Best iPhone/iPod Apps

[Uncle Ted]

I think I figured out that problem. Instead of "no split" I choose "split by chapter," correct?

What framerate do you use for iPad? 24? 29.97? How would I detect the difference while watching the movie?

What is deinterlacing?

What audio do you use? Stereo, Dolby Surround? Dolby Prologic 2?

sorry for all the questions.

Higher the frame rate the better. This is how often the picture is drawn per second.

Interlacing has to do how the picture is drawn on standard def TVs. The picture is drawn one "scan line" across the screen at a time. Interlacing draws every other line as it draws down the screen. In other words, it only draws really half the picture per frame. This was a bandwidth saving thing for analog signals. On HDTV interlacing is indicated by the last letter of the format. (e.g. 720p, 1080i, 1080p) i = interlaced. p = progressive scan. "p" is considered to be better so you may want to enable deinterlacing.

As for audio it depends what you device supports. If you are ripping video for your home entertainment system (which includes 5 channel audio) then you most likely would want to include Dolby Prologic 2 if your system supports it. For your iPad you only have two channels of audio so use stereo.

[TripletDaddy]

Higher the frame rate the better. This is how often the picture is drawn per second.

Interlacing has to do how the picture is drawn on standard def TVs. The picture is drawn one "scan line" across the screen at a time. Interlacing draws every other line as it draws down the screen. In other words, it only draws really half the picture per frame. This was a bandwidth saving thing for analog signals. On HDTV interlacing is indicated by the last letter of the format. (e.g. 720p, 1080i, 1080p) i = interlaced. p = progressive scan. "p" is considered to be better so you may want to enable deinterlacing.

As for audio it depends what you device supports. If you are ripping video for your home entertainment system (which includes 5 channel audio) then you most likely would want to include Dolby Prologic 2 if your system supports it. For your iPad you only have two channels of audio so use stereo.

thanks, I was hoping you would respond. a few follow ups:

1. While I can rip in stereo, does it matter if I just rip in ProLogic 2? That way I can listen to it with headphones or if I want, can stream it through my living room TV with surround sound? Or if I rip in ProLogic, will it not work on my iPad using standard headphones? Im going to store all of these movies on my laptop so it would seem that I would want the most options given that I will may use them on various devices...TV, iPad, Sony Watchman, etc...

Using the same logic (illogic?) I have decided to rip all my movies at 1024. While I wont get any better than 720 on the iPad, if I watch the movies on my laptop screen or up on my TV, I will get the benefit of the higher res. Is this correct?

2. There is a box that says deinterlacing. So if I check it and rip away, it will be better than not checking it, correct?

3. The FPS options range from 23.976 all the way to 30 fps. I guess I will go for 30 FPS?

Thanks again.

[Uncle Ted]

thanks, I was hoping you would respond. a few follow ups:

1. While I can rip in stereo, does it matter if I just rip in ProLogic 2? That way I can listen to it with headphones or if I want, can stream it through my living room TV with surround sound? Or if I rip in ProLogic, will it not work on my iPad using standard headphones? Im going to store all of these movies on my laptop so it would seem that I would want the most options given that I will may use them on various devices...TV, iPad, Sony Watchman, etc...

Yes, a rip with prologic audio should work on your iPad. It gets translated to stereo on the fly. You are going to have larger file sizes since you are encoding 5 channels of audio instead of just two.

If you buy the new apple tv then this might be useful for AirPlay. This should give you multi-channel digital audio on your home entertainment system.

Using the same logic (illogic?) I have decided to rip all my movies at 1024. While I wont get any better than 720 on the iPad, if I watch the movies on my laptop screen or up on my TV, I will get the benefit of the higher res. Is this correct?

I assume you meant 1080i or 1080p instead of 1024.

If you are using an AppleTV and AirPlay to play the movie from your iPad on your TV then you can't do any better than 720p, I believe. The AppleTV only supports 720p. But if you are playing these movies directly on your laptop and the res on your laptop is high enough and it's fast enough then, yes, you would get some benefit from playing the movie at 1080i/p. Of course, a lot of people can't really tell the different between 720p and 1080p video.

2. There is a box that says deinterlacing. So if I check it and rip away, it will be better than not checking it, correct?

Yes, checking deinterlacing should give you the "p" in the HDTV format which is better. It should give you smoother looking video.

3. The FPS options range from 23.976 all the way to 30 fps. I guess I will go for 30 FPS?

The more fps the better in terms of picture quality. Higher fps also translates to taking more file space.

The bitrate (or, really, the amount of compression) is very important as well. I believe I have mentioned this before. Using a low bitrate (or high compression ratio) will produce compression artifacts or that blocky look like below...

[TripletDaddy]

I think I figured out that problem. Instead of "no split" I choose "split by chapter," correct?

Crap, I stink at this.

So I guess "split by chapter" wasnt exactly the right alternative. Now what I have is 32 chapters which appear as separate files/movies. Any idea how to make those chapters into one movie file that has individual chapters? DVDfab's help section isnt quite as fab as I would hope.

[Uncle Ted]

Crap, I stink at this.

So I guess "split by chapter" wasnt exactly the right alternative. Now what I have is 32 chapters which appear as separate files/movies. Any idea how to make those chapters into one movie file that has individual chapters? DVDfab's help section isnt quite as fab as I would hope.

With handbrake you can enable the "chapter markers" option. I don't know if DVDfab has a similar option.

[TripletDaddy]

With handbrake you can enable the "chapter markers" option. I don't know if DVDfab has a similar option.

Im spinning my wheels at this point. I have no clue and the forums on the website all seem quite technical. Seems like a pretty simple request....rip DVD and have it play back in chapters. Is anyone here familiar with DVDfab?

I have ripped it and it is one large file with no chapters. I also tried the "split by chapter" which ripped it by chapter but stored it as a separate file for each chapter. Im just looking for one file with chapters.

Also, the playback on the DVD rip was very pixelated. Looked kinda crappy. The playback on the blu-ray was really nice, though.

[Uncle Ted]

Also, the playback on the DVD rip was very pixelated. Looked kinda crappy. The playback on the blu-ray was really nice, though.

This is compression artifact problem that I mentioned. In short, you need to increase the bitrate (which results in a lower compression ratio) if you are getting a lot of this.

[TripletDaddy]

This is compression artifact problem that I mentioned. In short, you need to increase the bitrate (which results in a lower compression ratio) if you are getting a lot of this.

The default bitrate for the video (I assume this is what you mean) is 1047 kbps. Not sure what to increase it to. Any tips would be appreciated. If you lived closer, it would just be easier to meet in person and have you set up all this stuff for me. I could offer you a gift card of some sort.

[Uncle Ted]

Im spinning my wheels at this point. I have no clue and the forums on the website all seem quite technical. Seems like a pretty simple request....rip DVD and have it play back in chapters. Is anyone here familiar with DVDfab?

I have ripped it and it is one large file with no chapters. I also tried the "split by chapter" which ripped it by chapter but stored it as a separate file for each chapter. Im just looking for one file with chapters.

I have never used DVDfab but it seems some people are using handbrake with DVDfab to do this...

http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtop...?f=6&t=1115452

If I take a DVD, copy the data to disk using DVDfab, and then convert the VOB files to MP4 using Handbrake, then the chapter markers are preserved. In other words, after copying the resulting MP4 to my iPod, I can use << or >> to skip through chapters.

In other words, they are just using DVDfab to remove the DRM by making a copy of the DVD. Then they use handbrake to do the compression.

[Uncle Ted]

The default bitrate for the video (I assume this is what you mean) is 1047 kbps. Not sure what to increase it to. Any tips would be appreciated. If you lived closer, it would just be easier to meet in person and have you set up all this stuff for me. I could offer you a gift card of some sort.

handbrake has an option to vary the bitrate to keep the quality constant. If DVDfab has something similar that would be ideal. It only has a fixed setting then it should be higher than 1047 kbps. For the "Apple Universal" preset on handbrake uses a fixed bitrate of 2500 kbps, for example.

[Coach McGuirk]

I have never used DVDfab but it seems some people are using handbrake with DVDfab to do this...

http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtop...?f=6&t=1115452



In other words, they are just using DVDfab to remove the DRM by making a copy of the DVD. Then they use handbrake to do the compression.

this is how my BIL utilizes DVDfab.

[TripletDaddy]

Heard back from tech support at DVDfab. The tech confirmed that as of now, DVDfab does not support chapters. On the website, the entire suite of software can cost upwards of $350....and you can't rip a DVD with chapters.
He did say that they expected to add that functionality in the next release, but who knows how reliable that is.

Has anyone had any luck with a blu-ray ripper that also supports chapters? I know Uncle Ted has provided a working stop gap using both DVDfab and handbrake, but I was hoping for an all-in-one solution.

[falafel]

I was going to suggest you try the clonedvd/anydvdHD combination, but a quick look shows that clonedvd does not support bluray (although anydvdHD does...? what's the point of that?). I'm not sure whether there are many other options out there either, at least for the one-stop-shop kind of customer.

The truth is, dvd and blu-ray ripping has long been the work of the underground community, and as such the programs developed seem to be designed for specific sub-parts of the process instead of larger, complete applications. I'm sure that's because there are very few legit software companies who want to take this sort of effort on, given the "gray area" that is backup copies. And the underground folks don't have the resources to make a complete solution, either. So instead what you get is 10 different people making 10 different apps to handle 10 different sub-processes (e.g. DRM removal, ripping, condensing, burning, etc.).

In other words, it looks like DVDFAB is the best there is currently.

[falafel]

You might also try one of the options listed here. I haven't used any of those programs, so who knows if they're any good. The first option looks like it might do what you want.

[falafel]

Finally, here's a decent instructional thread over at afterdawn that will help you understand the blu-ray (as well as dvd) ripping/converting process. They use a program called pavtube blu-ray ripper, which I've never used but sounds like it might work well for you. It appears to support chapters as well.