Automate dvd ripping / converting for iPhone

A

Ampsonic

Gawd
Joined
Apr 18, 2004
Messages
830
Hello!

I've got a Win XP machine, and I'd like to rip my entire DVD collection (not that big, probably 50 discs or so). I'd also like them all converted to an iPhone friendly format. What's the best way to automate this process so I can just swap discs and have it create two files, a standard divx or xvid and an iPhone happy file?

Thanks!
 
Even with HandBrake it's not going to be as simple as 'point-click-two files-done' as it's a bit more complicated. You're going to need MacTheRipper in there someplace (if you're doing this on OSX; DVDDecrypter or perhaps DVDFab if you're running XP under Boot Camp or with Parallels/Fusion/VirtualBox).

HandBrake doesn't decrypt anymore with the latest version so you have to use the other apps to get the DVD content onto the hard drive. Once the content is on the drive, it then becomes "easy" in the sense that you can load a given movie, choose the preset you want, choose the output format (for iPod touch/iPhone and also for AVI/Xvid) and then put the given file in the queue. You have to do that twice for each movie - one entry in the queue will produce the iPod touch/iPhone file, the other entry will create the AVI/Xvid file).

There's no one piece of software that can do all you want with just a click or two, as I said, but HandBrake is damned close. Even so, it'll require three steps:

1) Rip the movie to the hard drive.
2) Use HandBrake to queue up the first format you want.
3) Use HandBrake to queue up the second format you want.

Then just execute the queue aka the batch encode and wait for it to get done.

And of course, this all requires time to do so, you're probably looking at 3-5 hours per movie for the entire process, depending on the speed of your machine, maybe less.

Bleh, was typing this when my Internet connection choked...

Suggested workflow is:

- Rip a bunch of movies into a folder on the hard drive someplace, keeping them in separate VIDEO_TS folders (that structure must be maintained as that's how HandBrake reads the content)
- Run HandBrake and load a movie from a VIDEO_TS folder, create the settings you want and the output format (iPod touch/iPhone or AVI/Xvid) and then queue it
- Do the same process again for the secondary format
- Load another movie, repeat the process till all the movies on the hard drive are queued up, two entries per so you get the encodes you want
- Execute the queue

It'll take a few days to get all this done, even if you have the hard drive space to actually rip 50+ DVDs to the hard drive in one sitting (anywhere from 350-600GB of space). The encoding is what will consume the most time, even with using the queue method.

Good luck...
 
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