Question about DVD Ripping and Encoding (for Fansubbing/dubbing purposes)

[Seifer_us]

I used the search button, but I really hope I'm not posting something that's already been asked since the inception of the new forum. If so, xris or somebody'll delete it I'm sure.

Okay, so I've bought something on R2 DVD and I want to rip it for Fansubbing/dubbing (yes, Fandubbing... stop laughing... :mad: ) purposes, but anyway, I don't know of any good programs or any good method to do it by. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you object to the idea of fandubbing and don't want to tell me, believe me, I'd understand... :p

EDIT: Spelling "of" correctly isn't usually a problem... :hmm:

[Wandering A.I.]

My info is a little old. It's been a long time since I had to go through the whole process on my own. But maybe some of it will point in interesting directions in google or cause someone else to step in with better answers, so whatever. ^^

One of the best places to learn ripping is http://www.doom9.org/ which has very nice guides on ripping and encoding. Most people start with Gordian Knot which automates the process and then slowly change to more and more custom paths (often using the programs GKnot uses itself for starters). Be aware you don't necessarily need a region 2 DVD-ROM to rip region 2 DVDs. I can recall DVD Decryptor (or maybe different ripper, so many programs ^^) having a fallback I/O mode even though my drive at the time was set to region 1. Nowadays I have an all region hacked drive and use cladDVD for ripping which is a nice tight proggie although somewhat lacking in options.

One tip if you get into filtering your sources heavily, use Avisynth for this and not VirtualDub. VDub, when it's set to full processing mode needed for its filters to function, requires a color space conversion to RGB from the more compact format used on DVDs. This means filters will all take longer and your colors will be slightly off and there will be a delay added due to the conversion. The filters available for Avisynth are generally higher quality anyway and VDub even had a resize bug in it for the longest time.

Fansubbing almost always uses SSA subs which stands for Sub Station Alpha, since the website for that has been down a while you can get the files here:
http://www.albany.edu/~ln114311/SSAinstall.exe
http://www.albany.edu/~ln114311/SSA%20Help%20File.zip
If anyone has newer versions or has seen them around somewhere else please post. ^^ The great thing about using SSA the program is that you can load up the sound track of the anime and time the subs by clicking on the wav graph where voices start and stop. There are other subbing programs out there that will play the video and let you time according to frames, so some people use those programs instead (but still the SSA/ASS format in the end). Things like karaoke and other advanced subbing effects are done using ASS which stands for Advanced SSA and is implemented in the filter that shows the subs on the video (so they don't show up when you are in SSA proper, but do when you encode the subs using textsub or preview your work using DVobsub which can display external ssa/ass files on a video without encoding). While checking the URLs in this post I found a neat FAQ covering some ASS codes:
http://members.shaw.ca/tragd/textsub_plugin_faq_by_morphinex.txt
I just use the little text file that lists all of them that came with one of the versions of VobSub/textsub so you might want to hunt that down since Gabest, who writes those programs, is the one who actually extended SSA into ASS AFAIK.

It's actually best to just mux the SSA file into the avi/ogm/mkv as a text/subtitle stream (all three formats support that nowadays) which is called soft subbing. If you ever downloaded a backup *cough* of a R1 DVD with dual audio and subs that can be turned on/off you know about these. What is normally done in fansbbing is encoding the subtitles onto the video and that is called hard subbing. Hard subbing takes less cpu and configuration, but adds bitrate hungry sharp edges and prevents the watcher from choosing whatever font size and color they want - so most of the R1 rippers I know laugh at the fansubbers for using it. But whatever. ^^ So anyway you can download the subtitle filters for either way here (GKnot from doom9 probably installs this VobSub stuff, but below you can get the latest):
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303
You want VSFilter, to use it as DVobSub in windows you would do "regsvr32.exe vsfilter.dll". In Avisyth you load it with a loadplugin command and then call it with textsub(subfile.ass). GKnot makes a .avs avisynth script for you so you just have to add lines to that before encoding.

There are forums at doom9 and at the sourceforge link above that can help and give you more specific information than I care to write. Stupid or even general newbie questions are not taken well, however. You're expected to search for answers yourself and at least put some effort into solving whatever the problem is on your own.

[Doddler]

I wanted to rip the intro for a show off of one of my dvd's... I found that http://www.dvdripguides.com/ had really good guides on ripping video from dvd's.

Doddler

[Seifer_us]

Thanks a lot. I think I've got what I needed. I already had SSA, but I didn't know of any good ripping and encoding programs. Now if I can just get ahold of that darn Ashita no Joe box set that's been eluding me...

[[^_^x]]

dvd x copy

[zalas]

']dvd x copy
I thought that was for cloning DVDs and not ripping them?

Anyways, Wandering AI's info is pretty good, however, if you are doing this in a group, ask the encoder if there's anything special that needs to be done. Generally, you'd want to rip a vob/m2v file and upload it/send it/mail it to the encoder and they would figure out the amount of processing necessary (should be small, though for older DVDs, you'd need some more processing).

[Esperchld]

I suggest that this thread disappear quickly. Disabling and/or sidestepping copy protection devices tends to attract the attention that would be good for this site.