space shifting DVD's and how to encode them

alcimedesalcimedes
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
i'm looking to back up some of my DVD's to my HD. i've got a few flights i'm going to be on, and would like to watch some of my movies while on the plane w/o having to watch them off the DVD.



i'm hoping that by playing them off the HD instead of spinning them up (and having the laser going) i'll be able to get a bit more battery life out of my laptop.



(something that's still hurting in OSX)



in any case, i've tried quite a few tools, but they all seem to run into the same problem. the encoded files all have a differential between the audio and the video.



anyone else run into this, and/or know how to fix it so that the audio syncs with the video?



-alcimedes

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    Ah, the dreaded audio sync problem. Couple different solutions:



    1. Use a Linux or Windows box. Apparently, this problem is for Macs only.



    or



    2. Encode the audio and video tracks separately. Believe that the audio is correct (this is, 99% of the time, a correct assumption). Now you need to "fix" the video so that it matches with the audio. Often the video is simply running at the wrong rate for the audio. Use QT Pro to Copy the entire video track and "Add Scaled" (under the Edit menu) to the audio track - this feature is only available with QT Pro. Many times this is all you have to do. If the audio still doesn't sync, you can try messing with offsetting and changing the duration of the video track using a tool called "QT Mutator."
  • Reply 2 of 8
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    well that blows. guess i'll just do them all on my PC. i was hoping to kind of move away from them entirely, and thought this would be an area where Macs are competent, seeing as they're supposed to be an audio/video based platform. what a joke.







    oh well, guess that's life.



    thanks, just wondering if i was missing something entirely.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    I've never had any trouble using DVDBackup.



    <a href="http://www.opuscc.com/download/"; target="_blank">http://www.opuscc.com/download/</A>;



    Have you found syncing problems with it?
  • Reply 4 of 8
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    [quote]Originally posted by BRussell:

    <strong>I've never had any trouble using DVDBackup.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Oh yeah, I should have mentioned, it's the re-encoding that seems to bugger the audio sync. I've never had any problem with playing a .vob (mpeg2 with ac3 audio) directly after ripping it from one of my DVD's. You can play a .vob file with vlc, and you'll see the audio is fine. All the various encoders (for Mac at least) seem unable to re-encode the video correctly sync'd to the audio.



    So, yeah, problem solved, if you don't mind keeping 4 to 6 GB vob files on your hard drive while you're traveling. Also, best to have a TiBook if you don't want the movie to skip while playing the vob with vlc.



    I think the best solution is to use your PC to re-encode the vob to DivX (mpeg4).
  • Reply 5 of 8
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    [quote]Originally posted by spotbug:

    <strong>So, yeah, problem solved, if you don't mind keeping 4 to 6 GB vob files on your hard drive while you're traveling. Also, best to have a TiBook if you don't want the movie to skip while playing the vob with vlc.



    I think the best solution is to use your PC to re-encode the vob to DivX (mpeg4).</strong><hr></blockquote>Yes, I realized the problem was with encoding not copying and I was just going back in to edit my post.



    But now I'm curious - has anyone used the QT6 mpeg2 component to decode a copied DVD and then used QTPro to encode as mpeg4?
  • Reply 6 of 8
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    i haven't yet, but i'm thinking about buying QT pro just to give this stuff a try. i can't believe that it's not possible to do a direct rip of these files to another format.



    i have the movie on my HD right now, but it's weighing in just under 7GB. for the flight down and back i'd probably need 4 movies (if that's all i do) and there's no way that i've got that much free space on my laptop, although it's worth a shot.



    i'll look into a bit more and see what's out there, then let you all know. it would be nice if i could keep from having to carry around a pile of cd's or DVD's while travelling, the last thing i need is for my laptop bag to have more crap in it, it's already about to burst.



    -alcimedes
  • Reply 7 of 8
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    [quote]Originally posted by BRussell:

    <strong>But now I'm curious - has anyone used the QT6 mpeg2 component to decode a copied DVD and then used QTPro to encode as mpeg4?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I bought QT Pro, but decided not to purchase the mpeg2 bit. However, expecting Apple's mpeg4 codec to give much better results (believing the Apple hype :-)), I tried QT 6's mpeg4 encoder using mpeg2decX... once. It was awful. It took twice as long to encode and was much, much, much worse-looking than encoding with DivX mpeg4 using ffmpegX.



    So, either Apple's "stock" mpeg4 encoder (the one you get with QT 6) is horrible and you need buy a "real" encoder (for more $$) to get good results or I had no idea what I was doing when I set-up the encoding. Either case seems as likely to me with regard to final quality, but not with regard to encoding time. If it took that long to encode (relatively speaking), to my mind, the result should have been at least as good as DivX - it definitely was not.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    stupider...likeafoxstupider...likeafox Posts: 1,618member
    the skinny on the audio and video compression boards is that both the aac and mp4 codecs currently supplied with QT6 are quite poor. In the PDF introducing QT6 Apple admit as much saying that better codecs are on their way. I can't be bothered digging out the link right now, maybe someone else can do the honours.
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