[mythtv-users] Problems ripping "RV" - how to transcode once it is ripped with another program?

[Jack Madison]

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 17:16 -0600, j mccord wrote:
> I have been trying to rip the new movie"RV" and have had no success.
> This isnt the first movie which hasn't worked, most have no problems
> but every once and a while I come across one that doesnt work.  Is
> there a list of movies that don't work or is my problem a
> configuration setting or version issue.
> 
A timely post, I was going to post a similar question (or the next part
of this question).

First, I don't think a list of movies that you can't rip is very useful,
more and more movies will be this way and what we need is a solution.
I've tried a number of different programs to rip the DVDs I'm having
issues with (Legend of Zorro, Ultraviolet, Cars, Madagascar, etc).  So
far the only program that seems to successfully rip them reliably (just
Ultraviolet and Zorro that I've tried) is vlc, and only from the command
line using:

vlc dvd:/dev/dvd at 2 --sout
"#standard{access=file,mux=ps,dst=/home/jack/dvdout.vob}"

where "@2" is the title number that you must figure out beforehand.  My
problem with this is I don't want to leave them as a 5G or so file, I
want to transcode them down under 2G.  I rip all my movies in "good"
quality with AC3 5.1 sound with MythDVD and the slight picture quality
difference is more than made up for with the disk space savings (to
me).  

My problem is I am unable to transcode them for one reason or another.
I've tried vlc, avidemux, mencoder, transcode, etc. and have yet to find
a combination of options on any software that will produce a video in
which the audio and video are in sync.  I've tried having vlc output a
transcoded file instead of just the mpeg dump and that doesn't work for
me either, crashes, invalid options, no sound, or at best out of sync.
I've tried using a transcode command from mtd.log from a successful
rip/transcode of another movie but again the sound is out of sync.  I
believe the problem is the vlc rip has VBR audio with these other
programs are not dealing with correctly.  

I'm open to suggestions.