different world...

Maybe the people like me who usually rally behind a new media format that are now sitting back and questioning "why am I buying an over priced movie that might (in some cases) be just marginally better than the DVD I just bought on DVD 2 or 3 years ago?".

I dunno... but I just don't see the fever we had with DVD.

Dave