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DVD Backup Guide

Ripping the DVD

Ripping a DVD means copying the DVD to the hard drive. The following steps describe how to rip a DVD.

Search the internet for DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0.
Download and install DVD Decrypter.
Insert the DVD into the drive and start DVD Decrypter.
In case you want to have subtitles memorize the PGC number DVD Decrypter automatically selects.
In DVD Decrypter's Mode menu select IFO.
Select a destination directory, start the ripping process and wait until it's finished.

The result should be a IFO file and a bunch of VOB files which contain the audio, video and subtitle streams.

Demuxing Subtitles

In case you want the subtitles they have to be extracted from the VOB files.

Download and start VSRip.
Press Load IFO and select the IFO file.
Press Save To and attach .idx to the suggested name, unfortunately VSRip can't do this self.
Press Next, select the proper PGC and press Next again to start the demuxing process.

The result should be a IDX file and a SUB file.

Using StaxRip

Start StaxRip and open the destination directory with windows explorer.
Select all VOB files in windows explorer and drag the files on StaxRip, alternatively you can open the files in StaxRip using Open Files.

StaxRip now launches DGIndex to process the VOB files.

If StaxRip can't locate DGIndex it will pop up the External Applications dialog. Please study the help of the External Applications dialog thoroughly as it's crucial to have all required applicatins installed properly.

When DGIndex is done it should have created a D2V file and AC3 files and StaxRip should have loaded that files.

At the bottom of the main dialog the assistant gives instructions that must be followed precisely. It displays what step should be taken next and warns if the user tries to use incompatible settings.

Open the crop dialog and verify if StaxRip detected all crop values properly. Correct the values manually if necessary. Confirm the assistant's reminder about cropping using the Next button.
In the Profiles menu load a encoder profile.
Also load a muxer profile and audio profiles.

Not every encoder profile is compatible with every muxer profile just like not every audio profile is compatible with every muxer profile. If you try to use incompatible profiles the assistant will inform you about this.

The best container format for DVD backups is MKV. There is currently no muxer that can put image based subtitles into MP4 container so it's not suitable for DVD backups that require image based subtitles. The DivX container is the best choice if hardware compatibility is required. It supports image based subtitles but no AAC audio which produces smaller files than MP3. AAC audio is supported by all containers except MP4. In the muxer Profiles dialog you can press Info to check what formats are supported by a certain muxer. A more detailed description of the capabilities of a muxer can be found in the help of the muxer options dialog.

Configuring the encoder

The best encoding method quality wise is single pass in Quality Mode. In quality mode the codec uses a fixed quant which ensures a constant quality in static and complex sceenes alike. It quality mode there is no control over the bitrate and filesize because every movie has a different compressibility. Action movies for instance have many complex scenes like explosions and therefore require a bigger filesize. DivX will produce at quant 2 perfect quality. The compressibility check used for multipass encodes uses quant 2 to determine the 100% value. The higher the quant value the poorer the quality. A quant value of 2.5 is still excellent quality while a quant value of 4 starts to produce poor quality. Generally better quality means a larger file size and codec settings for more compression means slower encoding so if you've got a strong enough CPU it's better to use slower settings like Better Quality mode in DivX. It will produce smaller files.

Multipass encodes should only be used for very low bitrate encodes and only to target a exact and very small file size like 700 MB.

Image size and aspect ratio

All aspect ratio settings are determined automatically by StaxRip, even aspect ratio signaling (only supported by MKV and MP4) happens automatically in case no resize filter is used. As image size 200000 pixel (512x384=196608) are already good quality. A larger image size is better of course but it requires also a larger file size. The target image size should not be larger than the source image size, this relation is displayed by the Zoom value.

Filters

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Subtitles

Forced subtitles that are always visible can be added as follows:

Choose Tools and select Add Forced Subtitles.