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Fri 22 Feb 08 @ 7:07 am

Here it is in all it's splendour, this is my small rig. I'm very happy with this and it's taken a while for me to get it to this stage The PC is built into a 3u 19 inch rack case, using full size ATX motherboard. Spec is :-

Mobo : Abit GD8
PSU : Antec Truepower 500w
CPU : P4 630 3 Ghz Socket 775 800Mhz 2mb cache
Memory : 2 x 1 gig Corsair
GFX : Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 GTO2 (limited edition) PCI-e 512meg GDDR3 mem onboard
Sound : Gigaport AG
Storage : 1 x 80 gig sata containing OS (XP Home) 1 x 500 gig sata containing mp3's, 1 x 500 gig sata containing karaoke songs + 1 x 750 gig sata containing video. All Drives are Western Digital.




Fri 28 Sep 07 @ 10:56 am

Without blowing my own trumpet (well OK, I am) I'm considered something of an expert with this and did some research for MixMash on this very subject.

Firstly, it's not particularly easy but with a little patience it can be done. Now follow this EXACTLY

Explanations Of Ambient DVD's

These are NOT real loops in the normal sense as it's a DVD, it can't loop, so, what they do, is get a loop, play it over and over again and record a segment to DVD, so in other words, you get say a 10 minute segment that has a loop played over and over maybe 50 or 100 times. When that segment finishes, it will go onto another. So, you CAN NOT rip these as loops! (Until I came along!)

Ripping


So, here's what you do, each segment is a 'chapter' on the dvd, so, do a normal chapter separation dvd rip (see my tutorial on this forum re dvddecrypter) You will end up with several chapters, each one basically doing what i described above.

Converting

Now i can only describe this using the software i know, love, use and highly recommend.. "TMPGenc 4 Express" Load one of your vobs into tmpgenc and it will enter an edit window, mouseover the controls and you will get balloon tips telling you what each button is, it's a lot simpler than it sounds and tmpgenc is VERY user friendly.

Familiarise yourself with the clip first by playing it a couple of times in the editor. Next choose an easily recognisable frame and set that as "START FRAME" Now move forward ONE FRAME AT A TIME until you come to the end of the loop cycle, that being that you will find a frame EXACTLY the same as your start frame, A TIP.... use a fine drywipe pen and put marks on your pc screen on distinguishable parts if it's a very 'busy/complicated pattern' this helps recognise the exact duplicate of your first frame and just wipes off after.

Now when you have found this duplicate frame, GO BACK ONE FRAME (otherwise you will have 2 frame exactly the same in your loop) Then set this as "END FRAME". Next just click OK and save as your chosen video format, mpeg or whatever.

You will then have true digital loops that you can use in clip bank and work fine if in VDJ you select "loop"

Shadow Dancers

These are NOT loops but are popular, do the same as above re ripping, but in the editor, just select a 'section' that you like, then set a start and end point and again save it, obviously they won't loop but you can use them as segments and still use them in clip bank, just dont set them to loop.

Any questions just ask


Wed 04 Apr 07 @ 3:30 am


I'm only going to cover mpeg1 with this tutorial since it's what I have found to give the best comaprrison between file size, audio/video quality and processing speed by the GPU of graphics cards.

Firstly, you need a copy of TMPGenc 4 Express. It can be obtained here :-


http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html

This is a conversion program that allows you to convert practically any video format into another, along with various settings to shrink, enhance, resize, edit, resync audio video, in fact it's a superb tool that does absolutely allsorts. It also allows the creation and sharing of custom templates for conversions, meaning that instead of having to give an endless list of settings i can simply upload my custom template to here. You can download and install it and the settings will be made for you. My custom template is here :-

(This is copied & pasted from another forum I am a member of which allowed file uploads, since VDJ blogs only allow picture uploads then this causes a slight problem. I will however email the profile to anyone who IM's me an email address. Unless of course I can get the forum support people to allow me to upload it here)



OK, install TMPGenc 4 Express and then go to "My Documents\TMPGEnc\TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress\Template\Export" and place the file in there.

That should install my custom template. Next launch the software and have one of your ripped vobs ready (you can do many files at once but since this is a tutorial we're practicing with a single file)

Start TMPGenc 4 Express and click "Start A New Project". The interface will change a little, next click the button marked "Source Wizard". In the window that opens, make sure "File" is checked then click "Next" and browse to wherever your vob file is stored, select it and click "Open".

At this point an editor will open. Ignore this for now (more later) and just click "OK" at the bottom of the editor window.

You will now be back to the original interface but you will see your vob file listed (you will also see two buttons saying "Edit" and "Remove"). At the top click the "Format" button, you will see a list on the left of all the codecs and compressions available. In the list you should see "Tophousetemplate" listed. highlight it and click "Select".

You will now be at a tabbed screen showing all the compression settings, "DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING" Well, just one thing Almost at the very top, where it says "File Output Mode", make sure that "Output Each Clip In A Seperate File (or seperate files)" is selected. Otherwise, when you come to be inputting several vobs at once it will join them all up into one big mpeg!

Now at the top select "Encode". Use the "Browse" button to select a destination folder then click the button on the bottom left that has an arrow pointing to a segment of film.

Now all you do is wait!


THE EDITOR

You can use the editor as you add your clips or you can click the "Edit" button on the file list. This is useful if you have a music video that has an intro that you want to cut off. All you do is select "Cut-Edit" to enter the cutting room, and use the simple tools to enter a new start point and/or end point (the buttons give tooltips if you hover your mouse pointer over them) You can preview your video to make sure you have selected the right start end points or cut at the right places. When done, just select "OK" and you're done.

SYNCH ISSUES

Whilst using my described methods of ripping as in my other tutorial, and converting as in this tutorial, I have ripped/converted in excess of 1800 files and not had a synch problem. However it can happen, and if that is the case, at the bottom left of the editor "Cut-Edit" window you will see "Audio Gap Correction" Simply adjust this either forward or backward and test using the editor preview window until you get the synch back in (this takes practice getting the figure right but from experience it's nearly always 200 or -200)


MULTIPLE CONVERSIONS

Now that we've succesfully converted one clip. In the future you can select a whole DVD's worth of vobs in one go and load them into TMPGenc without any problems. Just follow the same procedures for the rest as above.


If I've missed anything obvious or you hit a problem, just ask and I'll add it to this tutorial.




Wed 04 Apr 07 @ 3:27 am



Ripping music video causes a lot of people a major headache. With the right tools and know how it's really easy. By the end of this you'll be ripping like a pro!

Firstly, music videos come in two main types. The first type and the one that causes people the most headaches is the shared VOB type, ie MixMash and Promo Only, with these types, there are only four or five .VOB files on the DVD holding perhaps 30 music videos.

Secondly, the multi Vob type, where each music video has it's own vob file.

After trying lots of the ripping tools, I've found the best by far is a free option, that being dvd decrypter. You download this from here :-

http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/


SETTINGS


First thing to do once you have downloaded it is to make sure you have the settings correct, after that you don't have to mess with it again. So, launch dvd decrypter and select "tools" then "settings". Under the "general" tab you should have :-

"File System To Parse" AUTO

"Remove Macrovision Protection" checked

"Check For Structure Protection" checked

"Hide Pack header Warnings" checked


under the "Other" heading, all should be checked

Anything else can be left at default.

Next click the "IFO Mode" tab.

"Select Main Movie" unchecked

"Enable Stream Processing" checked

"Uncheck Suspect Cells" checked

Set "File Splitting" to "By Chapter"

"Copy IFO File" checked

"Remove RC Protection" checked

"Remove RCE Protection" checked

Patch M2V Timecode" Checked

Everything else under "IFO Mode" should be unchecked.

NEXT, Click the "File Mode" tab

"Select Files" none

"Stream processing" set to "show all"

"File Splitting" set to "By VOB ID"

"Ignore Unreferenced VTS Sets" checked

"Remove IFO Structure Protection" checked

"Remove IFO RC Protection" checked

"Remove IFO RCE Protection" checked

"Patch M2V Timecode" checked

NEXT

Click the "Stream Processing" tab and make sure "Convert PCM to WAV" is checked.


That's it! click "OK" and back to the main interface.


RIPPING

Next I'll describe how to rip a shared vob type disc. For this example I'll use a Mixmash disk.

Launch DVD Decrypter and from the "MODE" menu select "IFO". Put your chosen DVD into your DVD Reader, after accessing the disk you will see tick boxes appear in the "Input" tab that will say something like "VTS_01" Imaging the "VTS" as being a folder in windows explorer, click the little + at the left and it will branch out into something like "PGC 1" Imaging the PGC as being another folder 'within' the "VTS" one. Click the "PGC" and in the bottom left box you will see a list of "chapters". These are your individual tracks and as a default they should all be ticked. An average Mixmash disk has 15 tracks so you 'should' have 15 chapters showing.

NEXT

GET INTO THE HABIT OF NEXT CLICKING THE "STREAM PROCESSING" TAB!

When you do this, you will see "enable stream processing" is 'unchecked'. CHECK IT Now in the little window underneath you will see your two streams, one being the video stream and one being the stereo audio stream, these will be ticked by default. MORE ON STREAMS LATER (this is important)

On the left side of the interface, click the little picture of a folder to select your destination on your hard drive. When you've done that, click the green arrow in between the pictures of a DVD and a hard drive. After a while your individual tracks will be ripped to the folder as seperate vob files. JOB DONE

STREAMS

Firstly, why I enable stream processing. After ripping God knows how many DVD's and experimenting, studying etc I have found that with stream processing enabled, you will get practically no rips where the audio goes out of synch with the video. SECONDLY The above method also works for commercial DVD's such as "Blondie - Greatest Video Hits" etc, BUT as you may be aware, many commercial type videos have subtitles, multi language, 2 types of sound, ie "PCM Stereo" and "Dolby Surround" (remember on your dvd player where you get to choose stereo or surround?) So, when you go to the "stream processing" tab, you can also remove the subtitles stream and the dolby stream since we only want the video and a stereo sound. If they are present, they will be listed under "Stream Processing" so just uncheck any unwanted streams.

MORE ON "COMMERCIAL" DVD'S

Remember above I mentioned "VTS" and "PGC" as being like folders? Well on commercial DVD's you also regularly get "Extra Content" or hidden "Easter Egg" files, it's also not unusual to find tracks that aren't even advertised on the cover!

So, have a drill down through those extra "VTS" folders and see what you turn up. Incedentally, there's a DVD collection called "Duran Duran - Greatest" that has such a large number of easter eggs and hidden features it is widely discussed on the internet. I have it and it's a bloody nightmare finding all the tracks! Take a look Here :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_(Duran_Duran)

OK, for what I called the "shared vob" type of disks that should get you well on the way. Next it's time for :-

MULTI VOB DISKS

You will soon get a feel for what type of disks you're dealing with, whether multi or shared vob. A good clue is if you put the DVD into the drive, double click "My Computer" then right click your DVD drive and select "Explore". Have a look in the "VIDEO_TS" folder on the disk and if there are a LOT of Vob files then chances are it's a multi vob.

These use a slightly different method. Launch DVD Decrypter, click "MODE" and select "FILE" After accessing the disk you will see a long list of files. The only ones you are interested in are the "Vob" files. Hold down the <Ctrl> key and left click all the vob files. (Holding <Ctrl> allows you to select multiple files with the mouse). Then click the small picture of a folder on the main interface to browse to a destination and click the green arrow between the pictures of a DVD and a hard drive.

When you have ripped all the vobs, play each one of them to check them, some will be useless, either being the copyright notice, menus or simply blank fillers, after a little practice, when you see all the vobs listed in file mode you will be able to spot which ones are tracks and which are useless by their file size. Simply delete the unwanted vobs to leave behind your desired tracks.

***** THAT'S IT *****




Thu 01 Mar 07 @ 12:53 pm

At the moment I'm working through all my video DVD's. Re rendering and general tidying up. Doing so all in one go means that I am now comparing different files more closely. Now I know on the VDJ forums there are a lot of advocates for Promo Only, not me, in fact i think that the overall quality of Promo Only, especially the older stuff like 70's 80's collections is VERY VERY poor! In this area, my weapon of choice is Mixmash. I don't believe these are available outside Europe, but for those who can get them, the video and sound quality wipes the floor with Promo Only. To prove my point, I took two DVD's, one a Mixmash 80's collection disk and the other a Promo Only "classics" disk. I played each disk (not a rip of the track, the actual disk!) using powerdvd on a high spec P4 PC, I then took snapshots of the same frame in each video, loaded them into a graphics package, stitched them together and saved as one picture, the reason being that any jpeg artifacting is across the board, nothing is compromised. You will see a slight difference in aspect ratio, this is only because Promo Only are NTSC and Mixmash are Pal. I did not choose a particularly bad track, what you see below is an 'average'. In the Promo Only there are better and there are far worse! Mixmash seems to be more consistent throughout the board. So, don't take my word for it, see the evidence and make up your own mind! Mixmash are at www.mixmash.com




Tue 19 Sep 06 @ 10:05 pm

Just a couple of pics of 'the other side'