I've been scouring the web for a few weeks now, trying to find an example of a single transcode command line for converting the main track on a PAL DVD ( audio is LPCM format ) to a video file that is xvid video format and mp3 audio format.

I have tried a large number of techniques I found via google, the transcode web site instructions, and the transcode mailing list, but so far none of them have worked. Their mailing list server rejects email from my mail server, so I cannot ask this question there, so I am posting here in hopes someone can help.

To start thing off, here is some information about the PAL DVD -
From the box -
Format: 1.85 en 16/9 compatible 4/3
Couleur
Code Region: Par Toutes zones
Contenu Sonore: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, Stereo 2.0
Langue: Francais

From MPlayer -
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x576 (aspect 3) 25.000 fps 6700.0 kbps (837.5 kbyte/s)
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 192000->192000 (1536.0 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [dvdpcm] afm:dvdpcm (Uncompressed DVD/VOB LPCM)
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm:libmpeg2 (MPEG 1 or 2 (libmpeg2))

This command line converted the video ok, but the audio is just static:

transcode -i /dev/dvd -x dvd -T 8,-1 -V -j 0,8 -B 6,1 -Y 40,8 -s 4.47 -o Alizee_EC.avi -y xvid -w 1618

Beside the following items, I will gratefully accept any suggestions -
dvd::rip,Windows Software.

I could include all of the combinations of transcode that I have tried, but over the last 2 weeks I have been trying out different ones, that would make for a huge post, so I shall refrain from doing so.

Please only post complete solutions, or links to completed solutions, no "just use this utility" or other vague responses.

Thanks in advance,

~Fortezza

Want fries with that?

Seriously though -- Assuming mplayer will *play* the DVD, this should do it.

where $1 is the title number of the movie and $2 is the bitrate you want to use

This is pretty much straight out of man mencoder ...

P.S. To send mail to that list, you should set your mail server to relay all mail through your ISP and not try to do direct SMTP off a cable/dsl.

I appreciate the mencoder example, but I am really looking for a transcoder solution, which I ( finally ) found a solution to my audio problem after a more searching last night/this morning.


For encode *just* the DVD audio from title "8" to an mp3 ( 192bps ) file:
transcode -i /dev/dvd -x null,dvd -o Alizee_EC2.avi.mp3 -y null,lame -b 192 -T 8,-1

If you want change convert the frequency, add:
-E 44100 -d

The "-E" is for new frequency, and the "-d" swaps the low and high order bits which ( so I have read ) is often needed for converting from LPCM audio format. For some reason I do not need to do this is preserve the original frequency of the audio ( in my case, it is 48kHz ).

I have taken this new information and used it to form a new transcode command line(s) that should output an xvid/mp3 video file that is also resized for my Archos portable media player( 320x240 screen size ). This is for two passes, first to figure out the optimal encoding ( for smallest file size ), second to actually do the encoding:

#First Pass for DVD to Xvid/mp3
transcode -i /dev/dvd -x dvd,null -y xvid,null -T 8,-1 -C 1 -R1 -Z 320x240 -V

#Second Pass for DVD to Xvid/mp3
transcode -i /dev/dvd -x dvd,dvd -o Alizee-En_Concert.archos.avi -y xvid,lame -b 320,0,5,0 -T 8,-1 -C 1 -R1 -Z 320x240 -V

The video file encoding is working on the second pass at the time of this writing. If it turns out ok, I will confirm that here so that others with the same dilemma can hopefully see how I solved it. If not, I will tweak the settings a bit more until I get a perfect output file,and the post what I did to accomplish that here, again for other people to find.

A caveat on what I currently have here is that I am not specifying a bitrate ( -w ) as I do not have a target file size like most examples on the web do. This is for my hard drive The only switch I may need to add to help with audio syncing is the "-M 1", which assists with syncing PAL video/audio.


As far as the email issue goes, I am not backing down. I have run my own domain for so many years now that I would not even think of using an outside SMTP server ( aka Gateway ). If the transcode mailing list runner wants to exclude people with their own domains from the mailing list, then that is his/her perogative, but it's my perogative not to use my ISP's SMTP gateway.

Finally got it down, though there may be some more tweaking I can do for speed/quality/file size. Here is the command line that worked :

transcode -i /dev/dvd -x dvd -o Alizee-En_Concert2.archos.avi -y xvid -N 0x55 -b 320,0,5,0 -d -T 8,-1 -V -Z 320x240 -R2

this is for the second pass, but the first pass ( R1 instead of R2 ) is the same except with no audio processing and no output file. It's resized for my Archos player ( 320x240 ), but I am going to redo the encoding for computer screen and my video projector, with AC3 surround sound ( 5.2 ) audio.

This is really cool because it comes straight from the DVD, gets decrypted, decoded, and re-encoded all with ( effectively ) a single command. There are more tweaks for removing black bars etc, but I will mess with them later.