[mythtv-users] Ripping DVD's

[matthew.garman at gmail.com]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 03:42:12PM -0800, Yan Seiner wrote:
> # for 'major motion picture' (i.e. telecine) stuff you want the
> following two lines (comment out for TV source)
> 
> VF=pullup,softskip,hqdn3d,crop=$CROP
> OFPS="24000/1001"

I don't think you can generalize as much as you suggest.  I've found
that I rarely need them for movies from a purchased DVD, but I need
them about 50% of the time on TV episodes from a purchased DVD.

Inferring from

    http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-telecine.html

, there's no automated way to determine what kind of source material
you have.  But the referenced document will tell you how to identify
it manually.

> 	mencoder dvd://$TRACK \
> 		-vf $VF -ovc lavc -oac lavc \
> 		-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1:turbo:acodec=mp2:aspect=$ASPECT:vbitrate=$BITRATE \
> 		-ofps $OFPS $AVILANG -o $TITLE-$TRACK.avi

My personal opinion is to use -ovc x264 and equivalent -x264encopts.
x264 is the open source implementation of the H.264 standard; it
generally provides higher-quality at a lower bitrate (which
generally means you save on disk space).  Of course, it takes even
*longer* to encode to H.264 :)

> "skipping frame" or "duplicate frame" you selected the wrong
> framerate and deinterlace method.  Re-edit the script and
> uncomment the other two lines.  Movies usually change frame
> rates/interlace methods several times during titles, so wait about
> 5 or 10 minutes before you panic. If 'skipping frame' is still
> scrolling by 5 minutes into the movie, you have the wrong
> deinterlace method picked.

You can run mplayer with the -benchmark -vo null -nosound parameters
before you start encoding; this will quickly give you some insight
as to whether or not you'll get those kinds of messages.  (Again,
see the document I referenced above.)

Have fun!
Matt