In the past months I received quite a few emails asking me to post some
DVD to H264 (or DivX/XviD) guide for Linux. The problem however existed
in the fact that there was not a single program for Linux that I was
happy with, enough to write for it and much more, suggest it to our
users. A few weeks ago, as I was searching the internet for interesting
video applications, I found OGMRip. Installed it, ripped a few
DVDs, voila! OGMRip has a nice, clean GUI that remains easy while
containing most important options, is actively developed and works like
a charm. And don't be fooled by the name, it supports many formats and
codecs, including OGM, AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV containers and DivX, XviD,
H264 and Ogg codecs.
So lets have a look at the step-by-step guide of ripping a DVD to any
of the formats supported.
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This is the main OGMRip window. First of all we have to select our
preferred settings. Click Edit
-> Preferences. |
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In the General
tab select the Output
Path which is the folder the resulting video file will be
put too. The other settings are not really necessary, so just click the
Advanced
tab.
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Here make sure you check Copy
DVD on hard drive before encoding (it is not enabled by
default) as this setting will speed up the encoding and reduce the
stress on your DVD drive. You can also choose what to do with the
temporary files after the encoding is complete, here I've set it to
auto remove them. Also make sure that you have enough free space (at
least 10GB) at /tmp, which is the default temporary path, otherwise
select a place in your hard disk that you have enough free space. |
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Next we have to select the video and audio settings. OGMRip is
conveniently offering the ability to keep multiple profiles, so that
you can change between two different output formats with one click. To
bring up the profiles window go to Edit
-> Profiles.
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There are some default profiles here that do their task quite well, but
of course we are going to create a new one in order to guide you
through the available options. In the profile window click New.
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Set a name for the new profile (here I've just set "Custom" as the name
but you may want to use something more descriptive) and click OK. |
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First comes the General
tab. Here you can set the container format. Feel free to choose
whatever suits you the best, we are going to use H264 in this guide so
we selected MP4 (MKV would also be fine). In case you want to use XviD
to play on a standalone player I suggest you use AVI, and if you encode
your videos with the OGG video codec, OGM is a good choice. Leave FourCC to Automatic and check
Ensure A/V
synchronization.
The Encoding
settings control the size and quality of the resulting files. The best
choice is to set a Fixed
size, like we did in this example as we ask to get one
file that would be 700MB in size. Of course you may want to keep all
your movies in about the same quality so feel free to use constant
bitrate or quantizer.
{mostip image=info}For the latest keep in mind that in a very generic
explanation the lower the Quantizer number is the better the quality
will be, just make sure you don't set it to 1 or the resulting file
will be way too huge.{/mostip} |
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Right next, the Video
tab. Here the obvious choices are two: X264 and XviD. We are using the
first one in the guide as it delivers superior video quality in the
same size. In case you want to playback your videos in standalone
players or computers with low processing power, XviD is your best
choice.
For the quality settings, make sure you select 2 passes, as it
takes a lot of extra time but the quality improvement really deserves
it. Set the quality to High
and leave the Scaler
as it is. You may want to increase the number of Threads if you have
a multicore processor, for example in my main PC which has a quad core
CPU I put this to 4. Leave the rest of the options as you see them here
and move on to Audio. |
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In the Audio
tab you once again have to make a choice on the audio codec you will be
using. In this example we will use AAC,
but for max compatibility MP3
is the best choice. You can also copy the audio of the DVD as-is, if
you want to keep the original AC3 surround sound stream or use Ogg
Vorbis. Using uncompressed
WAV is not recommended.
Generally for an MP4 file like the one we are creating here, AAC is the
optimal choice. If you use XviD you should better go with Mp3. For both
codecs keeping the original AC3 is the best way to maintain 5.1
surround (make sure you change the channels option as well). Time to
move on to the last tab, Subtitles. |
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Here you can select between SRT
subtitles (simple text) and VobSub (images of the DVD subs
themselves. SRT works pretty well so there is no real reason not to use
it. Character Set
and End of line
should left in their default values unless you experience trouble with
standalone players. |
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After you close the Profiles window you are back to the main OGMRip
window. There you should click Load
and after selecting the DVD Drive that contains your movie, Load again.
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When the DVD is loaded you should see something like this. Lets explain
what every setting does. The Title
is the label of the DVD and the filename of the output file. In Video Stream you
select which stream of the DVD you will encode (the biggest one is
obviously the movie). Next you select the Audio Tracks and
the Subtitles.
Note that next to these two options you can find a small "+" button. You can
use that to add multiple audio or subtitle streams if your container
supports it.
Finally you can choose which chapters to extract or not by selecting
the box in front of them. The "Relative
Mode" option will become available if you select only a
few chapters and can be used to encode only a few chapters in the same
quality that the whole movie would be, in order to preview the file
before you encoding the whole thing.
When you are happy with what you've selected, click Extract. |
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When you click Extract a final window comes up that lets you choose the
Profile
you want to use (that would be Custom, the one we created before). Automatic scaling and cropping
worked very well in all of my tests but if you wish you can just
uncheck them and set these options manually. If you're encoding a
cartoon/anime, select the third option. Deinterlace is generally not
needed and can be applied during playback if necessary. When you're
ready, click Extract
again.
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That's it! OGMRip will first rip the DVD and then encode your video. I
hope you find this guide useful and enjoy this great little program.
Just as always if you have any question or problem don't use the
comment area below, but come to our Linux
forums. |
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You saved me a lots of research... now I will go and try it on Linux!
Bless y'a!